Almost every day, interesting crowdfunding pitches land in my inbox. (Banks, take note: unless you all become ‘the banks that like to say “yes”’ again, you’ll become an entirely start-up-free zone.)

This one from Neon Moon particularly caught my eye: in contrast to the way the lingerie world currently likes to project itself, it features underarm hair, young women with cellulite, and describes itself as ‘a feminist brand’. Hayat Richi, the CEO who’s looking to raise £5,000 on Kickstarter to get uplift (sorry) for her brand’s launch, believes that the lingerie world needs a shake-up.

As Richi explains: “I found it difficult to find a lingerie brand that shared the same ethos as myself: empowerment, body confidence and the non-objectification of women. So instead of succumbing to the body-shaming, sexualised and objectified lingerie on the market, I used my frustration to start my own brand, Neon Moon, with the support of The Prince’s Trust.”

(Just one of thousands of entrepreneurs, NB, which this often under-the-radar charity has helped via mentoring, training and seed-funding.)

Fashioned from comfortable bamboo, without padding, push-up or wires, the lingerie is about as un-‘Hello, Boys’ as it gets. And it really got me thinking about what’s out there. I’ve never been a lingerie nut: I prefer my underwear functional and un-frilly. As a result, I’ve always found it a challenge to shop for lingerie, in a market dominated by designs which push you up, fill you out or seem either to be designed for kinky sex games (Agent Provocateur), teenagers (do mature women really wear sprigged floral underwear?) or the under-endowed (acres and acres of padding).

One of Neon Moon's designs

Sure, a lot of it is pretty. But if you look at lingerie ads (and hey, David Gandy’s pants also fall into this category, so this swings both ways), underwear is almost invariably portrayed in a sexual setting, with much lip gloss, pouting and silk sheets involved. Perfect bodies are a given, which have then been air-brushed, for good measure.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, there’s the really functional stuff, which never gets advertised. Bras - that carers go into M&S to buy for their eightysomething charges. Sports bras, which are typically made of some kind of trampoline material and all appear to be advertised by strapping Sharron Davies lookalikes, portraying physical perfection of another kind – though I do quite like Berlei’s slogan ‘Because only the ball should bounce.’ Bras that you threw out when your great-aunt died, because there’s something not quite right about sending them to a charity shop.

(Although a charity called Breast Talk will indeed accept secondhand bras, to be sold either in the developing world or passed on to disadvantaged women, while Against Breast Cancer can even supply a ‘bra bank’, which encourages donations. Though I think Richi would have something to say about the fact that the bra bank is – but of course! – pink.)

In between, though? Very, very little. And it’s this gap which Richi seems to have identified, and is seeking to fill in an un-frilly way, with a capsule collection made in the UK out of comfy bamboo material. “The bamboo fabric and shape,” explains Richi, “is designed to work around the body, instead of the other way around.”

Another Neon Moon lingerie set

Now, I doubt it’ll work for me: as a CC cup, I definitely require more buttressing than what Neon Moon’s debut designs propose to offer. But what this fledgling brand’s pitch did was open my eyes to the reality that lingerie design and marketing remains very, very sexual indeed - despite the fact that the vast majority of real women I know are looking for something that won’t be used for seduction, but will do the job day after day without riding up/falling down/digging you in the ribs.

It’s not that most lingerie is designed by men; I know several talented female lingerie designers – yet they all seem to be set on perpetuating the idea that most lingerie is going to be flaunted in the boudoir, so it’d better be worthy at least of a soft porn film. I suspect that lingerie is the way it is because historically it’s been like this for a long, long time. And it’s about time someone questioned that.

What Neon Moon pledge is that “listening to young women’s feedback is what’s going to distinguish Neon Moon in the lingerie industry, and drive the brand forward.” Neon Moon, Richi explains, “won’t place pressure on girls… It’s important for girls not to compare themselves to unachievable standards of ‘beauty’, but to succeed in their own way, and not purely via the male gaze.” Hallelujah.

So: I hope Richi raises the £5,000 she needs to get this off the ground, having already ploughed her life savings into getting the samples made. But its ripples really ought to extend beyond the world of online investment. Hayat Richi – who acknowledges that one of her talents is for ‘getting fired’ from jobs – has dared to swim against the lace-trimmed tide.

And I say: more power to her bra straps.