Ivy Leaf's Diary

2012

 

 

Wishing all our Readers a Happy New Year

 

 

 

January 2012: 

 

It has been a stormy start to the New Year. I did not realise that we get winds of over 160 miles per hour in this country but we did over the festive period. Even the Glaswegian hills felt 100 mph gusts on Tuesday. This was unfortunate since that is where we were spending the New Year and our travel arrangements were somewhat disrupted as was the electricity supply. Even today, back in the west country (and that is a long journey by car, some 400 miles) our electricity has been on and off. My husband says that 400 miles for our American and Australian readers is probably little more than a 'short hop', but for a woman of a certain age wearing 'proper underwear', it is a tiresome eight hour slog. I am glad that my husband elected to take our four-wheel-drive vehicle. This sits infinitely better than his ageing sports car which is an uncomfortable companion for his ageing wife. I do wish he would sell his sports car; he is far too old to be having a mid-life crisis!

 

 

 

..Meanwhile, Life goes on

 

with a fascinating visit to the museum.

 

     

My husband and I are serious researchers and managed to see what goes on behind the scenes, however, he does to tend to lapse into a state of eclectic interest as he assembles bits and pieces that make a point or interest him. This frustrates my serious approach but does yield some lovely period pictures.

From the left:- An old measuring garment: Either the lady is tiny or that corset is huge! The poise of the professional model sets her apart from the amateur (or does it? See the 2012 calendar!) Say it with flowers! Period cartoon (my husband instantly wanted to make a lampshade from my old corsets. I think my look alone dissuaded him!) Rack after rack of research material.

     

 

...with some more research.

 

We have some excellent examples from Spirella in Sweden, however, rather like our interest in the German side of Spirella, we were keen to find out if the factory and shop still remained in Malmö. Obviously (and sadly) they would not be making and selling corsets any more. My husband dived into the world wide web with a will and, although failing to find the factory, did find the original facade of the Spirella shop as the pictures reveal. There on the Gustav Adolfs Torg,  a street famous for its corsetry emporia (note Fox korsetter) lies the Spirella shop, the outlet for the factory. Ironically, the shop is now the home of 'Les Trois Roses' a choclaterie. Sadly, just when your Swedish woman could well do with a firmly constructed lower foundation, this is no longer available to her.  Click on the right-hand picture to see the shop today.

 

A very rare example of a Swedish Spirella back-laced 205 girdle

Demonstrably the same building (above) in 2012 as the photograph from the Spirella magazine in 1957.

 

 

In the 1960's, high-waisted girdles were de rigeur with Stockholm's smart set; a far cry from the liberal and liberated picture that is commonly associated with the Swedes. In fact, the Scandinavian countries produced some elegant yet extremely functional foundations during this period.

 

 

I must apologise for the somewhat random 'brain dump' nature of this diary. We have always "published first, and edited later," a poor industry practice, but this is an amateur venture! From time to time, we will move sections of the diary onto the appropriate pages.

 

A huge frustration to any researcher is the publisher who fails to date his work. We came across a Spirella catalogue but it was undated. These catalogues are rare, particularly from the 1950's - 1970's, however, this particular catalogue yielded some valuable information. It was the catalogue that solved the problem of the mystery girdle in 2011 that we wrote about in the Diary in 2007 and 2008. We could not identify this girdle until we saw a picture in the catalogue that confirmed it to be nothing more than a standard 205, but not of the pattern we had seen in brochures from the 1970's. It was an earlier style. Spirella had to re-design the old favourites after the war as the trend of more food, central heating and an easier life-style became established. Women simply grew bigger, the hip-spring increased and the 205 that was a good shape for the scant hips of yesterday was simply not fitting properly. As the motor manufacturers know, if you have a successful name (Cortina, Civic, Golf and so on) you do not change it, so the 205 was re-designed in the mid/late 1950's. The evidence for this is as follows:- the catalogue does not mention the 246 girdle that was introduced in 1958, therefore the catalogue is from 1957 at the latest. We know that the 246 girdle was developed in response to the social conditions mentioned above and we have therefore assumed that the 205 was re-designed in that era. Why the 246 did not keep its predecessor's name, I do not know. Perhaps it was not such a good seller as the 205. The change in design is shown on the right and allowing for the artist's exaggeration, it is the placement of the elastic gores at the front that distinguishes the dates (pre-1960 on the left; post 1960 on the right). The backs of the girdles are identical. We really must update the girdle page soon.

 

 

February 2012:

 

The mild winter has given way to more seasonal weather and the temperatures have dropped below freezing point. For some reason that escapes me and infuriates my husband, a litre of fuel for the car now costs £1.46 in our neck of the woods (that is US$ 8.65 per US gallon for our American readers). It is quite sobering in what might be regarded as a 'well-off' village that people are choosing to wear fleeces indoors and to turn down the heating to save money. Who would have thought that after a lifetime as a professional, we would end up in such a state. At least the banker who moved into the largest property in the village appears not be suffering. Was it Woody Allen that said "A banker is somebody to whom you give your money so that they can live a lifestyle you can't afford!"

 

Enough of the rant, the calendar has generated some very positive responses. We had dinner with the models and their husbands the other evening and a very jolly time was had by all.

 

 

A HUGE THANKS! ....

 

to all of you who purchased the 2012 calendar. The kind comments and the response have been excellent and we recovered the printing costs within the first day of sale. Everything since then has been profit that will be donated to charities chosen by the models. A lingerie shop snapped up 20 calendars without even thinking about it and have placed orders for the 2013 edition! We have effectively sold out now and raised £350 for charity in the process.

 

 

 

March 2012:

 

One of the uplifting consequences of maintaining this site is that one learns all the time, and what one had regarded as fact is sometimes challenged and disproved by our eagle-eyed readers. I had always assumed that the panty-girdle developed in response to the advent of tights. I am at a disadvantage here since the panty-girdle barely made any impression in Holland where I grew up, but in Britain I know it replaced the girdle (for those women who persisted with a lower foundation) at the end of the 1960's and in America, almost a decade before that, however, it origins are far earlier.

 

Meanwhile, we came across a lovely Spirella advertisement that capitalises on the British obsession with the weather. Mind you there is good reason. My husband got a suntan working in the garden yesterday, today it rains hard and last Sunday it snowed! This lovely picture of a young lady in her girdle and long-line bra holding a brolly over her head is so typical of the Spirella theme where an otherwise normal lady in a normal situation appears to have forgotten to dress. Our calendars have played heavily on this theme!

 

Talking of calendars, so many of you commented favourably on the format of the 2012 Ivy Leaf calendar. We decided to re-make the 2010 calendar in the same format as 2012 so that the pictures have an A4 page to themselves. We have received a draft version from the printers and, I must say that the full colour version is rather special. It matches the 2012 calendar and will form a set with the forthcoming 2013 calendar and, who knows, a 2014 edition*. Compared to the 2010 sepia rendered version, the re-figured calendar has full colour photos that have more space to be displayed and are larger than before. We intend to make a limited print run of 25 calendars and sell them for the usual price of £10.

 

* We have illustrated a 2014 mock-up, but such a calendar would use new photos taken later on this year.

 

Please register your interest with Ivy Leaf.

 

 

Times flies! It's nearly three weeks since we updated the web-site. Getting the 2010 calendar re-print has taken up some of that time but family matters have intervened.

 

As often happens, after a lean spell on the web-site, a reader from Sweden sent a veritable cascade of information on Swedish corsetry including some Spirella data that was completely unknown to us! It will take us a little while to load this data and sort it out.

 

 

April 2012:  Old Money

 

I suppose that my husband and I could be pigeon-holed as middle class, financially reasonably comfortable (although Goodness knows for how long, my pessimistic husband added) and fairly chameleon-like in our ability to blend in at most levels of society. A normal, older retired couple I suppose you could say. We were invited recently to a local farmer's house for no better reason (I imagine) than to enjoy the warm weather and to get the village together over a buffet lunch in one of his barns. I had been introduced to the farmer's wife via my lately deceased acquaintance (of the muddy boot episode) and had got on well enough with her to merit an invitation. My husband had never been to the farm before and was suitably impressed by the size, age and abundance of buildings and the barn of a garage that could have swallowed our house with room to spare. Tractors and farm equipment were dotted around like a child's discarded toys and the paddock was full of the guests' cars, nothing flashy you understand, simply Land Rovers and a smattering of Jaguars, Mercedes and Audis with some smaller Volkswagens, (ours included). This was very much a landed gentry, hunting set, old farming money gathering. You could spot the men with the real old money, they wore a sort of uniform:- brogues, corduroy trousers, Viyella check shirt and tie and a Barbour jacket. It seemed important that although the ensemble should be 'nature'-coloured (so as not to scare the prey), on this festive occasion, the trousers should be of a clashing colour at the ochre-red end of the spectrum. A flat cap and an attendant retriever completed the outfit. Needless to say, my husband was more normally attired. The women, oddly enough, were far less predictable and wore anything from jeans to tweed. Nothing was flashy, everything was understated, but there was the indefinable scent of serious money in the air. The buildings in the farmyard would be worth well over three million, without even considering the hundreds of hectares attached thereto. Every horizontal surface was festooned with sandwiches and cakes, cups of milky tea and coffee and at the end of one enormous barn, hidden by a throng of men were several barrels of beer. I am just setting the scene for the appearance of a lady that grabbed the attention of both my husband and myself. She appeared from the main house carrying yet another platter of meat but was dressed more as I had expected, that is a throw-back to about 50 years ago. She wore a smart tailored tweed skirt, a silk shirt and a cardigan, all in hues of the countryside. She was old, possibly in her late 70's, but was immaculately turned out and had an enviable figure. I imagine her pearls and the few rings she wore would comfortably have paid for our car, yet she carried her tray and chatted with the hired maids and farm labourers. Old, old money and infinite confidence personified. I wanted to talk to her, but never got a chance for this, I am almost certain, would be a lady that understood foundation garments.

 

click to enlarge

Meanwhile, we have come across a couple of curiosities, such are the caprices of the corset marketing departments.

 

Regard on the left a vaguely sinister advertisement from Spirella of Sweden. The text goes along the lines of the 1950's ethos where hard-working women needed firm foundations least they collapse under the burden of responsibility. Of course that girdle (recognisable as a Swedish 205) would be needed to hold up those support stockings, another hall-mark of the working woman. Nevertheless, dental surgeries are, to my mind, not the first choice to attract me to a product, in fact, I was tempted to skip the advertisement altogether! The nurse, who lacks that 'angel of mercy' expression, that so endeared us to the film "Reach for the Sky", appears to be holding a large hypodermic needle or is that just my imagination! Sorry gentlemen, you have just lost a sale, not that a dental nurse could afford Spirella in the first place!

 

On the right we have an interesting alternative to the padded brassiere; just wear six at once! Seriously though, I have mentioned elsewhere that the wearing of multiple foundations was not uncommon and I know of a lady today that wears three 'shapers' of various lengths and configurations to persuade her body, and the casual observer, that her shape has remained constant for decades. In practice this can be successful, but one has to tread a careful line between compressing one's torso, whilst adding layers of elastic.

click to enlarge

 

Overheard at a party "I never let my husband see me in my shaper, he hates them!" "Oh my husband likes to see me in my shapewear - in fact, he's more supportive than my girdle!"

 

 

Spirella in Sweden:

 

Thanks to the kindness of one of our Swedish readers, we have enlarged the Spirella in Sweden section considerably!

 

What is this fabric ?

 

A reader recently found an immaculate Spirella 305 corset in a charity shop. The fabric (below left) is something that I have not seen before, comprising embossed lucky charms. Has anybody seen this fabric before? Whilst we are on the subject of fabrics, I photographed two fabrics from a Spencer swatch of the 1950's and then a Camp corset of similar vintage. Utterly gorgeous fabrics, but can they compare to the Marks and Spencer satin elastic girdle of the 1960's (right). Incidentally, the picture on the right was taken in 2011 of a charming lady wearing an immaculate girdle that is half a century old. The lady would have been 17 then and could have worn such a girdle, however, possessing a 19 inch waist in those days, she had no need of such a device. At 67, she actually asked if she could buy it since it really gave her much appreciated support. They just don't make them like that any more!

               

 

Dutch Rubber Corsets:

A typical, heavy white perforated rubber corset purchased in Den Haag in 1979

 A brief sojourn in the land of my birth, and a request from my brother to unearth some family photographs brought to mind my auntie who I always referred to as 'the corset aunt'!

When I stayed with my aunt, she was not the slightest bit coy about us youngsters seeing her in her corsets and I remember being fascinated by these heavy, sweaty garments that she wore during the 1960's. The pair on the left purchased over a decade later in Den Haag were, the proprietor of the shop informed me, some of the last to be made.

My aunt (right) in 1912 and 1964 at the ages of 25 and 77 obviously wore corsets all her life. She would have started before the end of the 19th century and was still wearing laced foundations when she passed away some seven decades later.

 

Letitia Emerentia van G*** in 1912 and 1964

 

 

 

May 2012:  The 2010 re-mastered calendar is ready!!

 

At last, as promised, the full-colour, larger version of the 2010 calendar is ready. It was delivered from the printer on Friday and it looks fantastic. The printer asked why we were printing a calendar two years out of date and we explained that we wanted the same format as the successful 2012 version. The format is being used for the 2013 calendar and will be used for subsequent productions so that they form a set.

 

Please let us know your wish to place an order by email to

 

ivyleaf@corsetiere.net

 

An invoice will then be sent to you with a request for a postal address where the calendar should be sent.

 

Despite a 17% increase in printing charges, the cost will remain the same as before:-

 

GBP 10.00 + 2.00 p&p;

EUR 12.00 + 3.00 p&p; or

USD 16.00 + 4.00 p&p.

 

All proceeds will go to a charity chosen by the models.