Ivy Leaf's Diary

2008

January 2008:

Living in a new area, my husband and I decided to spend New Year's Eve at a hotel and enjoy ready-made bonhomie rather than invent our own. We've been exhausted recently with the move of house and simply wanted to relax whilst somebody else provided the fun. I must say, at the dinner dance, the guests were well-dressed, but sadly in that 'expensive clothes but no clue about foundations' mode that I was rather hoping would have become a historical feature of the early 2000's. One robust lady, wearing a tight chiffon blouse and long satin skirt was the worst example. Her panty-line was alarmingly visible as was the roly-poly spare tyre. Her thin brassiere cut into her back, was mis-hooked and worn far too high thereby squeezing more rolls of flesh above and below the offending garment. To cap it all were pads that perched uncomfortably (and unevenly) just off the ends of her shoulders. Didn't her husband mention anything? Didn't she look in the mirror? I'm probably as robustly built as that women, but at least my flesh is controlled properly. If it wasn't, I would expect my husband to mention it. I might not be pleased, but his comments would show that he cared. Perhaps that's the answer, they just don't care.

Invisible Lacing:

The Mystery Girdle

and girdles well after such a fashion had ceased to be popular. On the other hand, if you've worn a corset for decades, you cannot suddenly do without it overnight, and in some cases perhaps never. Some women were in tears when Spirella sold out to Spencer, even though Spencer made (and still makes) an excellent front-laced corset. Sadly, it is the price of these corsets today that reduces one to tears. I know of several ladies who cannibalise their old corsets just to keep one pair in service.

February 2008:

It never fails to amaze me that correspondence can dry up for weeks and then suddenly a flurry of letters and emails will arrive. It is rather like hunting for collectables on Ebay (or waiting for a bus adds my husband). Roger K provided some humorous anecdotes gleaned from his encyclopaedic collection of articles, a Finnish lady told us of her web-site and provided some amazing examples of Finnish corsetry, and an American Gentleman recounted his experiences of what women wore in the 1960's to 1980's. The latter has been published as correspondence between the gentleman and myself simply to illustrate how an adolescent curiosity with female underwear can be turned into valuable historical data. I always stress to my gentleman correspondents that without their recollections, the history of corsetry would be less well understood. Remember that classic description from Ian McRoberts where he describes his elderly wife "Buckling and strapping herself into the satin tube that was her underwear!" How eloquent; one can almost see the garment, however, no woman would have written that phrase. After all, to most women, our underwear is an everyday fact and neither worth remembering nor recounting; it takes man to do that!

Three erudite articles passed our way recently. Firstly, our regular correspondent, Roger K, provided us with an update on girdle sales statistics, followed closely by a similar article on bra sales, and a few days later, I found a paper on brassiere size calculations (pdf format). Brassieres are notoriously difficult to size, and Spirella corsetieres had the most trouble with these garments. The female torso is very three-dimensional (my husband's words; I would have said voluptuous) and rarely symmetrical. Some of our fitters refused to fit upper garments since latterly the quality was not up to previous standards and complaints became the norm. I know of one woman who refused to wear anything other than Spirella but was disappointed with the fit of her brassieres. Eventually, the corsetiere ordered her brassieres with 'soft' side-lacers; rather a poor compromise to adjust the fit. Nevertheless, the old lady continued with these brassieres until Spirella sold out to Spencer. The Spencer brassieres were no better and amazingly, in the 1990's, Spencer lost the templates for its best selling brand, the 190. Spencer has sold hardly any brassieres since.

March 2008: 

The web site has a repository for humorous anecdotes and stories that we glean from our readers and acquaintances. These are normally put into Corsetiere's Stories, however, I must relate this conversation I had with friends who were visiting us in our new location. Incidentally, I hate moving and am thankful that we have fairly well settled down at last.

We were having lunch in our 'local' pub. My husband was chatting with my friend's husband about the merit of the local beer or cars or rugby or something when their prattle ceased and we followed their eyes towards a woman that was standing by the fire. She had taken off her cardigan and revealed unusually powerful arms. "Horse rider" said my husband "Look at those arms; you need power to control a horse!" We agreed. Living in the country we meet many of the 'horsey' set and I have to admit that I admire their confidence and deportment. This lead us onto a discussion of failing strength in the arms and nimbleness of the fingers in the elderly. "She'll be OK" volunteered my husband regarding the girl. Although age may have its disadvantages, it certainly increases the store of anecdotes lurking in one's mind and don't we just love to tell them! My friend was first:- "My granny had strong arms until the day she died. She worked on the land during the war, you know. She used to put on a heavy pair of corsets every morning, lace them really tight, and not take them off until retiring. During the day she'd fill the boiler with coal, work in the garden, and wring the washing out. They were tough then!" Whether her feats of endurance and strength were due to her corsets or the exercise involved in lacing them was unasked. Personally, I've known as many women who were dexterous with the myriads of hooks-and-eyes, laces, buckles and straps of their underwear, as were finally defeated by the daily chore of wearing such complicated garments. My friend's husband chipped in. "Auntie M. used to stay with us. When she went to her room each night I could hear this terrible ripping sound. My mother explained that it was the velcro on her corset!" Many older women tried velcro fastenings; it was marketed as easier for those with arthritic fingers, however, the sound effects put as many off! My husband had the final say, and recounted meeting a relatively petite woman who had extremely muscular arms. He enquired whether she was an equestrienne to which she retorted "No. I used to be a baggage handler at Kennedy International!"

Nancy Millar's Book:

Fashions and Disturbing Social Indicators:

My husband and I dislike flying intensely; in fact I nowadays avoid it, but my husband must follow the dictates of his job and, when absolutely necessary, resort to the air. He had to visit the Far East recently and, against his wishes to use Singapore Airlines, was given a seat on British Airways; business class thank Goodness, for the 13 long hours to Kuala Lumpur. He returned several days later in as remarkably agreeable mood as one can have at 5.30 in the morning. "Thoroughly impressed!" he replied to my questions about the trip. "I've not flown BA for years and they were (word deleted - Ivy) excellent!" "Fine wine, good films and a flat bed - a really flat bed. Horizontal in fact! I actually slept!" Later he praised the stewardesses for their charm and style, and expounded upon the elegant new tailored uniform that BA has had commissioned. Apparently the new tailored design has replaced, the silky, but rather informal previous efforts. Inevitably, we started to draw the parallels, of outer fashion, inner fashion and the times in which we live.

After the war, airline stewardesses wore derivatives of uniforms from the armed forces, often complete with shirt and tie. No designer's name was connected with these outfits. In the late 1960's, designers were commissioned, however, the styles were still very smart and tailored. Cavanagh, Evans and then Hardie Amies and Baccarat Wetherall dressed the flight attendants of the days in fitted suits and dresses. Only in summer plumage was a slight informality enjoyed. As the military uniform gave way to the tailored uniform, so did girdles and suspender belts get replaced by lighter garments, until the 1980's when the floppy silks of Klein and Costelloe reflected a society beginning to enjoy unparalleled wealth and freedom. If stewardesses wore any foundations at all during this period, it really would have been unnecessary in the flowing informal fabrics favoured by these designers. The newest, tailored look heralds a return to the days of Amies and Baccarat Wetherall. Foundations have gone the same way, and from the dearth of lower foundations available in the 1980's and 90's, the stores are now full of 'shapers', the new name for the panty-girdle. For historical observers, much as birds and animals go quiet well before an earthquake, so does fashion become more formal and structured before a crisis. Sadly, it seems that crisis is knocking at our doors.

Terminal Note:

As a footnote, I must add that the article above was written before the opening of Terminal 5 on the 27th March. Oh dear! I hope the 2012 Olympics (if we ever get that far) will be handled better. No doubt everybody tried their best, but it will hardly seduce me to leave terra firma.

We received recently, Frangard's fifth chapter of his amazing story. We are so grateful to accounts from Frangard and others who bring back to life the world of Gardners and the legendary Iris Norris.

White Tummies!

We recently visited what soon will become part of history; the travel agency. The young lady attending had been issued with a smart uniform of jacket, blouse and trousers with a silk scarf in the company's colours. Our hearts were gladdened to see such style in a girl barely out of school. Unfortunately, when she walked to her desk we saw that her trousers were cut so low as to be almost indecent and that the hem of her jacket only came to the top of her trousers if she remained vertical and motionless. As she bent over to retrieve a brochure, her blouse and jacket rose well above her waist?- hip-band to reveal a pale expanse of overfed flesh. When she sat and faced us a bulge of tummy protruded from her ensemble and quivered alarmingly as she spoke. She was perfectly polite however and very pretty, but whether my husband's attention was distracted or not, she failed to make a sale.

Bulging tummies, my own is carefully controlled thanks to Spencer, featured twice in conversation during a trip we made to Wales over Easter. The old friend, with whom we stayed, is rather large in the bottom half and was extolling the virtues of 'spandex' to the extent that my husband became quite embarrassed. She was in the throes of preparing for her son's wedding, and her outfit, that she modelled for us, was skillfully cut to hide her excesses. "You wait until I've got my spandex on!" she said. That fact that she hadn't donned her foundation indicated that something of a struggle was required. "It's so strong, but not like the old days," she added. A day-trip to one of my remoter cousins revealed a creature who might as well have come from a different species. Widowed from a very wealthy husband, she lived alone in a huge (and frighteningly) expensive house. Years of holidaying in the sun had left her with what my husband calls 'lizard skin', that is permanently yellowish and covered with a myriad of tiny wrinkles. Years ago, she had had a succession of cosmetic enhancements that had not withstood the test of time, and her rather uneven (and small) bosom sat uncomfortably with her wide shoulders. She had no bottom at all, something you rarely see outside the very elderly yet she sported a distinct 'spare tyre', a flaw on her otherwise skeletal frame that was exacerbated by her tight jumper and slacks. Nevertheless, she still carried herself with that casual elegance of the very wealthy. The conversation turned to herself, as it often did, and she candidly remarked on her bulging waist. "What can I do?" she wailed. "I NEED a man" she added, staring pointedly at my husband who flushed bright red, "but who wants these!" She tugged at her waist viciously. "Spandex!" said my husband, somewhat louder than he meant. Her predatory gaze bored into him as she performed an instant analysis of wealth, stamina and availability. I came to his rescue with suggestions about Flexees, cinches and the like and reluctantly she agreed that this was probably the way forward. On the way home in the evening, my poor husband was moved to comment "You know, I've never see a preying mantis with love handles before! Mind you, she's not unattractive" he added. "Oh yes she is!" I retorted, and we left the matter there.

We were lucky enough to come across a black orchid (artificial satin) Spirella 305 corset. This immaculate, un-worn garment is 19 inches long with a waist of 28 - 30 inches. The metal zipper dates it to the late 1970's and there is a good chance that the material is of a better quality than the later black orchid which tended to split. Spirella withdrew black in 1986 just before they sold out to Spencer. One of my own black corsets that I bought then split after the first few wearings!

Whatever happened to Strodex?

May 2008: Time Warps and the Hippo

Our new location in rural England has transported us back in time half a decade. One leaves the car park that is laughingly called a motorway, and as the A-roads become B-roads, so a magical transformation occurs and one discovers that the picture postcard village still exists. Sadly, prices seem to be immune from this time warp. Fashions similarly have moved on and, although the elderly denizens of such villages are well past retirement age, jeans seem to be standard dress, even for Lady S., who owns the home farm. A farm labourer's cottage, that a hundred years ago was basically fit for demolition, now costs the best part of a million pounds so popular is the time warp. Nevertheless, the village in which we live boasts an excellent inn that serves my husband's favourite choice of beers and a fierce local cider that has become my standard tipple. In winter, the locals own the public bar, but as summer approaches, so the tourists appear and excellent opportunities for people watching abound. The other week, during Sunday roast lunch (at which the inn excels), a singular couple appeared. The man was a huge, shambling creature with a girth of door challenging dimensions, but his wife was a small, dainty woman who at some point had decided that she should remain frozen in time somewhere in the 1950's. Twin-set and pearls, enamelled face, lacquered, tightly-permed hair (or was it a wig?) and lipstick that bore only a passing acknowledgement of the actual extent of her lips. She looked like a china model of a 1950's Englishwoman so limited were her facial movements. She fussed and fretted at her enormous spouse who seemed only vaguely aware of her presence. I suspected that the woman had purchased her final wardrobe (and underpinnings) decades earlier for no woman has a tummy that flat without the serious corsetry of yesterday. We had seen a similar couples years before and I wondered if it was a reaction to her husband's 'going to seed' that had determined the wife to retain herself like some unchanging museum piece? The contrast between the prim and fussy woman and her gross spouse led my husband to compare the man to a hippopotamus, with his wife as the tiny white bird that fusses and pecks at the monstrous river horse of Africa. I thought the analogy rather appropriate!

Recollections

Although we receive a wealth of stories and recollections from female acquaintances, it is men that often provide the humorous or detailed anecdotes. The correspondence or conversation usually proceeds along the lines of "Odd subject you fellows study!" or "Can't remember really - not interested in that sort of thing!" This is invariably followed by  a minutely detailed account of the gentleman's wife's underpinnings. Of course, in those days many men were quite unaware of their wife's foundations other than through the bills. In the morning, the wife would arise and vacate the bedroom surrounded by a protective barrier of wincyette or nylon, and not reappear until all bits and pieces were in their proper place, and decently covered too! Perhaps it's my Dutch upbringing, and not until recently having the benefit of a dressing room, but my husband knows exactly how I look 'before' and 'after'. Sadly, there's rather more of a difference than there used to be, not least the rise and fall of my ample bosom. Why is it that men find breasts attractive? They are heavy, sweaty and expensive to support (breasts I mean, not men). But back to some recollections. One gentleman recounted how angry his wife would get when hooking up her corselette. She would finish the process only to find that somewhere in the middle, one hook and eye had come apart. It's amazing how difficult it is to re-attach the little devil in the middle without starting again. The gentleman remembered that there were 18 hooks involved. I'm certain his wife never knew that! (I have to add, since I've done it frequently, that the most frustrating exercise is to finish the hooks-and-eyes, or buttons on a blouse, to discover one empty hook at the top and one empty eye at the bottom. Start again!! Another wife was driven to a frenzy, again by hooks-and-eyes, but this time on her corset. She was donning a Camp side-lacer and she simply could not get the edges to meet. "I can't have put on that much weight" she wailed as she struggled to force the contraption closed. Amazingly, she did get it half on before her husband quietly pointed out that the middle buckle on the left side had not been released! The extra two inches returned the corset to its normal size. "You might have told me!" was all the thanks he got.

June 2008:  Corsets and the Moral High Ground

We have written at length about the 'feel' of corsets, implying the physical sensation, however, there is a mental counterpart equally important. Our corsetiere friend from the south coast still has a client who claims that wearing corsets makes her feel good. This is nothing to do with the physical support, but more the feeling of being properly attired. She claims to 'feel like a real women', and this is by no means one of our friend's elderly clients. A new acquaintance from our village told me of her aunt who belonged to the Salvation Army. Normally she wore a girdle, but when she wore her uniform, she wore a corset. She candidly explained this to my friend during one of her holiday visits. The uniform would have fitted perfectly well without the corset, but, so the aunt maintained, it made her feel 'better', more morally upstanding (probably quite literally!) How curious is the human ego and the perception of the moral high-ground. Give two identical people airline tickets; one economy and one business class. The traveller in business class is not just far better cosseted, but actually feels superior to his or her identical peer in economy. The same phenomenon is apparent in large four-wheel-drive vehicles. The person with the higher eye-level feels superior to anybody at a lower level. Car companies make fortunes selling these behemoths on the basis of this perceived status. I think that a member of the Salvation Army would be horrified to be accused of pride, but without a doubt, the lady in question felt that her corsets in some way elevated her above her peers.

July 2008:  Spencer and Bulges

Demise of the Corsetieres

Humour

August 2008:  Thanks to all our Readers

Ivy Leaf and her long-suffering husband wish to thank everybody who has visited the web-site, and especially those who have contributed recollections, articles and have made contact with us. It is so gratifying that the labour of love that we started in 2002 has been visited over one million times. In itself, that is praise indeed! If you have anything to contribute, particularly along the lines of 'who wore what, when', please don't hesitate to contact us.

ivyleaf@corsetiere.net

A Trip to Holland and a Wedding

If nothing else reveals the age of myself and my husband, it must be the prodigious number of great-nieces and great-nephews that our families have produced. Fortunately they are all well-brought up and call me Auntie, rather than 'The Great Aunt', that corseted virago described so well in Arthur Ransome's childrens' stories. I might wear corsets but I am NOT a virago (I hope). To some close members of the family I am known as the 'corset auntie', partly because of my old-fashioned underwear and partly because they know of my general interest in corsetry. 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. We talked on this theme for a while, at least two glasses of red wine's worth, until my husband appeared and dragged the conversation back into English. "Look at the bridesmaids" he exclaimed. "Surely they could have made their dresses fit?" The lady and I regarded the frumpish, overweight bridesmaids bulging through the shiny material of their poorly cut dresses, every line of their insubstantial underwear embossed for all to see. As if on a signal, the lady and I smoothed our skirts over our hips in an automatic reaction. We nearly collapsed with laughter and left my poor husband muttering "Women!"

In April's entry, we commented on various airline and university rules that dictated that white underwear should be worn under white blouses. We uncovered an old Maidenform advertisement where, apparently, the university had different rules! Even today, British Airways mandates that the underwear of their female staff "should be discreet and not show through the blouse."

September 2008: Sport and Support