An Irish woman ordered a black corselette which was duly fitted and the corsetiere watched another presumably satisfied customer depart. A week later the corselette was returned in the mail with a desperate letter asking for a refund. Apparently the woman had not slept for the guilt of buying black underwear and she wanted rid of the evil garment.

A corsetiere asked her husband to pick up a pair of corsets that needed repair from a lady in the village on his way home one evening. He went to the house, rang the bell, and a large formidable lady opened the door. Plucking up courage he blurted "I've come for your corsets". The harridan's gimlet gaze burned into him. "Old Mrs.Withering lives NEXT door" she shouted and slammed the door in his face. "Never again" promised the husband, as he realised he had mis-read the address.

A lady's husband rushed in from work. "Get your corsets off" he shouted and raced upstairs. The lady followed, somewhat surprised by her husband's sudden ardour, to find him getting into his football gear. "I need the corset laces for my football boots; they broke in last game!"

Granny was looking after her daughter's boisterous kids. After a long tiring day, and an hour getting the children to bed, she retired to her own room and divested her clothes down to her brassiere, corset and stockings. She applied a face pack in an unattractive pale green colour and re-arranged her hair for the night. She heard the children begin to increase their noise and at the end of her tether rushed into their room to give them 'what's for'. The children were stunned into silence and as Granny retreated to her room, righteous in her powers of admonishment, a small frightened voice whispered "What WAS that thing?"

Spirella falls into this trap (right), and claims that a properly corseted figure is natural, not the un-corseted figure!

It is a very feminine trait to deceive oneself by imagining that the well-dressed, well made-up woman in the mirror is the 'real you', as opposed to the rather saggy object that emerges from the shower each morning!

Life was so confusing for the young women in the 1950’s. My mother used to scold me that wearing tight girdles would give me varicose veins. My poor sister, however, developed alarming veins during her first pregnancy when she was only 28. The nurse attending her blamed the veins on inadequate corsetry. You can’t win.

(In the late 1960’s) I was invited for afternoon tea with an acquaintance. This lady had a young son, seven or eight years-old I suppose, and his noisy presence eventually began to irritate us both. “Get your toy cars out and stop whining” the boy’s mother told him. He returned a few minutes later with a box of cars. The box depicted a lady in a rather elegant girdle and was emblazoned ‘Gossard’. My hostess blushed to the roots of her hair, although why, I couldn’t imagine, for we all wore girdles then.  

We were driving with my aunt in the Ardennes of Belgium. It must have been the hot summer of 1962. My aunt's face grew redder and redder as the miles passed (there was no air-conditioning then). Finally she asked me to stop and she waddled hurriededly off into the undergrowth. Ten minutes later a cooler Aunt returned clutching a large pair of white perforated rubber corsets, apparently not uncommonly worn in those days. I remember thinking that her shape seemed the same, however, her stockings had become distinctly baggy. She professed to wearing these garments every day as well as vest, knickers and her thick support stockings; no wonder she was hot!

A female prisoner in Britain escaped from jail using a lock pick fabricated from a spiral steel corset bone. Corsets obviously were not confiscated after the event since female prisoners still form a small but regular clientele for the remaining British corsetieres.

The spiral-wound stay, although a great revolution for corsetry, did sometimes cause embarrassment when it broke loose from its casing. In the Spirella magazine of October 1959, a lady recounts walking home at night when she was terrified by something that tapped her on the back of her neck. She ran home only to find that the tapping was an errant stay from her corselette that had ridden up. 

David Niven also recounts the episode of a large and heavily corseted actress who was dancing with her partner closely clasped to her bosom. At the end of the dance, the man didn't let go and she hissed "the dance is over". "I can't move" replied the man, "One of your stays is up my nose"!

Whilst lying in bed and attempting to finish the Telegraph crossword puzzle, the gentleman in question made a mistake. Finding that the eraser on top on his pencil had expired (his mistakes were frequent), he rose from the bed, ferreted through his wife’s underpinnings on the chair, and started to rub the offending letters with the rubber material of her Playtex girdle. This ruined both the newspaper and the girdle. This incident was portrayed in a 1960’s situation comedy starring Freddy Frinton and Thora Hird.  

It is a fact of life that women’s underpinnings do vanish mysteriously from washing lines. A corsetiere that I used to visit near Croydon, lost a Spirella corset in this manner. Corsetieres are not well paid, and although she had acquired the corset at cost price, it would take several weeks’ work to earn enough money to replace it. She connected the incident with the loss of a brassiere that she had put down to a stormy evening, however, her substantial corsets would definitely not blow away. Like all corsetieres she had some samples that she used to show clients. Taking an old sample corset, she washed it and rubbed all the bone casings vigorously with “Deep Heat’ cream. This cream, used sparingly, is excellent for the treatment of muscular aches, however, it’s a powerful irritant if mis-handled. Predictably, the corsets vanished overnight. I’d love to say that some unpleasant youth had to attend the doctor’s surgery for an ‘unexplained’ rash, but that would be too good to be true. Suffice it to say that the thefts stopped!

An elderly widow was asked if she missed her late husband, "Oh yes, I really do" she replied. "I've nobody to do up my back suspenders any more!"

"I'll show you" says the younger woman (this was common practice for corsetieres in the 1960's). Predictably the corsetiere is wearing a rather pretty lace overlaid basque. At this point the older lady says "I think that's just what my husband would like" and proceeds to show the corsetiere a photograph of him. As much it can on black & white TV, the colour drains from the young lady's face. The friends of the older woman grab the corsetiere and eject her, in her underwear, into the rain. One assumes the affair ground to halt after that!

Weight loss is a common problem in the older woman, just as weight gain plagues her younger sister. Several years ago I visited a lovely old-fashioned corset shop in Rouen, France. The proprietress appeared from behind a screen and asked us if we would mind waiting for five minutes, as she was fitting a customer. My husband, who was with me, is quite used to the interior of ladies' shops, however, the groans and struggles from behind the screen eventually unsettled him and he wandered outside. He later explained that he felt dreadfully embarrassed and that somehow he was intruding on a rather private moment. After 10 minutes the corsetiere and the lady emerged. The lady was in her 70's and explained that her corselettes were too big for her and she had decided to buy a smaller size. The groans were caused by the effect of the first corselette, which was far too small, and the ensuing struggle with the zip until the corsetiere intervened and procured a larger size. Typical of French underwear, the corselettes she had chosen were beige, constructed from heavy elastic, well-boned and zipped up the front. Sadly, the charming satin panels were no longer included.

An exchange of letters to a British ladies' magazine in the early 1970's was prompted by an opening shot from a retired 'Colonel Blimp' character. He suggested that women were poor drivers since if they wore corsets like his wife, then they were quite unable to look over their shoulders to reverse! The final letter of a heated exchange came from a woman who said that if male driving standards were any indication, most men were also wearing their wife's corsets!

In the early days of the metal zip fastener, there were some catastrophic zip failures on girdles which is why, these days, all such zips are backed by hooks and eyes. The old corset shop in Croydon, sadly extinct, refused to stock zippered girdles for several years. Talking of which, yet another euphemism for girdle was ‘zipper’. It wasn’t so common but I’ve heard a mother ask her daughter at a wedding “I hope you’ve got your zipper on today”. My husband speaks of a girl-friend who referred to her ‘waist nipper’ as a ‘zipper nipper’, although whether this referred to the garment’s zip fastener, or to the poor girl catching her flesh in the zipper was more than my husband dared to ask! This girl, who was somewhat overweight, later purchased a basque, however, the boning on the garment simply wasn’t up to the task, and every time she sat down, her tummy would force the front bones to fold back on themselves. 

The origin of the phrase “my girdle’s killing me” is lost in history. It was probably uttered too often to be associated with any one source. My husband claims that at least one girlfriend uttered the phrase after a long (and expensive) dinner. Another amazing story from my husband, which he swears is true, was the woman who he gallantly drove home after a ball. She invited him in for a nightcap. “Could you help me remove my brassiere?” the girl asked my astonished husband. Gallant to a fault, my husband replied in the affirmative. The girl vanished to the kitchen and returned with the back of her gown unzipped and a pair of pliers in her hand. Apparently, the girl’s only strapless bra (which she called a ‘cathedral bra’) had been stolen from her washing line, and the solution was to modify an ordinary bra with wire twisted to secure the shoulder straps out of sight. My husband removed the wire and was bidden farewell!  

A question often posed by the romantics, is whether corsetry will ever make a come-back. The answer, I'm fairly certain is no. However, a old Dutch corsetiere who I used to visit, related an interesting episode in one of her recent letters. This lady has served in one of the Hague's last corsetry shops in the Staatenkwartier for many years. Last month, a middle-aged American lady, well dressed in a smart business suit entered her shop. She said that she was "just looking", and somewhat aimlessly peered at the numerous brassieres on display until the last client had departed from the shop. She then asked if the corsetiere sold anything for the waist and hip area. From the back of the shop, my friend procured some panty-girdles that the lady tried but without enthusiasm. In typical forthright Dutch fashion, she asked the lady if she was trying to hide the roll of flesh that the elegant cut of her outfit had completely failed to disguise. She passed one of her limited stock of Camp corsets to the lady, partly to see what reaction this might elicit. There followed a long period of  what cannot be translated accurately from the Dutch, but which I would say was "noises off" from the changing cubicle. The lady emerged without the corset and to my friend's surprise simply said "I'll keep it on. How much please? I suppose I'd better have some stockings to hold the suspenders in place!" My friend resisted saying that the corset is for supporting the stockings, not the other way around, but whatever; to the money conscious Dutch, a sale is a sale! Personally, I wonder whether the woman will persevere with her new acquisition. The Camp is a remarkably effective garment, however, for a generation raised on panty-girdles it will never be truly comfortable unless worn regularly. If the lady ever returns to my friend for a second corset (three is ideal for regular wearing) then corsetry has made a limited and very rare comeback. So somewhere in the executive echelons of the multi-national organisations, is a 50-something year-old woman, whose power-dressing is perhaps more powerful than her peers might realise.

My cat had been missing for two days when, just before retiring to bed, I heard a  mewling sound from the garden. I quickly slipped on a dressing gown and some slippers, and went downstairs into the garden, following the sound which emanated from a patch of wild roses. As I moved over to the flowerbed in the dusk, I tripped and landed in the rose bed. Not seriously hurt, I was, however, stuck, as the barbs pulled at my hair and dressing gown. I wasn't going to spend the night there, so I managed to back half out of my dressing gown and with a convulsive jerk I pulled myself free, unfortunately leaving my expensive wig and gown in the rose bed. So if you were the gentleman walking his dog who was startled by a middle-aged, bald woman running across the garden in her corsets, then I apologise!

In the days before central heating (Britain in the early 1960's), a woman wrote to an 'agony aunt' that her latex girdle was so dreadfully cold to put on in the morning. Rather than receiving a helpful suggestion (my old aunt slept on top of her rubber corsets to avoid this problem) the 'agony aunt' retorted than one must suffer to be beautiful!

British public schools (which in the quaint English terminology mean private schools) to this day boast the position of matron, a female cross between house-mother and nurse. As late as the 1970’s, this character would wear, as part of her office clothes, the full regalia of a nursing matron from the white head-dress to the watch pinned to the left bosom. At a famous south London public school, the matron was very much a formidable character in true ‘Hattie Jacques’ style. At the beginning of one Easter term, the assembled staff were surprised at the laughter that greeted the raising of the school flag. As their collective gaze swiveled to the flag-pole, there, for all to see just below the school flag was a large pair of corsets. Any doubt as to their owner was dispelled by Matron’s scarlet face. There is a small addition to this episode. A school-wide hunt went out for the perpetrator of the act, and a 15 year-old pupil was found to have secreted away beneath his mattress, a good collection, not just of Matron’s foundations, but those of some of the masters’ wives as well. The pupil quietly vanished from the school.

Still on the subject of schools; between the wars, at a girl's boarding school near Perth in Scotland, the girls would wait until after lights out to start making a noise. The new housemistress, who slept in a separate room at the end of the corridor, was a young and inexperienced teacher. If the girls timed it properly, the teacher would rush in to scold them without taking time to reinsert her dentures. A lady in her late 80's recounted this tale (for she was one of those girls) and added, it's hard to take anyone too seriously when they're standing in their corsets shouting "Go to shleep, girlsh!"

My husband and I were walking past the Corset Shop in St. Leonards (which still exists today I.L.) when I saw a stout old women emerge from the shop with her daughter (perhaps even grand-daughter). The old lady was crammed, not to put too fine a point on it, into a classic twinset over a white blouse. A rather lovely Jaguar saloon car pulled up and the younger lady’s husband emerged. Jaguar’s look superb, however, in reality, they are very low and quite cramped in the rear. The performance that ensued with husband and wife, at first helping the stiff old biddy into the car, and latterly pushing and pulling, was quite comical, but rather sad. The whole story was clear to see. The old lady would come to the shop once or twice a year to replace her corsets. This expensive habit precluded the purchase of newer more fashionable clothes. Ironically, if she had purchased even a new suit that fitted her stouter body, she might not have needed such tight corsets in the first place. The proprietor of the shop (for it is owned by a man), confirmed that she came in every six months for two brand new Twilfit corsets; one in white, and one in tea rose brocade.

Walking along the Embankment by Waterloo Bridge in 1988, my husband saw the most obviously corseted women he had ever seen. He takes up the tale. “She was about Bunty’s size, but her waist was incredibly small by comparison. About 42-26-42 I would guess. Stunningly dressed”. I asked him if he was sure it was a real women; there are many theatres in the area, and Covent Garden is only just across the river. "You know" he replied, “I’ve never been certain, and I never saw the woman again”.

Madame Chang Kai Shek was famous for wearing a pair of bullet-proof corsets. When her husband was forced to leave China, they left behind many items in the rush, and her pink satin corsets became the proud trophy of one of the bandit chiefs.  

A woman hurried into the restaurant at Selfridge’s in a waft of powder, perfume and parcels. As she joined her friends for coffee, she gushed in a voice audible several tables away, “I’m so sorry to be late. I was trapped inside my panty-girdle!”

A modern tale from two years ago. Three student girls were walking down a street in Sheffield when two of them started to lag behind the third. They started to giggle, as did several passers-by. "What's so funny" the third protested. "Look at the bottom of your jeans". And there for all to see, was yesterday's discarded panty-girdle hanging out and being dragged along the street. Mortification knows no bounds!  

In Britain, well before the advent of the Charity Shop (Thrift Shop in the USA), or even the car boot sale, was the Jumble Sale. These sales took place in Church Halls and the like, and represented the unwanted items that clutter a person’s life, yet cannot really be discarded as pure rubbish. During one such sale in the late 1960’s, whilst rummaging through a pile of old clothes, a teenage girl discovered an old pair of corsets that she held up and showed to her friends. Waving them in the air she crowed “Coo, just look at these; can you imagine anybody wearing these things?” All the assembly laughed, except, that is, for the haughty lady, who had in fact organized the event. Shortly afterwards, the corsets were discretely purchased by that same lady. The elderly women who recounted this tale laughed at the memory. “Those were her own corsets. I know that because the Spirella lady visited me after fitting her. She couldn’t bear to see her old corsets flourished in public and had to buy them back!”  

My son 'discovered' corsets in 1962. We were on holiday in Berwick and our walk down the High Street was interrupted by the loss of his presence. He was 20 yards behind us gazing at a shop window that was, embarrassingly, full of corsets. "What is that for" he asked, pointing at a particularly complex Camp creation. "They're women's things" I replied, hoping that would suffice. It didn't. "They keep their tummies flat" I explained. That same week, we had travelled onto Edinburgh and were staying with relatives. Their elderly neighbour had a pair of corsets hung on the washing line. We met her for tea subsequently and my son came up to me and said in a quiet, secretive voice, "I know why she's got a flat tummy!"

In the 1970's, before property buying for personal gain became common, a retired couple bought a villa in Spain. In those days, selling the property and exporting the money was prohibited by Spanish law. (The Spanish believed that price inflation of property would kill the market for local people, and lead to rural decay - as it has all over most of Britain. It seems that the Spanish were rather perceptive). I digress. Eventually, the lady's husband died and she wished to cash in the value of the villa. Transferring the money legally was out of the question so she bought an oversized pair of corsets, withdrew as much as the bank allowed in cash (they were not stupid) and stuffed the corsets with as many pesetas, dollars and pounds as she could manage and fled the country. Paper is an excellent insulator, and she nearly passed out several times from heat exhaustion in the attempt to relieve rural Spain from 20% of her property's inflated worth.

My aunt was very proud of her erect posture and frequently admonished the younger generation for their dreadful slouching. We all knew that if the younger generation wore corsets like hers, they would have perfect posture as well, but we were far too polite to mention it. That is until one day when she fired off a tirade culminating with “.. look at my ramrod posture.” My son (who would have been about eight at the time) piped up, “That’s because you’ve got ramrods down your back!” “Pardon me, young man. What do you mean by that?” “Every time you bend over I can see two great rods up your back.” I scolded him and told him not to make personal remarks. I explained to my aunt that, indeed, the bones in her corset were quite visible when she bent over. She was mortified that people knew her secret!

release the lacing as far as possible, pull the corset up over the hips and then tighten the lacing. This time-consuming procedure was used by ladies whose vanity could overcome any amount of trouble or discomfort. The typical wearer would lace tightly. But look closely at the picture on the right. The corset has split (actually on both sides) where the fabric would bend as the wearer sat down. Obviously this corset was strong enough to resist catastrophic failure, however, the lady could never wear it again for fear of a more permanent rip. A major re-sewing of the corset is required here and, I suspect, the vain and wealthy woman simply ordered a new pair, whilst admonishing the corsetiere for a faulty product!

At a family gathering one Christmas, a young boy was heard to ask his Aunt whether she wore her corsets too tight like his own Granny. Apparently, like his Granny, she suffered from the slightly pronounced eyes of the thyroid sufferer. The young boy had been told by his Mother that it was a side effect of too tight underwear.

My Mother, who lived for many years near Ascot, regularly visited the big horse races since, like many of her generation, she was a firm royalist and loved to get a glimpse of the late Queen Mother or the Queen herself. One year, by dint of queuing, and not a little elbowing and shoving, she got right to edge of the Royal enclosure where the great ladies and a retinue of lesser Royal mortals would walk past. Oh dear. My poor Mother, how disillusioned she was. “Pancake” she told me later “Pancake makeup and corsets! There was one old dowager Duchess who looked like she was wearing a mask. She could barely move her face and there wasn’t an inch of movement in her torso.”  

An elderly and rather vain lady was being fitted with a new pair of corsets. The corsets in question were long and rigid in the back and fastened at the front by means of straps and buckles. She exhorted the fitter to fasten it as tightly as possible, against the fitter's advice, since new corsets do need to be 'broken in' for the first few days. The fitter left and agreed to pass by the following week. That evening whilst preparing for bed, the elderly lady realised that the strength in her hands was quite insufficient to budge the buckles (which once fastened have quite a strong over-centre action). It was several days (and nights) before the poor lady ate humble pie and phoned the corsetiere to free her from her corsets. The lady subsequently reverted to front-lacing corsets since, in extremis, one can always cut the laces.

The Spirella corsets were fantastic feats of engineering. I remember suggesting to my mother that she would be far better off without a corset, as I thought that they caused more trouble than they were worth, but she was horrified at the idea. "They are a great source of warmth and comfort", she told me. "Plus, they have the added advantage of pulling in the stomach, and making me look in much better shape than I am". "But Mummy," I protested, "You tell me that they’re most uncomfortable, that they hurt when you kneel down, and the bones stick into your ribs and thighs, that they are impossible to dry after they are washed. Why do you have to put yourself through such torture, just to feel that you are looking right."

My protestations were met with a tight lipped. "Just you wait until you have lost your figure through having babies and you’ll know why people need corsets for their self-esteem". To get back to the corsets on approval, I remember, on one occasion, my mother getting trapped into a corset that she couldn't get out of. It had the usual hooks and straps, but, in addition, it had a zip which went from the thigh to the waist. When she got into it after much difficulty, she couldn’t get out of it. I was called to assist. Eventually, I had to make her lie on the bed while I endeavoured to get the zip down. After a long struggle, I was able to get the zip down and I unleashed the hooks and clamps. Her reaction was, "I don’t think I’ll be buying this one this year".