Shapewear History

A short history of shapewear from the forties to the sixties, and the rebirth of this lingerie as retro shapewear. Find out why ladies’ girdles and corsetry was so essential in the fifties, and what has become of this underwear today.
Retro styling - these days the term is being applied to everything from clothing to furnishing the home. The name retro comes from the Latin meaning ‘backwards’. This article is concerned with retro lingerie, or to be more specific retro shapewear.
Although most of the comments that follow describe the sleek chic girdles from the fifties and sixties, they can equally apply to today’s girdles that are based on the original designs.
The war years were years of austerity and women on both sides of the channel dressed for comfort, to help the war effort. Women, eager to attract partners at the end of the war, so fashions reflected this desire. This culminated in Christian Dior fashion, which required a sleek, chic silhouette that only a corselet, corset or girdle could provide. Suddenly all women wore girdles, and not just women either - all the shapewear manufacturers targeted not just women but teens as well. A variety of girdles for the young adult were produced. Probably the teen girdle that gained the maximum coverage, in more than one sense, was the panty girdle - a tight-fitting cross between a girdle that held the tummy in and one that protected the wearer from advances, whether unwelcome of otherwise!
The girdle had several functions - to give that sleek chic silhouette to the wearer and to hold up the nylon stockings. Girdles generally had a minimum of two pairs of garter clips. There are two at the front and two garter clips, usually slightly offset from the rear. The garters are offset so that when the girdle wearer sits down they do not have to sit directly on the clips! The open bottom girdles usually have the garter clips on elastic straps, which is useful in keeping the nylon stockings taught as the wearer moves about, sitting and standing. The nylon stockings from the fifties did not have spandex or lycra and were non-stretch; without the elastic of the garter strap the stocking would ‘bag’ as the wearer stood up.
The panty girdle, and particularly the long-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. Many men find the garter strap and the flash of bare thigh very exciting and the long leg panty girdle, although practical, has often 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 - artificial plastics such as celluloid, and at one point even coiled metal springs!

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