Even in the 1960's, a good old-fashioned corset could be called into play to fit one's daughter into her wedding dress.

All these pictures are post-war, those on the left coming from the late 1940's (Dior had a lot to do with the tightly girdled waist). In these decades, what a man saw was quite probably nothing like what the unadorned female would see in the mirror. One has to admit that the finished article is elegant and impressive, but considerable 'sub-surface' engineering was required to achieve the final effect.

Corsets, shoulder pads, uplifting brassieres and crinolines may have played a small part, but the good old bra and girdle was the mainstay for millions of women.

In reality, only husbands or children ever see 'what lies beneath'. However, in Eileen's case, we know exactly what lies below the lovely blue silk ensemble, a Spirella 325 in white Orchid (nylon satin) material. The corset lies extremely high on the back and would have been worn for special occasions, like the wedding to which Eileen will shortly attend. Hours of standing would play havoc with her back unless firmly supported and that corset is a very firm support.

Oh to have X-ray vision, every schoolboy's fantasy although his gaze might be turned to somewhat younger women. That blue silk outfit elegantly shown off by Eileen was also was also worn by Doreen. Despite her Spirella 305 corset, she could not close the back zipper of the dress, however, the coat concealed this sartorial malfunction. Madeleine wears another Spirella 325 with front and back-lacing and was delighted, as we mentioned above, to be able to fit into a size 14 outfit.

We actually know of a lady who had the same problem with the dress and adopted the solution of simply wearing the coat which, fortunately, could be buttoned up.

Thompson's Glove Fitting Corset used the technique 100 years ago!

Even the Swedes were at it in 1964 ...

... and the French

This amazing advertisement comes from American Spirella

Even in the 21st century, Ardyss uses the same technique

Princess Lilian of Belgium (1916 2002) has some well used bras and girdles on display, but why not? How else can we show definitive evidence of who wore what, when?

The lies about what lies beneath              

Granny always seemed to wear the complex, heavy and formidable 325 corset. These still turn up at auction and we have half a dozen in our collection, however, this is probably because they weren’t that popular and thus were preserved.

Mother as least was credited with a standard 305 corset, or, if particularly young and trendy, a 206 or 234 girdle, perhaps even a Coppelia girdle in the late 1960’s. These semi-made-to-measure girdles suffered by comparison with the high street brands, particularly in terms of cost.

The Bride never wore a corset*, always a girdle, or at the very least, a special brassiere and waist-nipper. I know of one bride (not mentioned by Spirella) who had a back-laced 315 corset made for the occasion. Her dress was Victorian in style, and she claimed the back-lacing was a nice period touch. *Except in this charming piece of whimsy recently discovered.

Did the Bridesmaid, in her 20’s, really wear a 305 corset. Admittedly in some of the pictures, the circularity of the torso suggests that this might be so, but this, even in the 1950’s would have been rare.

The Guest, of course could wear anything that suited her age, and Spirella provided just that. Certainly, their garments were very expensive, but they lasted and fit perfectly (in theory). In the transition period of the late 1960’s, a teenager might be wearing a high-waisted, well-boned girdle, whereas her friend’s mother might be in a panty-girdle.

The Corsetiere could be relied on to wear the firm’s garments. You never knew when a prospective customer might want a quick preview of the latest 305 corset in tea-rose orchid rayon.

and       what really lies beneath

Granny probably did wear a corset in the late 1950’s and early 60’s when most of these photographs appeared. The Spirella 305 was very common, but not the front- and back-laced 325.

Mother would certainly wear a girdle, and, in the hands of a persuasive corsetiere, Spirella might be the brand, however, times were changing, and the girdles on offer from Marks and Spencer were, I’m afraid to say, the equal of Spirella’s offerings; and, much cheaper too!

The fact of the Bride comes closest to the fiction, since, on this special day, special foundations would be worn. Spirella did make excellent strapless brassieres and waist-nippers, and for once, could steal a march on the high street.

The Bridesmaid almost certainly would wear a girdle, or a panty-girdle as soon as they became more common. In reality, a women (outside of the acting world) rarely laces herself to fit into a dress; she simply buys a larger size.

The Guest of the 1950’s might well be wearing Spirella, Spencer, Strodex, Alstons or any one of the made-to-measure foundations, but as the concept of long-lasting quality was replaced by the impulse buy of the booming 60’s, the off-the-shelf market blossomed.

The Corsetiere might be wearing her trade garments, and I know many that did, however, I know an equal number that never wore Spirella’s corsets at all, and despite having sold thousands, never ventured beyond Marks and Spencer panty-girdles!

Obviously, these photographs were Spirella weddings, and the women that made it into the pictures would be clients of the corsetiere, and wearing Spirella’s best. However, particularly as the 1960’s grew to a close, the world had changed. A woman that had grown up with corsets cannot abandon them overnight and Granny would take her corsets to the grave, but the girdled mother would soon become panty-girdled. For a brief period, a well-preserved granny might wear a panty-girdle and the young bridesmaid, a corset, but this was rare. Spirella, although they did not know it, were facing extinction, since the fitting of an elastic garment will never be as critical as that of a non-elastic one. The premium that Spirella charged would ultimately doom them in a world where, if a woman could be bothered to wear  foundation at all, it would be, at best, a panty-girdle. I must add, in Spirella’s defence, that their Coppelia 51 and Spirelette 105, were extremely powerful and strong garments that could not be purchased on the high street. Alas, not many women appreciated this or even cared.

As we have said, when these photographs were taken, it is right to assume that that some of the older ladies (over 60) would be wearing a corset. Only one woman is wearing a pantie-girdle, however, this garment was not that common in the mid 1960's in Britain. Therefore, all the others are wearing traditional girdles. The two exceptions are the bridesmaids who are wearing corsets despite being in their 20's. One is a little 'chubby' and appears obviously under the influence of some constraining foundation garment. The other looks quite slim, and to be fair, the 515 was described as a girdle and could be ordered without lacing. To any woman of her age today, however, that garment would be called a corset, assuming that the woman of today knew was a corset might be.

In the early 1960's, the girdle was still (literally) the mainstay of the middle-aged woman, and the houses of the corsetieres  proudly displayed their professional signs. Unlike any other industry, Spirella and Spencer, anticipating Yellow Pages by more than a decade, bought full pages in the county phone directories to advertise the numbers of their corsetieres. 

The counters of the department stores groaned under the weight of corsets and girdles, and in  Marks and Spencer, girdles of an amazingly high quality could be purchased by the average woman. 

In 1967, this charming lady of my acquaintance (left) displays what the perfect middle class lady in her early 60's would wear to a wedding. Silk twin-set and pearls, hat, gloves, long-line bra from the Triumph Doreen range, zippered high-waisted girdle from Marks and Spencer in Sutton, and support stockings from Figure Foundations in Banstead High street. 

The flatness of her stomach is a tribute to the power of the Marks and Spencer classic girdle. Having no children, an early adulthood on horseback, and proper foundations gave this women an excellent figure. That her figure is elegant, and well-controlled by mass-produced high street items, should have sounded a warning bell to the marketers of the bespoke corset houses. Within three years, this lady's girdles had been consigned to the dustbin as British women followed their American cousins into the panty-girdle. Her figure was never quite the same again.

The ladies all wear a sort of uniform. Court shoes with at least 1⅔-inch heel. Seamed stockings, the denier of which is determined by the state of the wearer's veins. Occasionally two pairs of stockings would be worn, the outer fashionable pair to disguise the inner more functional ones. Two piece shiny satin, silk or rayon suit comprising a form-fitting dress and jacket or coat, jewellery in abundance (depending upon one's means) with immaculate make-up and hair styled and lacquered into immobility. Hat and gloves were optional. As for what lies beneath, the middle-aged and even younger women would be wearing a girdle and long-line brassiere. Again, whether Spirella or Marks and Spencer would be determined by one's husband's salary. The older women might wear a corset, especially if a number of suspenders were required to hold up several pairs of stockings.

The overall effect is to confine the wearer in powerful elastic from her toes to her shoulders. If the woman has made the mistake of wearing new shoes or a new girdle, they will become agonising as the wedding progresses. Even without the latter torment, the ladies' locomotion is severely compromised by the tight skirts and elastic confinement. This is what struck us while watching this movie; the way that women walked. Almost like marionettes, the women on the left walked in step to the front of the church. Before climbing the steps into the church, each women paused, adjusted her fall of her clothes and then, with quite some apparent effort, mounted the steps precariously thrown forward by their heels and without the necessary freedom of leg movement to mount the next step with ease, all the time wondering whether their foundations would show through the tight skirt and whether the suspenders would give way under the strain.

We have forgotten life in the 1960's. Cigarette smoke would pervade the air; perfume would partially disguise this as well as camouflage the odour of mothballs and the pungent odour of rubber for those women who literally stuck to their latex reducing foundations for these torture devices were still worn by a stoic few.

Mind you, the women at the wedding all looked incredibly well-groomed and smart; would that they looked as good today!

From Vogue 1955

Weddings and girdles prominently featured in one of the 1955 editions of British Vogue magazine. In this instance, the model guests at the wedding are not revealed in their underwear, however, the suggestion is that the late 40's mother and early 20's daughter will both be wearing the latest 'hi-waisted' or 'nip-waisted' girdles. Of course, fashion can conceal much, and the bigger-hipped bride can always resort to the crinoline to disguise what no girdle will ever achieve.

The weirdest in the Maidenform series has to be the lady in the fluorescent bra, posing incongruously by 'Big Ben' in a London fog. As all Londoners know, when there is fog, there is no wind; that's why there's fog! Mind you, the somewhat anorexic looking model (middle right) does not look as convincing as her peers. Some more interesting efforts from Maidenform are shown below:

Don't you believe it; all girdles have a mind of their own.

Even Gossard had a go..

Felina from Germany made a video of what lies beneath, some stills from which can be found here.

If nothing else, these pictures reveal how American womanhood beat her European cousins into the panty-girdle by more than half a decade. The Silf Skin advert is slightly odd in that the lady in her girdle is shorter than her twin, but I suppose that in her underwear, she would not be wearing heels. On the left we have 1960's 'liberated' girl, although not quite liberated yet from her panty-girdle. On the right, what lies beneath is demonstrated in something of an 'up market' striptease as the catwalk model simply unzips her dress and lets it fall to the floor.

These stills from a well-known newsreel clip show the lengths to which women will go to achieve a desired shape (usually created by a man it has to be said). The model is laced far tighter than had been seen since the Victorian era to satisfy the wasp-waist fantasies of M. Dior. Shoulder pads are then secured to the bra straps and little pads pinned to the hip area. Apart from these artifices, the woman wears a bra to enhance and lift her bosom, stockings to smooth her legs, make-up to render her face flawless and she may even wear a wig or hair-piece. For an older woman, the first step might even be to insert one's dentures (20% of British women were toothless after the War). When one then considers the bloomers or panties and slips that form such a large part of 1940's life (see the Trousseau at the top of this section), getting dressed was not that simple. Indeed, what the young swain saw, was not necessarily what he might get! The lady on the left even sports a girdle to hold up her stockings and a cinch to achieve the nipped-in waist.

Let me leave you with some eloquent prose from the pen of Ian McRoberts.

"The stout matron grimaces rather than smiles. If you had seen the effort that it took her to lace tight that unaccustomed corset, you would not be surprised at her expression. Her eyes bulge, her bosom is hoisted inches higher than even Howard Hughes intended by the hip-quenching force of her formidably over-tightened stays. Her corsets have removed her feminine hips and she tapers like a female tent-peg into the arrow-head agony of her stilettos. Nevertheless, the agony is not without effect for she looks very attractive and is well aware of this."

"Her spectacularly elevated bosom eclipsed the food on the table when she sat down to eat, a feat accomplished not without effort; both sitting and eating that is. Like her friend, her corsets were tightened to life-threatening levels. The groom secretly wondered (as all grooms do) if this was what the future held for his new bride."

"Her assets spectacularly moulded by layers of elastic. Indeed, the woman in elastic is a formidable sight and not for the faint of heart."

Beneath those sumptuous 1940s - 1970s gowns lay a world of complex corsetry and engineering. As we have described under swimsuits, even such sporting items could be reinforced with built-in bras. Some swimsuits were little more than fabric covered corselettes.

Just look at the corsetry, the straps, the bones, the padding, the hooks-and-eyes and, of course, a million fiddly buttons. "Zip me up, Darling" barely scratches the surface.

A corsetière was trained to tell her clients "One on the body, one in the drawer and one in the wash." This is actually excellent advice for the preservation of one's foundation garments; a regular (weekly) rotation of a girdle or corset will make them last far longer, however, if you are into bespoke corsetry, then buying three of everything can be ruinously expensive. The corsetière, however, was trained to counter any arguments and she would usually win; her commission depended upon it.

My own corsetière (who started with Spirella in 1957 and is till going strong) suggested that many clients simply did not bother with multiple foundation garments. When asked how long a girdle or corset would last she spoke at length about perspiration acidity, whether the garment was worn next to the skin, the wearer's level of activity and even exposure to ultra-violet radiation (drying the garment outside on a sunny day). She reckoned that using the triple rotation method, the corsets would last over three years.

She lamented the state of some of her clients corsets. She recalled a very wealthy woman who was always well dressed and groomed yet her underwear was basically dirty. The woman wore her corsets over her slip and claimed that they never needed washing. My fitter suspected that the lady was sufficiently vain that she did not want her maid to see her somewhat substantial supports. On the other hand, my friend talked of elderly women whose corsets were a patchwork of repairs with mismatched suspenders but still in good condition and regularly laundered.

The effort of drying a pair of corsets may have put off many women. My husband's landlady used to wrap her corsets around the central heating pipes for a couple of days and a neighbour in Scotland hung her best Twilfit corsets on the washing line. Mind you, the risk of ultra-violet damage in Scotland is fairly remote!