This account has not fully been edited for text - 8th November 2008

VI:   CONSOLIDATION AND NEW CONTACTS

1  INTRODUCTION

Those readers who have persevered in reading my scribbling must by now realise that I devoted half of Part 4 and all of Part 5 of my Odyssey to a single day of my life in December 1982. I hope they will forgive me for going into such detail and understand that the day will forever stand out as the most memorable day of my corseted life. For that was the day I truly fulfilled my desire to be accepted for what I was, a normal heterosexual man who happened to like to wear a tightly laced corset complete with taut suspenders holding up black seamed stockings under his male clothes, for both work and recreation. Indeed, the initial period after Mrs Norris started to take customers at her home was also the most memorable time of my chosen lifestyle. Hence my record of the years 1982-84 is long and I assure readers that will not be representative of how long the rest of the account of my Odyssey will be.

As ever, what I write is based part on letters I wrote, on my diary of the time and finally on memory jogged by my reviewing all the items in my files. For the most part I have tried to maintain a chronological record of how my experiences influenced my thoughts and needs but I trust readers understand that of necessity at times, my story has to look forward or backward to put matters into context.

For those who are starting to read my story with this part, I should explain that, on that memorable December day in 1982, the woman who had been my corsetiere since June 1977 had not only laced me into the new corset she had made me, she had, without being asked to do so, then actually assisted me with the suspendering of my stockings. In doing so, I felt she had accorded me the ultimate acceptance that a male customer could expect of his corsetiere. For me her actions meant even more to me because I knew that, when she was lacing and suspendering me that she herself was tightly-laced into her formidable corsets while the straight seams I could see on the stockings she was wearing at the time were visible testimony to her own preference for taut suspendering.

Her acceptance of me, dressed like that, was all the more wonderful because, apart from her being a corsetière and me a customer, both she and I had grown up in an era of much less tolerance of men with my predilections than has become the norm in the 25 years since 1982. I knew that, even then, many of her contemporaries in her profession would have dismissed me with no small puff of disdain and made their distaste for me evident. Yet she, a woman, had seen me, a man, not just in my corsets, but with my suspenders clipped to my seamed black nylons too. It was not just the fact of that day that pleased me; it was the fact that, with good fortune, she was going to be my corsetiere, and possibly my confidant, for close to 20 years more. Moreover she had always treated me with, not just understanding, but in an encouraging and helpful way at all times, as though the unusual items I chose to wear was quite normal, whereas the public at large would have judge me harshly for doing so.

Those of you who are reading this, may think I am belabouring the point, but I felt I had already risked a lot but my compulsion meant that I was ready to risk more. I knew the respect of my co-worker’s would evaporate, were my secret to be exposed. As for my self-esteem, only with difficulty and very gradually had I come to terms with the compulsions that had led me time and again to her understanding door. All efforts at reflection, in an effort to find an explanation for my motivations, had come to naught. I was definitely “beyond the fringe” of what was considered to be normal behaviour amongst my family and peers. However thanks to my corsetiere’s understanding, over the five years I’d been her customer, my “corset self” had grown in stature. My knowledge of what a corset was and how I could integrate the wearing of one into my daily life has also matured, just as had previously happened when I began to wear suspender belts and stockings back in 1967. To paraphrase the old adage - “familiarity had bred self confidence.”

Old readers of mine will recall that later on that same momentous day, I had overcome my inhibitions and actually met another avowedly heterosexual man, albeit one with very similar predilections to me, namely the Berks Corsetier. Following up on our correspondence, I had met with him at his home, which ended with a meeting of minds and a session of mutual platonic fitting and lacing one another into our respective corsets and with the suspendering of our stockings. In having such a session I had proved to myself that my idea was not just fantasy, it really was possible to conduct such activities on a platonic level with either gender.

If ever a person had been on what in the modern age is termed “sensory overload” that memorable day, it had been myself. Indeed for weeks I had to metaphorically pinch myself to confirm that what I had experienced over a period of about two hours on that grey December day really did happen, just as I have described. But that was now in the past and I had a bright future to look forward to in my corseted life.

2  GETTING TO UNDERSTAND HIGH -TOP CORSETS

In the words of the song, after one’s final fitting begins the process of “getting to know you”, the “you” being the new corset actually begins and I suppose, I have for many years been guilty of anthropomorphising my corsets and regarding them as being akin to friends.

In the time left before Christmas as the weather remained cool, I had many more opportunities outside work to fit and wear my new high top for increasing lengths of time. It is strange but I always found that each new corset I had, proved different from the others and in some way special. Each time it was an opportunity to get to know what Mrs Norris had made for me for, with the growing shortage of specialised materials and fittings each one was of necessity, slightly different.

Writing now, late in life and with great corseting experience, I now know that no corset respects its wearer but unfailingly commands the wearer’s respect whether it is new or well worn. Even then, no two corsets, however similar, ever feel quite the same when being laced on, even when they are well worn. As for new ones they always call out for careful attention, if not respect. As for the new high top, despite the fact of my being corseted all day in a G78 casual for several years, I found it hard after a day’s work to fit the G72 high top and remain comfortable in it for as long as I would have liked. Contrarily, if I started the day by lacing on the high top, it was fine, but as of yet this pleasure was still limited to Saturdays and Sundays. This is what I wrote in my diary at the time:

“I found I was delighted with the "New Job". The shoulder straps weren't quite right, so I planned to call in again and get it corrected and hopefully for her to lace me in again in just my corsetry and stockings. That was the zenith of my corsetry life so far. The incredible thing is I didn't feel as shy or awkward and I do not think she did either. In fact she went ahead and attached my suspenders to my stockings automatically!. She clearly considered it to be part of her duty as a corsetière.”

I almost regretted having to interrupt my programme of familiarisation while I passed Christmas with my family. As I sat with them watching television, I felt rewarded only in the fact that, safely out of sight, was the only undetectable recourse that remained open to me to assuage my compulsion - my deep-cut, boned, suspender belt, still with four pairs of sewn on suspenders. While we sat and watched the Queen’s speech little were they to know that I was quietly savouring how those suspenders were pulling my stockings taut and invisibly whitening the skin of my knees.

Of my new corset this is what wrote in early 1983 to the second, Yorkshire contact, who had answered my magazine advertisement:

“The corset she made that I fitted when I met (Berks Corsetier) was settling down very well. I've got the correct rings - key rings - on it now and I shortened the elastic on a few of the suspenders to get more tension in them and my stockings and get more pull on the corset skirt. However the shoulder arrangement defied improvement, so I had to take it back and get it modified in the hope that she'd again lace me in with me in just my corset, suspenders and black "Walking Sheers". I told you how nervous I felt before meeting her dressed like that yet the amazing thing is I didn't feel that way at all. I just felt very warm inside, not at all shy or embarrassed. A sort of silent bond of understanding that I may be a man, yes I did like to tight lace and suspender ladies’ black nylons to my corsets. It was wonderful to have her securing my suspenders to my stockings without having to ask her to do so and that she then also started adjusting the lengths - without asking me. She clearly regarded it as part of her duty as a corsetière. (Page 36 para 3 of Kunzle's book says it can transcend gender).

I am getting to like its tightness more and more. I had discussed it with Mrs Norris several times. She said that most people who wore corsets regularly had started with them somewhat loose, and that very gradually, come to appreciate a tighter fit. Of course she pulls in really early before eating to get her corset tight for the day, because she needs that amount of pull in to close her waistband of her skirt over it. However it is clear that, apart from liking to have a small waist to show off, she also likes the feeling associated with being tight laced. That of course is one point that does come out in the Kunzle book that many people men and women do enjoy the tight laced feeling.

The corset is basically very good with a nice high back with ½" flat steels. I love the lower front, with three hooks and eyes below the busk. In time I think I can wear it regularly. I'll try to have it on when I call to see her for it to be altered. I am wearing stockings to work every day. I have to, I need to feel suspenders tugging at my stocking tops!”

In referring to Kunzle’s book, I meant its first edition of 1981 when it was still fairly new and, as my patient readers many recall, reading it had been the one of my main motivations for continuing with my Odyssey in the face of discouraging odds.

3  A NEW YEAR’S GIFT - MY CHRONIC BACK ACHE IS CURED

By 1982 my slouching in any chair was a thing of the past since I wore the corset almost every day and for most waking hours. As a result, my posture when sitting or driving the car was controlled by the back steels and busk and, early in 1983, I now realise it was no accident that a miracle happened. The backache that had plagued me since youth, and which had been continual for about eight years, suddenly disappeared. Writing now some twenty-five years later, I have other aches but the chronic backache has never returned. A miracle some might say, but I like to think it was no miracle but was simply testimony to the power of a well cut strong corsets to heal and control the human spine.

I will go so far as to say the current modern problems of back ache and scoliosis were less prevalent when young Edwardian and Victorian women were introduced to corseting while their bones were still growing.

Such was the experience of a new friend, of whom I will write later. She was required to wear well-boned, back-laced corsets as part of the dress code the convent-school she attended from about 1949 to 1955. A generation of indulgence, of pseudo-comfort exacerbated by the cult of self-reference, despite the recent revival of interest in the corset, shape-wear and Spanx has done its damage. One feels that, only a sea-change in intergenerational respect, could see a return to the exemplary corseting, practised before the first world war, by women of all social classes, by gentlemen, and by men with the ambition to be gentlemen and served so well by Spirella and others.

In my case, I surmise that my cure happened like this. I had worn a corset, in preference to a suspender belt to work nearly every day, for close to two years. I had noted that my back pain sometimes got worse when I used to wear only a suspender belt. As the day passed, my taut suspenders would pull it down until its upper edge settled and not only dug into my sides but pressed onto the large muscles located about 2-3 inches on either side of my spine. In time this pressure pinched the muscles onto the underlying nerves, which were sent the muscles into protective spasm, which, in turn, destabilised the spinal discs, which all fed on itself and compounded the problem.

All efforts at physiotherapy and prescribed exercises had provided only temporary relief. I had read several paperback books, which discussed back problems. Largely on the basis of the advice given them I eschewed my doctor’s suggestion of the back brace he showed me that was fitted with unyielding flat steels. It had been hard enough to wear a corset I wanted with spiral steels and irrationally I thought that if only I wore my casual corset more regularly things might improve. Yet that seems to be what happened. The imperative of better posture, imposed by the presence of the busk and back steels of a tightly fitting corset to provide the circumstances in which real healing, and hence permanent relief, could occur once I had taken the very big personal decision to practise all day every day corseting. I cannot say if my backache would have returned if I stopped tight lacing. Fortunately unlike some older wearers with whom I became acquainted, I have not been recommended to stop corset wearing by a doctor, on account of heart or stomach trouble, a hiatus hernia or even a stroke, as has happened to some of my contacts over the past 25 years. This important event, coming after my December appointment, only reinforced my desire to go back to Mrs Norris to get more corsets made or altered.

4  RESERVATIONS ABOUT MY NEXT APPOINTMENT

New Year came, and despite the rewards I got from fitting myself into the wonderful new corsets Mrs Norris had made me, despite the success of my experiments with the new corset, it did not take many days for the euphoria of the experience to fade. My emotions again seesawed between optimism and pessimism. At times I saw a bright future in which she would make me corsets for ever, and at times I saw it all suddenly end as I thought it had at the end of 1980 when Gardner’s closed. I in turn would commission more and more challenging corsets and live what had previously only been a dream.

I was satisfied with my progress and with what could be my acceptance as customer of Mrs Norris, however, as I said at the end of Part 4, I continued to worry that suddenly what I had achieved would be snatched away. At all times therefore I had acted more cautiously than my wishes would otherwise have desired. I did so for fear of doing or saying something presumptuous that would instantly lead to losing Mrs Norris as my confidante. She had never given any hint that she might turn against me but I so valued what I and gained that, throughout our association I remained vigilant.

The problem with having such concerns was that it led me to worry about it and perhaps unnecessarily. What if I had gone too far by having her come into the salon and finding me in just a corset and stockings? I would ponder on the fact that while on that day had she just been very nice and accepted me like that just that once or had she done so willingly? Would she reflect on what she had seen of me and refuse to see me again, knowing that just her word would be enough to discourage me from phoning or calling again?

I tried to recall exactly how she acted during those amazing few minutes. I tried to assess whether she had been more reserved in her conversation during and afterwards than she had been before. I wondered whether her chuckling was a nervous response to her embarrassment at being in such a situation with a man. I then thought, well she did help with my suspenders so she can’t have felt too dissuaded. I put off phoning to get a day and time when I could go back and collect the ones I’d left for repair as I needed time to get the cash together. As my funds were still low I could not afford a third appointment simply to “test the waters” of my acceptability by her and could hardly call and see her just to talk. I felt I would have to give her some work to do for me. As for what would she think is she knew of my meeting with another man when we both wore just corsets and stockings, I dared not imagine.

Some of my readers may find this discourse on my thoughts unreasonably exhaustive. But I should point out, especially to any ladies who have read my Odyssey to this point, that, even in the more liberated climate of 25 years ago, for me and other men like me, Simon not withstanding, the purchase of any pair of stockings, suspender belt or corset was always a major source of stress. This did not diminish with time and continued from the first time I’d bought such items of apparel back in 1967 until 1983, the time of which I am writing. I did not want to lose what I had “fought” so hard to achieve, especially a source of bespoke corsets. I had found in Mrs Norris, someone who could make exactly what I wanted, alter or repair all I wanted. It had been a major effort of trial and error to settle on the details that suited my compulsion. I did not want to lose it through an avoidable act on my part.

My musings over whether to write to or phone Mrs Norris are given in Part 5 of this Odyssey and I will not repeat them. In the end it became obvious that only the spontaneity of a ‘phone conversation would resolve matters one way or the other. In forcing my decision to phone, reality was my saviour. Upon examination of one older corset at home over Christmas I found that an improperly crimped brass end of a spiral steel in an older short corset had cut into the black satin and was about to protrude. Closer examination showed that others were close to abrading the strapping on the inside. Apart from that, the rest of the corset was in good condition and I felt that it could be repaired quickly by the likes of Mrs Norris. Here was my “excuse” - a very good one in fact - to phone and ask for an appointment to have some “running repairs” done, ideally while I waited.

5  MARCH 1983 - MY ACCEPTANCE IS CONFIRMED

Eventually I did phone her and she was as pleasant as ever, and said she could see me midweek for my third appointment at her house as her husband was at work. As the days counted down I also realised that I could upgrade my other corsets in three ways - boning provision, shoulder straps on long ones and type and number of suspenders. I already had a real and valid reason to phone without committing to a new one when funds were low. However I would underline that I would readily pay for all repairs she did and extras she made me.

I nearly postponed my visit because of the snow and late cold weather of early March 1983. As it was, the way I chose to get there got more complicated because I tried to avoid diversions on the A412 as the M25 was under construction. I faced traffic jam after jam so I took a route through the high street of one of the old Middlesex villages, long overrun by suburban sprawl . However, on this occasion the old adage “every cloud has a silver lining” proved true.

As I sat stuck in the jam I looked out and saw in a shop window a 1950s style foot “mannequin” on which was displayed the seam and black point heel of stocking, which I knew had to be Aristoc “Harmony”. I noticed the shop was called “Joan”, a ladies’ dress shop and much easier for a nervous man to enter than a corset shop. So, I turned out of the jam just before a railway bridge and drove past some arches and, with difficulty, found a parking spot. I walked back and boldly went in and told a somewhat reserved woman in her late 40s that I’d seen the display, did she have any in black, size 10½ or 11. She did, and I bought four pairs. I continued to patronise her until May 1988 then on one trip to Mrs Norris later that year I found “Joan” was no more - replaced by yes, another estate agent.

When I got outside Mrs Norris’ home, as I locked the car, I wondered what her neighbours thought when her individual male customers like myself visited her house on the days that her husband was at work. But that was not my real concern so I walked up to the back door, confident by now and looking forward to seeing Mrs Norris and admiring her figure and the straight-seams on her calves. But it was not to be.

She opened the door and smiled and invited me in as usual and it was only when I got inside and looked down that my spirits dipped a little. For the first and only time ever, I saw her wearing brown trousers! However hers were no ordinary off the peg trousers. She had used her skill as a tailor to make them figure hugging to emphasise her waist but cleverly tailored to pass smoothly over her awesome hip spring, just as one might see in sketches in 1930s issues of “London Life”. She wore her usual, backless, high-heeled mules and I could just see the lowest part of the brown heels and seams of her stockings below her trouser legs. It was clear on account of her cinched black patent belt that underall she was still as tightly corseted as ever and I am sure her stockings would have been tautly suspendered as ever.

If any proof were needed of my acceptance, on this occasion she made me a salmon sandwich as well as a cup of tea, which I enjoyed as we talked about her work, old customers who’d returned, new ones, and the work she continued to do for Axfords. She quickly complained about the cold weather - hence her attire. All around the place were floral pattered summer dresses she was making for a ladies fashion company - outsourcing - before the term came into vogue. This all made me feel a little bolder and I asked if many of her old customers from Gardners had become her customers and at this she became quite positive and began to recount who they were. She was advertising in a woman's magazine and again making for Cover Girl. She said she’d used my idea of key rings for detachable suspenders for one lady customer’s corsets who had liked them very much.

There was a medium-length brown parcel on the table. I suddenly realised that it was for me and that I had completely forgotten that I’d left the white Wilbro PCRW2 for her to alter on the memorable day in December 1982. My months of worry and thoughts of inventing a reason to phone had all been in vain! She undid the brown paper to show me what she’d done. As requested she'd washed it, strapped on spiral bones to double the provision and she’d taken in the top which, being ready to wear, was cut for a woman. She’d cut off all the suspenders and sewn end loops on their elastics and finally fitted new loops on the hem for the all-important key rings. She pointed out, by way of a criticism of it, that it wasn’t lined, which, as I now knew, was her mark of a real corset.

I produced the corset that needed repairs and she took note of what to do and put it to one side. I then said I’d like her to examine my problem with the ridge at the upper hem of the high top I had been wearing since early morning. I will use what I wrote to my new Yorkshire friend in place of a narrative account of the assessment of my problem. In transcribing it 25 years later I found it a little rambling and, apart from necessary editing, I hope readers will agree with me that it catches the flavour of how I felt at the time:

Anyway I got to Mrs N's and had a cup of tea and then stripped down - curtains drawn in her sitting cum fitting room. There is a lovely high mirror above the fireplace so one can glance at it as if to pinch oneself and realise "yes, it's me in corset and stockings with Mrs N looking at how my corset is fitting me.

Before she came into me by the way, I had changed my stockings and put on clean pants, tights and a cache sex and I called her in with my nylons rolled to my knees.

Anyway she cut the shoulder straps off the front of the corset and safety pinned them into a new and better position but first of all she helped me to loosen off all my lacings and got her to re-lace me after I explained the circumstances of my initial lacing in, in the toilet!

I pointed out that I felt shy to be seen like this and she said not to worry, she didn't mind. It is pure heaven to have someone lace one in. She really can pull. Again this time she pulled me off my balance backwards. I almost wonder if she does it on purpose - she talks as she laces in and responds to appreciative comments and to finally close down the waist she really works at those lacings and says "There, take the ends" and she passed the pullers to me for me to tie up as she watches.

            She was intrigued to see me clipping my back suspenders to my right stocking. She must have noticed me rotating the stocking top and said "Oh, I wondered how you managed to clip so many on!.

Then without my asking her to do so, she stepped forward and bent over and started to suspender my left stocking. She was very quick at suspendering and pulled at the tops very hard and assuredly and as she did so I noticed that she had started putting my very back suspender on the seam. So I stopped her and asked if could she put my next to the back suspender on the seam and the back one towards the inside of my thigh.

When I was fully laced in and suspendered I pointed out to her how the very back suspender would pull the seam to the inside of the calf and she agreed. I was honestly amazed by how, without hesitation she came forward to help me with my suspendering. The fact that I am a man wearing women’s black nylons doesn't enter into it. It seems to her that I wear a corset, hence I wear stockings and suspenders and that's it!

Going over my diary, I find it is more accurate than that letter and for the record I will add what I left out. After going into the fitting room I had to loosen off my corset and undo suspenders to fit the additional under apparel that I felt I should wear for a fitting. Readers may recall that the corset I was wearing was higher in the back than I had been used to, with heavy 18 inch long back steels, ½ inch wide all way to top. Once I’d got myself in a decorous state, rolled on my stockings to my knees and hooked up the busk. I opened the sliding door slightly and called to her. It was some moments before she looked my way. She was working intently on putting a new padded flap with press-studs to protect me from the abrasive or indenting efforts that the hooks and eyes of one of my deep suspender belts were making on my left hipbone.

At the time I was unaware she wore a hearing aid concealed in her glasses but I now realise it was not surprising that she had not heard my somewhat diffident “Excuse me” above the whirring of her machine. However, she had clearly sensed the movement of the door and turned her head sideways to look at me and smiled and said in her characteristically sharp voice "You’re ready are you?” It was hard to give a restrained reply but I did, saying, “Could you lace me in please? She looked intently back at the work machine and completed a run of sewing and cut off the threads.

As ever the lacing in was, to use an appropriate word “rigorous” and in response I said "You do a better job than I ever could" and she said, "Most people say that” and added that “Some people will never pull themselves in as much as someone else will.” She always pulled so hard that invariably I was caught unawares and she would all but overbalance me. To my reaction of involuntary calling out when I felt what was to become the familiar burning sensation of fast moving lacings on the skin, she would always respond with a knowing chuckle.

Whilst I was being laced in the phone rang and she went to the kitchen to take it. She came back and was clearly annoyed. I was to learn that some men took advantage of her by bringing girl friends they had persuaded to corset to be measured and fitted only for the woman to have second thoughts. This had been the case and she had made the corsets and the customer was reluctant to pick up the corset and likely would not pay.

Although I should have known better when she stopped pulling me in saying that she thought it was tight enough, I was as surprised as ever by how tightly she had laced me. With the best will in the world the self-lacer can rarely do justice to the capability of the corset. Again, without asking she began to suspender my stockings for me, except again she put the very back suspender on the seam, so I said “Just a moment, I like this one on the seam”, and she chuckled and watched me twist the top in my thigh and then attach the back one 3-4 inches “beyond" the seam. As I did so she said words to the effect "I wondered how you got on alone with those back ones” and “Do you really need five?”. She then clipped up my left stocking exactly as I wanted it. It was clear she regarded suspendering as part of a corset fitters duty - man or woman customer!

Once properly fitted, I quickly sat on one of her upright chairs to show how it bulged and “stood out” at the top edge. As I did so I ran my hands up and down the lines of the double spiral bones in front. I felt how they curved in and out the tautly stretched corset body corset followed the contours of my form over my stomach and past the lower ribs of my barrel-chested form. I marvelled at how Mrs Norris, using just a few measurements, had as accurately cut the shape of the panels above the waist in front so that, when properly fitted - to the level of closure she always pulled the corset. But then mine was far from the first man’s high top corset she had made. For me it was only with the “lie” of its front upper edge that any refinement was necessary.

She asked me to stand again which felt strangely difficult on account of the tightly laced high top and we then set about checking how to remedy it and on just how she should adjust the attachment point of the shoulder straps. In the end she cut away the original piece sewn to the top of the corset with an ever-ready razor blade while I was wearing it, not to cut any fabric, just to cut the threads. I didn’t admit to my friend that this had worried me to have such a sharp object so close to the skin, but she was very dextrous, and had clearly done it before. Then, using safely pins we experimented with the ideal location for fitting the straps at front and back. We must have looked very like a Spirella lady with her customer. She said I also needed the elastic gores at the side and I agreed and said I’d take it off and leave it with her. I then understood her refusal to make a woman a corselette; this was hard enough to get right. She asked me to take it off and she’d correct it right away and started back for the kitchen to await me to take it off

Meanwhile I became bolder and said that I would put on the white Wilbro PCRW2 but she quickly reminded me that the loose suspenders had to be put onto it first. I was inwardly pleased that she knew that I always liked to wear stockings with my corsets. As it was still on the kitchen table I quickly followed her into the kitchen to save her the effort of doing so alone. However, I briefly forgot that I was only wearing the high top corset and stockings but she did not and quickly moved to pull the kitchen curtains and laughed as she did so saying we didn’t want passers by to get the wrong idea! I apologised for coming in dressed like that, and as I now know she would, she brushed off my apology and disarmingly offered me another cup of tea, which I gratefully accepted.

I said I’d put my shirt and trousers back on and she said no, that I could sit down just as I was. I recovered from my briefcase the small screwdriver I used to prise the spring steel open. She rummaged in a cupboard by the sliding door and I thought she would be getting the blunt knife I’d seen her use to do the same thing but and she returned handing me a gleaming spoon busk to examine saying “This is what I told you about. This is the kind of busk I like to wear.” She said it was out of an old corset she’d been given to copy and said that the busk had got bent at the top and she continued “I got my chap (her husband} to get it straightened in the workshop at his work”. It was clearly made of stainless steel and bore the hammer marks that got it back to shape. I was struck by its double curvature and said so and she also said, “they’re very hard to find now and I break them when I’m bending sometimes”, adding with a laugh, that they’re not suitable for a man’s corset.

It was at that moment that I realised that as we sat there it was no wonder she sat so upright at either her machine or at the table, the combination of such a busk and underbusk would do that. It confirmed why she had what I described earlier in this Odyssey as a “Duchess of Duke Street deportment.” Would that the womanhood of today returned to proper corseting and moved in the same way.

This became the pattern of our discourses during this and future appointments - total acceptance of me not just as a customer or corset wearer but someone with whom she could talk a little about her own problems with the three items of apparel we had in common - our corsets, seamed stockings and suspenders. I realise later that since her retirement she probably only had customers with whom to share such concerns and I now wonder now much she missed her life and customers at Gardner’s and had discovered that by staying in business she had an interest in life, could discuss such things and that we became her personal circle of friends outside her family life.

So in just my high top corset and black nylons I drank my second cup of tea as we proceeded to thread the key rings ones I had bought in the local ironmongers just before I called, in the hem and elastic loops. As I wrote in my diary at the time:

Before fitting the PCRW2 I drank my tea in her kitchen and we proceed to fit these white suspenders to the white corset with some key rings I had brought with me. It was while we were doing this together that she said she had fitted key rings and loops for a lady customer who had wanted detachable suspenders on her corsets. Mrs N thinks they are very practical idea, although she said she sews on all her suspenders and doesn't use corset clips. I find corset clips useful at home if one wants to experience extra suspenders for an hour or so, but they aren't reliable enough for all day wear by a man. Now if one comes off the hem I go off to the toilet as soon as I can in fear and trepidation that in the un-tensioned state the button might again accidentally slide up the clip and the whole suspender fall down my trouser leg to the floor as happened to me once when I was walking! Luckily I was able to catch it in time and slip it into the top of my sock, till I could get to the toilet to retrieve it!

Once we’d added the suspenders and returned to the dining room/fitting salon as I de-corseted and de-suspendered myself from my black high top to try on the white one, my PCRW2. She came in and after I wrapped it around my form and hooked up the busk, she started lacing me in. to my great satisfaction I again experienced what I had noticed the first time I lace it on back in 1977 and that was the relentless way in which busk and under-busk covered and “took me over” There was now no “gape” at the top and she tied the knot in the lacing and we did up my suspenders. She then said words to the effect I hope that will comfortable - an allusion to its being unlined I was sure.

Leaving me to appreciate what she had done she returned quickly to her trusty industrial machine and passed the shoulder straps of the high top through it, opened the seam between the side panels and inserted the gores of elastic. When finished we went back to the fitting room and I changed corsets again and the high top now fitted fine.

When I emerged having removed my tights and dressed again, the white corset was wrapped in its brown paper again ready for me to take and I went on my way. My anxieties had all been in vain. Mrs Norris accepted me for what I was which was to prove to be for the rest of her life. In reflecting back on the early years of my Odyssey I can recall even more examples of how while still at Gardner’s where she hardly knew me she did her best to meet my needs. I also realise now that in my small way I was adding weight to her own sadness at the demise of corset wearing as reflected in the difficulty she continued to have in obtaining parts and materials equal to the needs of her customers. This problem had so discouraged her a few years earlier and I am sure contributed to her decision to retire before she really wanted to - apart from the problems of her long journey to work each day of course.

After reading Alison Perry’s account of her relationship with her supervisor in Ivy Leaf’s web site in 2003, I came to understand the bond that had developed between Mrs Norris and myself over 20 years earlier. It was also the secret of the success of the Spirella and Spencer companies’ adoption of the home visit corsetiere. Today the selling of lingerie at parties is cause for a feature article in a newspaper but, to use the old adage, there is nothing new under the sun. Spirella’s customers were dealt with in their own homes by a corsetiere.

As Ivy Leaf’s “Tribute” will tell us, many of these corsetieres were women who accepted the limitations on movement imposed by their wearing of very strong and containing corsets, such as Alison did in her black satin “Spenall”. I now have no doubt in my mind, on the basis of what she said that Mrs Norris would have seen eye to eye with Alison’s supervisor. I am sure that however much of a tyrant Alison thought her supervisor, she probably would, out of choice, have been even more strictly corseted than she expected Alison to be and that the supervisor’s own stockings would have been pulled as taut if not tauter than Alison herself experienced when she tried to bend her knees to attend to the skirt and suspenders of a customer’s corset during its fitting.

What is also illuminating is that after a few months Alison had admitted that she came to like being in her Spenall - I certainly did like being well corseted. What is even more revealing is her admission that her husband appreciated her wearing it and that the Spenall was even integrated into their sex life. To me it also confirms that what is produced in the form of erotic photography has is its roots in the preferences of both men and women for the beauty of the corseted form. Certainly there is copious testimony on the Internet to the power that such images had in appealing to men, still persists.

6  WE DISCUSS STOCKINGS

As she was helping with my fitting she said she was still having trouble with her stockings slipping off her suspenders. She said she had even written to the makers Aristoc to ask them to go back to using less shiny thread” She said "I had no trouble with them years ago!” but she had thought about what I had said before about the problem which most of her customers were having too. She knew that the source of the trouble was the rubber buttons and laboriously packed tissue paper on each button as she pushed it into her stocking top as part of her suspendering. So I said "I know you think I like too many suspenders, but that I thought it did help. I asked her how many do you use and she said while she’d tried four she almost always used three pairs, and said, it gets uncomfortable machining if she sat on the back ones. She said that as it was, hers were just above the chair seat when she sat down. I said I thought it was harder to get used to a new corset, than to sit on suspender clips and that I’d got used to doing it.

She further volunteered that she’d also had trouble getting long enough stockings. She liked a 10½ inch foot with a long leg but could rarely get them, but that her daughter had sent her some at Christmas 1982. I said I understood her problem because we were both forced to buy Aristoc, which was the only maker of fully-fashioned seamed stockings. We agreed that it was only a matter of time before they would stop making them. I said I had started to build up a stock just in case and in retrospect, as I edit my diary written at the time, it is surprising that another decade was to pass before the sword of Damocles came down on British and American fully fashioned stockings.

I am glad to read that Gio wearers in particular expressly extol the product. It would also be nice to think that Mrs Norris was aware of the rescue of the machines before she died in 2000. I do have no doubt that she would have been outraged by the price of once more being able to get her size in the lengths she so liked. Happily I know that she too had laid in a large stock before they were finally unavailable. She had written to no avail to Aristoc in an effort to get its accounting-minded managers to change their minds. My only criticism of the modern firms is that they knit only in 15-denier yarn. Charitably I say that while this meets the eternal feminine desire for the sheerest possible product, I know that many women who wore corsets and girdles much preferred the “anchorage” afforded by stockings knitted from 30 denier and my own experience the tactile pleasure I get from 30 denier yarn stockings cannot be matched by the sheerer knit.

7  A FIRST FITTING BY BERKS CORSETIER

At the time I had been screwing up the courage to meet Mrs Norris again, Berks Corsetier wrote and told me that he had finished the ultra long corset. As readers may recall, he measured me for it the previous December, as he wanted to practise his skills on people other than himself. He was ready to give me a fitting at my convenience. My time was limited and I fitted in a visit en route to see my family on a damp winter weekend.

Upon arrival we sat over a cup of tea as he showed me his collection of photographs including some of women with very large bosoms, which I had previously thought was largely a figment of his fantasy though, I saw sadly that such women existed and were clearly willing to pose for profit. He lamented he had never seen such a person pose in a long line bra and corset which was his dream. Clearly, in the absence of being able to meet his desire with real persons he dressed up so that contemplating his reflection was the closest he came to realising that dream. It was hard for me to enthuse about such images but it made me realise that the more particular is one’s interest, the more exclusive one becomes. I wrote in my diary of the time:

He produced the long corset and I was amazed to find he had met my request for a very close pitch of the eyelets. It was about half and inch and on a 25 inch long back gave a total of 48 pairs of eyelets which I greedily counted as I examined it. It was also the first corset I had ever seen with a 7 point busk. I had never seen or knew such long ones were made. (On this point Ivy Leaf in her article on “Long Corsets" commented that she never seen one so long but of course she forgets that Nicole Kidman flashes all seven hooks in the film “Moulin Rouge.” I was thrilled that out there were still a sufficient number of women who actually wanted corsets long enough to need such long busks!

He was very keen, but after six years of corset education with Mrs Norris, I could tell that there were gaps in his perception and knowledge and that the corset wasn’t lined and had no underbusk. Overall it lacked the “body”, weight or fit of what Mrs Norris produced. I would not transfer my patronage but would not discourage him in his worthy efforts to practise.

We then went up to his fitting room to lace it on. Before hand we had agreed that we would have a mutual photo session with me wearing what he’d made. I insisted that I wore black nylons and suspenders if I was to be photographed and with limited time I didn’t want us to get into the business of taking detachable suspenders off one corset and putting it on one that would probably need alteration. So I first put on my boned deep suspender girdle and black 30 denier Alberts “Walking Sheers” with the 8 rows of extensible holes in the afterwelts before I fitted it.

We had agreed that it was to be cut so as to be open two inches at the back when tightly laced, but as soon as I tied to hook the busk I sensed it was too small. After extreme and futile efforts just to hook the first of the seven studs of the 16-inch busk we spent some time add some extra lacing and ended up with three separate pieces of stay lacing and three sets of pulling loops.

Once the busk and the hooks and eyes above and below it were secured, my corsetier began to lace me. He did it very carefully and slowly and initially it was a most satisfying experience.

Knowing Berks Corsetier certainly helped me to overcome the inhibitions I had previously had about matronly corsetry. Indeed within a year or two I was able to contemplate images of women in such corsets with great understanding, even discrimination. Indirectly I had returned to the pleasure I got when I first saw them in the Marshall and Snelgrove adverts in the “Observer” in the early 1950s. Had I not done so,  I wonder if I would have been interested or ready to “enter” the world of Spirella, so generously offered to the world by Ivy Leaf and which I enjoy so much. Suffice to say the pride of his corset literature was a blue cloth covered copy of the Spirella handbook on corset fitting. Very different in content from “Corset Fitting in a Retail Store” which had been generously given to me by my new Yorkshire contact who actually had  two copies!

8  KEEPING RECORDS

I was thoroughly familiar with the more careful procedure needed to hook up the five points of a 14-inch long busk. Indeed I gained a lot of satisfaction from the fact that my taste in corsets had evolved to the point where I could handle such an item quickly and easily. I felt if I were ever to meet such people as Mrs Norris alluded to as her customers, I would gain their acceptance as a serious corset wearer. I now had three corsets made with them and noted that, though of the same length they differed in how easy it was to hook them up. On examination I found they were not all the same and that one could get variations in the thickness (or stiffness) and width of the two steel plates of a busk. I had still not encountered the spoon busk-of which more later in this account.

I had taken to examining each and every corset I had in detail in order to gain an understanding of what I was wearing. Being a compulsive maker of lists and tables I applied the same attention to my growing wardrobe of corsets and recorded every feature I could. I gradually refined my system of recording my measurements of both self and corset. What had begun as simple measurements such as the level of the hem, the level of the compatible stocking tops when wearing my very first corset - the black satin Contessa, back in 1971, ended with my preparing a grid of my whole form which made a corsetiere’s self measurement form look very simple. I then began a similar system for recording each and every corset, and suspender belt, as well as the other items of apparel as I bought them. I then did the same for those I already possessed, which has made writing this Odyssey much more accurate in its recollection of events.

First I would measure the item unworn, recording the number of panels it had and I prepared small charts and a system for recording the deposition and type of each bones, the seam lines of panels, the width of each panel at top, waist and hem. I recorded the width -usually one inch and my subjective estimate of the weight or relative elasticity of suspender elastic. While I was standardising on five as my preferred number of suspenders since the hem length varied slightly I noted and recorded the location of the centre of each suspender around the hem and until I made all suspenders detachable I recorded the length of unstretched elastic for the location of each pair. Some may say this is an excessive detail, but coming back to review my original notes to write this Odyssey it proved invaluable, especially as I lacked the encyclopaedic memory of a Mrs Norris who it seemed could remember the sizes and personal preferences of all her customers, though of course she always wrote it down as well.

With deep skirted corsets I matched those of my growing number of stockings that could be worn with them and I even sorted the stockings out in this way so that I could store them accordingly in what by now were several drawers. By the time Aristoc “Harmony” were discontinued in 1993-4, there was when a whole chest full of them - new and worn - amounting to about 250 ppairs. Over the years it had slowly dwindled and I cannot believe the book value that the unopened packets now represents.

Reflecting on the subject years later, and knowing what I do now from reading the various information websites on fully-fashioned stockings, I how realise that in the old days the stocking manufacturers put the variability to good use. For each foot size if one made enough stockings one could easily sell the range of lengths appropriate to that foot size and that it was likely not necessary to knit each length - the vagary of the process conveniently provided exactly the standard sizes as well as odd ones too, though often sold as "seconds" or, as with Aristoc,“undergrads”.

Years later in comparing notes with other dedicated corsets wearers I of course found out that none of the ladies I knew engaged in such things but that a majority of the men did and I can only put it down to the fact that of necessity a man who wore corsets was “self taught” and could not normally rely on the wise counsel of the lady from Spirella or Spencer.

9  MY DIARY OF REFLECTIONS

At the time I did not know it but resolution of the design of the shoulder straps on my high top corsets in 1983 was to prove to be the turning point in what until then had been essentially a solitary corseting experience. This is what I wrote in my diary

“I like to feel tight and contained. I like to feel the limitations on my movements. The problem of twisting to fasten a suspender is real and a real problem if a suspender clip slips off a stocking top. The high top changes my gait as well as my deportment. I am getting used to hanging a corset from by shoulders by the straps and if I ever fit a shorter corset it feels odd when hooking up the busk, to have to hold tightly on to the corset at the same time.

I told Mrs Norris about it and she talked about it quite matter-of-factly. It was amazing how she loves talking corsets. As I get to know her better and better through our conversations I became privy to her “World” and the preferences of some of her customers (some of whom were to become good friends). I suppose she's laced in all her life - what 15-16 hours a day - and worked at making them too, they are her main interest. In fact she seems to have quite a troupe of male corset customers who beat a path to her door. all ages it seems. She is in my opinion the doyenne of corsetieres in the UK for sure.

During one appointment I showed her my copy of the Finecraft catalogue, which she had never seen and I will paraphrase how our conversation followed. She said "That's one of ours (meaning Gardner’s) and that one, and that”, as she turned the pages. I had several copies of the catalogue at home so I ended up giving it to her as a souvenir and she was very pleased. I find talk of Herculean lacings, and “not for namby pambys” to be be insulting to real corset wearers ”. Mrs Norris agreed because she was not one for false sentiment and said some people were better at selling than others. (The next time I saw her I learned she had written to Finecraft and hoped to get some more business.)

I fully recognise that there is a strong sexual side to corset wearing, but it is only part of the whole thing - 5% of the time it is important. The other 95% one is wearing them day in day out and the appreciation is on a high psychological level. The beauty of the rigid form, the feeling of tightness, taut fabric, lacings, the steels, the control of the busk - the essence of tight-lacing - the reason Mrs N still pulls herself in to a 23" waist every day of her life, dependent on her corset. I hope to emulate her and become dependent too for physical reasons, not a slave but a partner with my corset. In fact one had to be. It alters one's life for sure - one's movements - behaviour, conduct -especially a man one is conscious of it but only till one gets used to it. It’s second nature to Mrs. N. She's always in hers and her gait and deportment reflected in the way she sits and breathes shows it and I think its wonderful. Take it away and she'd be lost.”

10  REFLECTIONS ON MY CORSETIERE

As for Mrs Norris, I now felt I had achieved what I sought and that was to be regarded by her, and hence by others, as a serious knowledgeable corset wearer. When I would sit down and exchange pleasantries before, during and after a fitting or measurement she would tell me a little news of her family, but much of what we discussed was peppered with references to her own corsets, be it the hot weather, skin breakdown, busk breakages and other customers but always discreetly and anonymously. I once asked if an under-busk is necessary. At this she really was amused and said words to the effect that “If you’ve ever got your skin pinched in a busk you’ll know what it’s like and be glad of an under-busk” adding that “they don’t make busks like they used to” and there was “too big a gap on many” and always say that one could of course try but that she didn’t think it was a good idea. From time to time she’d talk of her own trials ad tribulations with skin breakdown (answer corn plasters over the offending spot), suspenders slipping off tops, staying tightly laced on hot weather, etc, etc., (she couldn’t loosen the lace because the waistband of one’s skirt couldn’t be closed). She admitted that on hot days she would do so to watch television but would afterwards go straight to bed avoiding the waistband problem.

I started to see her generosity. She gave me two pairs of Aristoc “Harmony’ black nylons - she knew I wore size 10½ and these had been given to her by her very own daughter as a Christmas present. Clearly she did not to know that her mother would never wear black. I never asked her why she would not but suspect it was related to their association with widows. She also gave me two pairs of the same brand - by now they were the only ones in the UK - in Chocolate Brown, which a male customer had given her. They were too long for him and had proved to be too long for her too, so she generously passed them to me and, in both cases refused to accept any payment.

She slowly became more expansive about her own problems. As she was to say in letter of Jan 22, 1984 "I made myself a corset with an old spoon busk, then one side of it broke in half, so I had to take it out. (Berks Corsetier) sent me one for Xmas so very likely I'll make another one for the fine weather." Jan 22, 1984.

When I look at the images of well corseted women in Ivy Leaf’s “Tribute” I now get a strange sense of companionship or fraternity, as though because they choose to be corseted like that they would have understood me and me them. That was how I found it. In future years I was to meet with equally well-corseted men or women. There was no need for justification for what brought us together, no need to even talk about it. Each of us knew what we were wearing often “out of sight” and knew what we were experiencing. An individuals, having found what she or he "needed" we would try to encourage the other person to try, but I found that, on the whole a person’s stockings, suspenders and corset preferences were entirely personal, that no two individuals were alike. While other men wore stockings they didn't lace as tight as me. For obvious visual reasons it ill-behoves a man to cinch his waist so that generally the women laced tighter but then with one exception they didn't like so many suspenders as me, though one lady who used four pairs kept hers so taut that one could almost play a tune on them.

This need to talk was reinforced by our own Ivy Leaf. In her August 2008 diary entry she records her conversation with a Camp corset wearer at a wedding:

“It was at a wedding in Utrecht recently that my sister-in-law introduced me to a rather smart, elderly lady with the enigmatic words that we had much in common. It was the lady that broke the ice with "I understand you still wear corsets; so do I!" Trust the Dutch to speak their minds. Two English ladies could, and probably would, talk around the matter for hours, days even and then never quite get to the point. It transpired that the lady had worn a Camp corset for years, just as her mother had done. Her problem was, as it is for all corset-wearers, diminishing supply. She had purchased corsets from Coja for years, but the Basko Camps corsets latterly were sturdy, but hardly feminine. She candidly agreed that she was vain (what lady is not), and nothing held her stomach in check like a Camp, but she lamented the passing of the glorious materials once available.”

I hope it is not to presumptuous of me as a mere man to say how closely I identify with the sentiments Ivy’s fellow guest alluded to. Whilst I have never worn a Camp corset, I believe my appreciating of a proper busk and underbusk to rein in my stomach accords with her feeling. As for sentiments of vanity I have never sought accoutrements of female vanity such as frills or delicate facing. For me “sturdiness” would be the ultimate accolade I could give to the styles of corset, shoulder straps, boning and suspender design that my corsetière made me when “finding my Corset self” and to what became my preferred corset styles.

There is no doubt that subconsciously right until the 1950s, it was the collectivity of women’s needs that effectively demanded that men, even husbands, design and make them corsets, corset components or corset patterns and that it was men who responded and designed the busks, bones, suspenders and fittings, envisaged lacing systems to meet their needs. Other web sites are filled with examples of patents granted in the UK, USA and elsewhere and almost every applicant was a man designing to meet the needs or vanity of women. As Ivy Leaf notes in “Corsetry Compendium  - Trapped inside my Panty-girdle”  about an unsuccessful attempt to do up 17 hooks and eyes. “This device just had to be invented by a man.”

While some would call the corset a tyranny on women others like me came to admire the women I knew, and didn’t know, who chose to wear a busk-fronted corset or a Camp or a Jenyns fan lacer. For them it was an essential part of their attire and persona so that many of those women were tightly laced in their corsets, all day every day – some overnight too - for 40, 50 or more years.

11  REFLECTIONS ON FITTING AND WEARING LONG CORSETS

Fitting and relaxing in corsets became its own reward. I came to find the busk was the part I liked best. I liked to here the metal clicks as stud and slot engaged one another as I hooked it up . Once hooked, I liked to see the hook plates glint in the light and finger the tiny domes on the top of each stud in turn. Even now I find nothing more appealing than the glinting parts of the busk up the front of a corset and writing in 2008 no more so than seeing Nicole Kidman in hers in “Moulin Rouge”.

Once laced in, I found I liked to relax and for example expand my belly just to feel my busk resist. I still liked to run my finger up and down my spiral bones only now in a high top the length was much greater. I derived much reassurance from putting my hands on the tautly stretched and boned black satin facing on my hips and using my thumbs to press against my pair of back steels or reach back and "strum" the taut crosses of the back lacing. All this gave me solace that I had done the right thing. I also liked running my fingers up and down the satin covered busk, plates, the seams between the panels and of course the boning. When I did so on spiral steels boning I marvelled at how pleasing it was to feel through my fingertips the subtle indentations caused by the presence of their rolled spring steel coils.

I don't know if it was on account of my being a man but I came to appreciate the technical aspects of corsets and stockings. I studied the way stockings were knitted and marvelled at the thought that went into the design features of fully-fashioned styles.

I had now worn stockings almost all day ever day for 15 years and had got used to feeling warm legs on the warmest days of summer. However as I didn’t feel right without them, I came to accept it as part and parcel of my commitment. As anyone person - man or woman - who wears suspendered thigh-length stockings will tell you, the tactile sensations they make on the wearer’s legs means that one is continually aware of their presence, whether one is moving, standing or sitting still. As for the high top corset, one of the biggest challenges I faced was trying to wear it in hot summer weather and on occasion I would end the day with the lining damp before I realised I should wear it over a cotton under vest.

12  REFLECTIONS ON SUSPENDERS

I don’t apologise for writing for one last time about suspenders, which after all were the third pillar of my compulsion and the obligatory link between my stockings and a corset or suspender belt. As I was discovering more and more about “my corset self”, as you my reader may recall from the end of Part 3 of this Odyssey, I had concluded that best answer to the fraying problem with some but not all of my suspender elastics was to fit “detachables”. These paragraphs are simply to record the fact that by early 1983 all my corsets and deep boned suspender belts had fitted with loops on which to fit detachable suspenders.

Years earlier I had found repairing suspenders was not easy and I did not enjoy doing it and despite use of a thimble regularly pricked myself of cut myself with blunt blade of a screwdriver or other tool I used. With the very first suspender fittings I used and tried to repair the design used part of the steel length adjuster to crimp one end of the elastic under part of the metal. My ministrations with a sufficiently fine yet rigid screwdriver to price the crimped metal apart were initially rewarded with stabbing my fingers with it blade and no pair of pliers was equal to the task of re-crimping the two halves of metal firmly enough onto the new elastic - if I could hold it correctly in place. Visits home involved furtive visits to my father’s workbench where the jaws of the vice could do the job. At the time, all suspenders I could buy including Winfield brand in Woolworth have included this detail. The design had no doubt evolved to reduce the bulk of a suspender so that it didn’t show through a tight skirt. Only later did the makers revert to the integral loop, which allowed the elastic end to be sewn to its length adjuster. I will not bore readers with the all the other things that could go wring but more than once I succeeded in getting individual items of a suspender - the length adjuster, the clip’s button fitted incorrectly which necessitated unpicking stitches and repeating the exercise at hand.

In contrast I had now had the privilege of seeing Mrs N at work on the machine sewing up five or six suspenders at a time. As I did, I marvelled at how she never made errors of the kind I did all too frequently - full testimony to her professionalism and why I knew I needed her to keep me on my Odyssey. Back in 1982-3, another important factor in being accepted as a customer was that Mrs Norris was always ready to help with running repairs for a modest charge on any corset, whether she had made it or not. This was an additional way for me to give her business and to meet her.

As to my needs. I wanted four changes - first to standardise the number of suspenders at five pairs and second to have only detachable suspenders. This meant secondly to have 10 loops for five pairs sewn on the hem of all corsets and boned suspender belts. As for the elastic I wanted them in a variety of lengths according to position around the hem and thigh and fourthly I wanted to have some of each length made up with three weights of elastic.

 Hence regardless of earlier changes I would gradually get Mrs Norris to convert all my corset that I wore regularly- and happily it mattered not whether she had made them or not. That meant removing all sewn on suspenders and sewing onto the hem instead the loops though which the split rings I discussed in Part 3 could be threaded. I was quite particular about loop location and got the front pair close to my busk and the back pair immediately below my back steels. The three side pairs directly below the pair of spiral steels.

As you have read, it had not been without its travails. I’ll summarise how I reached each final choice solution in turn

Corset loops: Mrs Norris had tried using several materials for the loops including elastic and twill tape both of which got cut and frayed by the edges of the split rings while Petersham or bias binding tape or built up strips made of “regency” nylon satin proved to be much more durable. We never tried elastic loops - as I had learned with my disappointing Kesman basque and waspie in the early 1970s, its use defeats the desired goal by reducing tautness and moreover quickly breaks down.

Suspender Elastic: Fraying, leading to suspender breakdown had become the most problematic aspect of my new lifestyle. If stockings laddered - until 1994 at least - and could always be replaced at reasonable cost - but, as I quickly learned, my preference for very taut suspenders was incompatible with long life for suspender straps. Over the years I had experimented with different weights, weaves and widths of elastic and in the 15 years since I had started on my Odyssey I had become reasonably competent at handling a needle and thread to sew new elastic into my humble suspender fittings. I paid her appropriately for such work and used it as a reason to visit her more regularly without the need to order a new corset every time. I now had 10 corsets - even after discarding the Pink Wilbro - and so had regular need of access to repairs beyond my skill with needle and thread but easily done by an industrial grade sewing machine in the hands of a skilled seamstress like Mrs Norris.

As noted l had become more sensitive to the importance of having the right weight or strength of elastic in particular suspenders or to use with stockings of certain lengths or deniers. At this time the weights and types of wide 1c inch suspender elastic that Iris used were longitudinally ribbed - the lightest, cross weave of intermediate width and long weave which was the heaviest. I had encountered many other weaves in the twenty of more makes of ladies suspender belts I had bought between 1967 and 1980 but all were in the 3/4 inch. I had even use belt grade elastic in both widths, but as part of my home repair kit in 1984 I bought from Iris 10 years coil of heavy or strong cross weave from Iris to make my own. Through my experiments I had become a great believer in graduated length and graduated strength of my suspenders. In general I liked very strong elastic in the front and less strong in my back pairs which I usually sat on.

As I noted in Part 3 I got Mrs Norris instead of getting a set of suspenders for each corset I got her to make me up a variety of lengths based on unstretched elastic length ranging as follows

This was my initial order.

In strong or heavy elastic: 3 inch -4 pairs, 41/2 inch (classic provision ) 6 pairs, 6 inch 6 pairs,

In medium strong elastic 6 inch 6 pairs, 9 inch 6 pairs 10 inch - 6 pairs and 12 inch 6 pairs.

The strong front ones would not pull when I sat down but would give me a satisfy sense of their pulling hard on my stockings when I stood up. Moreover the lighter strength back ones would not cut in if I sat for a long time driving the car.

Still if I took off my under-apparel at the end of the day it was surprising how one could discern many details in the pink marks my suspenders would leave on the white skin of my thighs. A fact which inhabited my wish to ever be seen in a sports changing room though today I wonder if anyone would put two and two together as the cause of such marks!

Rings; at first the corset or suspender loops tended to come off simple steel rings. Hence I refined my choice to that of split, or key rings to link hem loop to suspender loop. I initially matched ring diameter to strap diameter but found the 1/14 inch diameter rings were a little unsightly and moved on a smaller diameter of 1 inch. In doing so I found the smaller rings were usually made of a superior steel - a true spring steel which after threading the loop into position would always closed the edge tightly. My initial ring purchases had been made with lower quality steel and even an initially prising apart would cause them to “gape open at each end a fact which was quickly detected by the strained elastic and during the course of a day I would experience the ignominy of a slipped suspender.

13  ADAPTING A PLAYTEX IDEA

I had been used to seeing the long narrow brown paper parcels in which Gardner’s and then Mrs Norris customarily rolled up a customer’s completed corset. Doing so served one of two purposes it was protected from dust and damage prior to the customer calling for a fitting or it could be mailed back and forth if additional alterations were necessary between corsetière and customer. I tried to keep my corsets in the brown paper but in time it proved inadequate and I resorted to using padded envelopes of padded “bubble wrap” especially to carry short corsets in my briefcase.

For visits I tended to use a what is often referred to as a “Pilot’s document case” but if I carried high tops some even if folded with ten suspenders proved to be too long for such treatment. So I settled on what I call a “Playtex-type” cardboard tube. I had first seen the cardboard tube in a Playtex advert in the mid-1960s and later walked passed them in a department store and noted that girdle tubes were about a foot long and 18 hour corselettes were in tubes of about 18 inches long. At the time, though I would desperately have loved to try on a corselette, unlike Simon <<link>> I lacked the courage to go into a store and buy one for myself. But I never forgot the cardboard tube. In the right length they would allow me to carry one of my high tops while the world at large imagined I was carrying a roll of architectural plans!. Of course when rolled a high top needed twice the diameter of the tube and almost double the length (30 inches) I remembered with Playtex. So, fifteen so years after first seeing the Playtex tube, I adopted the idea and sought