It's sometimes said that people just aren't as put together as they used to be. Some say that society went to hell when men stopped wearing hats and w...
It's sometimes said that people just aren't as put together as they used
to be. Some say that society went to hell when men stopped wearing hats
and women threw away their girdles. Well,

that's debatable, but it is
true that today, most people in the U.S. value comfort over formality in
their day-to-day wardrobe. This has had a dramatic effect, for better
or worse on how people look in their clothes and the image that they
project out into the world. Men abandoned hats as a staple of their
daily wardrobe, beginning in the late 1960s and women tossed their
girdles away around the same time, preferring a more natural and
comfortable look. That was revolutionary 50 years ago, but foundation
garments for women never really disappeared. They just changed, and then
changed again. It really shouldn't be too surprising, for as long as
women seek to shape and enhance their figures, there will be foundation
garments.
What are foundation garments?
Foundation
garments are garments which are worn underneath outer dress clothes and
may, but not always reshape the wearer's body. All of the usual
suspects, including panties, brassieres, corsets, bustiers, slips,
girdles and control top pantyhose are foundation garments. Changing
fashions and social pressures have always been a driving force for the
evolution of foundation garments and historically, as hemlines changed,
values changed and a different silhouette became the new ideal,
foundation garments changed too.
Foundation garments of the past:
Throughout
the 19th century, women who had money and time to concern themselves
with fashion, all wore corsets. A corset is a very restrictive, shape
altering garment with rigid boning and panels that constricts the body
to create an hourglass shape. These were designed to emphasize a tiny
waist, below which flowed petticoats and elaborate skirts. The short
corset circled the torso and ran up from the hips to the top of the
waist. Overbust corsets were longer and pushed up the breasts to create a
high busom and a longer waist. This was considered the proper
foundation garment for any "lady" of the day, with doctors touting
numerous health benefits of wearing them.
Things started to
change around the turn of the 20th century as women fought for their
equal place in society. Women began to do more, and with this freedom
looked towards newer less restrictive fashions for daily activities. The
corset was soon replaced by the corselet, or corselette. It was a
derivation of the old corset but lacked the rigid boning that went into
corsets. There was still a lot of shaping that went on with these, but
because they lacked the boning, they allowed for a freer range of
movement. Early corselettes consisted of cloth panels which were laced
together to fit. Later these fabric panels were blended with rubber,
creating a more stretch-to-fit construction like we see in so many
foundation garments today. The cloth panels were much more flexible
which made the corselet far more comfortable to wear than a corset.
Almost without exception, corselettes had garters on the bottom to
attach to stocking tops. At the time, it wasn't considered in good taste
to go bare legged, so women always wore the hosiery of the day,
stockings.
The corselette was a staple foundation garment for a
few decades and continued to evolve. Starting with the 1930s, thanks to
women such as Katharine Hepburn, it became popular for women to wear
pants in more casual settings instead of dresses. This of course was
quite a change for society, and for the corselette, as garters were
obviously not needed with pants. Since upper body shaping was still
desirable, the torsolette was drawn from the corselette. A torsolette is
a shorter corselette which covers the bust but stops at the top of the
waist and doesn't have any garters. This design is still in use today
and is often called a body slimmer.
Bust uplift cups were then
introduced in 1943, setting forth the fashion of a prominent uplifted
bust and an iconic look which lasted through the 1950s. Around this
time, separate top and bottom foundation pieces became popular and
started a shift towards the prominence of girdles.
Girdles
Fashion
historians credit French fashion designer Paul Poiret with inventing
the girdle in 1910 and popularizing it. So, what is a girdle? It is a
figure slimming open bottom garment, worn around the mid-section
extending from the upper waist (bottom of the ribs) down over the
thighs. Various leg lengths were popular throughout its 60 year history
and were cleverly marketed as having their figure enhancing virtues.
Until 1910, the corset was the principle women's foundation garment and
dictated how the female form would be emphasized with clothing. Poiret's
new fashion designs began to deemphasize the waist which was such a
focal point during the corset era (1830-1910) and began to emphasize
smooth hips and derriere.
The girdle pulls the derriere together and
creates a very smooth and firm silhouette. On women of all shapes and
sizes, there would be smooth curves and lines with no jiggling of the
tummy and behind! Girdles, like all foundation garments impart a level
of rigid figure control, and affected the posture and way in which women
moved in their clothes. This aspect, without a doubt contributed to the
glamour and grace of those eras. Simply put, the clothes and the
glamour of the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s would not have been possible
without the girdle.
What happened to the girdle?
Girdles
were an essential part of fashion between the 1910s and 1970, quickly
going out of style thereafter. Western culture, as we all know changed
dramatically in the late 1960s. The emphasis in women's fashion was put
on a more natural and unrestricted body form. Driven by a new, younger
generation in the late 1960s, social structures and norms were turned
upside down. This change affected just about everything, including
fashion and clothing. Girdles and stockings were regarded as unnatural
and unnecessary by a whole generation of young women. Tastes rapidly
changed, and young women preferred to wear foundation garments that did
not constrict movement or reshape the body much at all. In fact many
chose not to wear any foundation garments at all! Add into this, the
popularity of very short skirt lengths, bare legs and the popularity of
denim jeans, and the girdle was very quickly on its way out.
Foundation
garments today
The desire to shape and contour the female body
never really went away though. Time goes by, tastes change, and the
pendulum swings back to past fashions and a desire to shape the body.
Foundation garments are once again very popular, only they have taken on
new names and shapes. Today, foundation garments include not only
underwear and brassieres, but also shapewear. Shapewear is a newer term
to describe the myriad foundation garments sold today which reshape and
enhance the body. The materials and styles may have changed from the old
days, but their purpose is still the same. For as long as women and men
obsess over the beauty and sexuality of the female form, foundation
garments will remain a part of many a woman's wardrobe.