Retro - you must have seen before this deadline! It 'used in everything from clothing to home furnishings. Retro comes from the Latin meaning "backwards". Here we discuss retro shapewear.
Although most of the comments that follow describe the sleek, elegant belts of the fifties and sixties, she can also belt today, according to the original design.
The war years were years of austerity and women on both sides of the channel for the dressComfort, to support the war effort. At the end of the war, he wanted to win their men and women of fashion reflects this desire. These Christian Dior, which concludes a subtle chic silhouette, which could only, corset bodice or belt required. Suddenly all women wore belts, and not only women, or - all the shapewear manufacturers targeted not just women but also young people. There were all kinds of "belts for young adolescents markets'. Probably the teen girdle that gainedmaximum coverage, in more ways than one was the panty girdle - a cross between a tight belt, kept in the stomach and one that protected the wearer from advances, whether or not they want?
The belt has several functions - to give that elegant chic silhouette to the wearer and hold the nylon stockings. Belts generally had a minimum of two pairs of garter clips. There are two front and two garter clips, usually slightly shifted from the rear. The garters areso that when the wearer sits belt does not sit directly on the clips offset! The open bottom girdle are usually taught in the garter clips on elastic straps that performs useful in the sense of the wearer as the nylon stockings, sitting and standing is. The nylon stockings from the fifties had spandex or lycra and were non-sudden, without the elastic sock garters would 'bag' was on a carrier.
The panty girdle, and above all thelong-leg panty girdle often has the garter tab attached directly to the girdle itself. The leg part of the long-leg panty girdle usually completely covers the welt of the stocking, losing the gap of bare thigh above the stocking top. Men usually find the flash of bare thigh and garter strap exciting; however, a long leg panty girdle, although practical, hides all this and has consequently been described (along with pantyhose) as a "passion killer".
Girdle materials Modern and retro girdles usually feature spandex or Lycra for elasticity, but the original girdles dating from around the 1930s usually used rubber to give stretch. The introduction of rubber was a major step in corsetry - the ultra-rigid corset had suddenly become more flexible. In parallel with its introduction the terms associated with such items of clothing also metamorphosed: from the original corset, the term roll-on came into vogue, particularly in the USA, then came the step-in and the corselette, often known as the 'all in one'.
Indeed for a while Playtex marketed a girdle molded from pure latex - these have become quite the collectors item these days, partly because of rarity value. Pure latex deteriorates over time and the garment then perishes, so few remain in good condition. It is interesting to know whether the common latex allergy affected wearers, but whatever the reason, these girdles are no longer manufactured by Playtex.
Retro shapewear share the same objective as vintage shapewear did, namely to sculpt the shape of the body. Elasticity can help to hold and control figures but for more rigid control a variety of 'bones' have been used over the years. The original whalebone corset did actually use whale baleen - which are the cartilage-like "teeth" which whales use to filter plankton. Each baleen is enormous, around ten inches wide and ten to twelve feet long. It proved an ideal material for corset makers because it consisted of parallel fibres that could be relatively easily split into thin strips; these strips could be shaped by heating them over steam and when they cooled they held their shape. As whales decreased supply became critical. Fortunately other alternatives proved suitable - manmade plastics like celluloid, and even flattened steel springs!
Historic background to the corset The forerunner of the girdle was the corset, and that had its origins further back still in ladies stays. Indeed there is archaelogical evidence going back to 3000BC showing women with waists cinched in tightly by a garment that appears ribbed. It was around the fourteenth century that women started wearing a stiffened linen undergarment garment, laced in at the front or back, and by the fifteenth century these 'stays' were relatively common; the probable derivation of the English corset from bodice ('bodies') to the French translation of this 'corps' which transmuted back to corset. The original corsets were made by stitching together two layers of linen with a paste in the middle of the 'sandwich' to provide stiffening. By the 16th century corset makers had turned to using whalebone (actually more correctly called baleen) to offer the stiffening. This provided more rigidity than the earlier paste corsets.
The corset gave way to the girdle by 1940, on both sides of the Atlantic, teamed with a bra.
After the fifties came the swinging sixties, when women were exhorted to burn their bras and stop wearing such restrictive underwear. But as with all fashion, girdle wearing has now gone full circle. Burlesque artists have made the 'art of tease' in which girdles, basques and corsets are on show, into popular entertainment. Wonderbra have enticed the burlesque star Dita von Teese to design, model and market a range of retro girdles and bras based on fifties designs.
The burlesque art form is now burgeoning and the esteemed Royal Festival Hall held the worlds largest burlesque lesson in January 2009, evidencing how mainstream this art has become. Original fifties girdles, corsets and basques are found in specialist online lingerie boutiques or vintage stores, but to satisfy the demand all sorts of outlets have now sprung up to satisfy the demands of burlesque. These shops and online stores invariably turn to the forties and fifties for styling inspiration for their retro shapewear - and the biggest item that seems to be in demand is the corset. Fashion really has returned to its roots.
