The Best Foundations

Right through the 1950's and 1960's, until the advent of tights or pantyhose, your British housewife, certainly in the circles that my husband's mother moved, wore a girdle and bra. These could be alarmingly expensive if you bought from Spirella or Spencer, however, the majority of women were completely satisfied with the Triumph Doreen brassiere and the Marks & Spencer 'St. Michael' girdle. The satin elastic edition of this foundation garment was not just extremely powerful and functional, it was a very stylish and elegant garment that owed more than a little of its design to Dior.

These catwalk models who were deemed to be 'oversize' in the 1960's would have been very familiar with the Triumph Doreen and the Marks & Spencer girdle.

BRASSIERES: The Triumph Doreen

Many years ago, the Triumph Doreen surpassed anything that my favourite made-to-measure brand Spirella could produce and I've been a devotee ever since. Their sizes in short, medium or long length range from 32A through to 52K (and possibly more besides). That the style has remained unchanged for six decades is a tribute to this wonderful garment.

CORSETS:  The Spirella 305

Certainly not mainstream, Spirella, with its hundreds of corsetieres on three continents managed to supply millions of women with made-to-measure garments for close on eight decades. Their best selling garment was the 305 series corset. It was made-to-measure and provided a superb support for any women traditional enough to require it. The front-lacing was relatively easy to adjust and since a corset is a specialised garment, the availability of options such as extra suspenders, stiffer boning and under-belts meant that the device could be adapted to suit all shapes.

Mind you, the Spirella 325 was also a formidably effective garment and these three women, peering hopefully over the town for a glimpse of Mr. Right, have used their expensive corsets to good effect. The lady in the middle who suffers with a painful back has four rigid steels (two on each side of the back lacing) and she has pulled her corset far tighter than necessary to achieve quite a spectacular waistline.

GIRDLES:  Marks and Spencer  1950's - 1970's

The two dozen girdles in our collection are as powerful today as they were 50 years ago when some of them were purchased. Not one is less than 30 years old and I have worn the one that fits me on several occasions. If it were to be my regular foundation, I'm sure it would last another couple of decades. The model on the left wears a brand new M&S girdle from the 1960's. She was so impressed that she offered to buy it. These girdles were on sale in various forms from 1940 to 1970, and the classic satin elastic version lasted for nearly two decades before plain Lycra and nylon took over.

They don't make them like that any more!

PANTY-GIRDLES:  The Sears Hi-rise

The Young Smoothie 1068     We were remiss in not including this stunning garment when we first compiled this page. This girdle was a favourite of Lyn Locke and contains all the quintessential features of a powerful American 1960s panty-girdle. Didn't she wear them well.

We are very lucky to have one of Lyn's own Young Smoothies in our collection. It shows signs of wear and regular washing but this girdle will last for another decade of regular use.

The Sears 28497 Long Leg Panty Girdle vs. the Custom Maid 299 Panty Girdle   We have used our young model, Victoria, to 'road test' these two American panty-girdles.   Just by hefting these two girdles, it is immediately apparent that the Sears (top row) is a more robust device. Apart from the delightful satin panels at back, front and sides, there are few other feminine touches.   The Custom Maid is more lightweight and lacy and, despite lacking the controlling satin side panels, is simply a more feminine garment.   Both girdles have light boning at the sides and back and are entered by means of a left-hand-side zipper backed up by hooks-and-eyes.   Many women want their underwear to be pretty, even if nobody but themselves will ever see it, however, as Victoria shows off on the right, if you want to flash a sneaky peak of your girdle, the lacy bottom of the Custom Maid is more titillating than the plain hem of the Sears.     Would the Sears be for the mother and the Custom Maid for her daughter? Probably not. Most girls (back then) wore what their mothers wore. I think it would have been more a matter of control and the robust Sears would suit a more robust anatomy.   It's like comparing a M&S girdle to a Miss Mary of Sweden. The latter is so light that you wonder if it can have any control at all - but it is very pretty.   After all, we are talking about foundation garments here and the bottom line is that your choice of girdle should allow your clothes to fit and hang correctly.

Comments:

We received many replies when this page first appeared on our site. As one would expect, there was partisan support for national brands and personal favourites, however, if the models above could be described as generic, then we were not too far off the mark.

"Ever since I was old enough to appreciate what my mother wore, her foundations, without exception every day were her Triumph bra and M&S girdle. This ritual was passed on to myself when I was 15 and I never queried it or thought anything of it at all. I was aware that not all my friends were similarly clad but that did not bother me until I went to University. I suddenly became socially aware and I never wore a girdle of any sort after that except when I was at home, and by 1969 my mother was the only supporter of M&S in the household; much to her dismay!"

As a teenager, she occasionally wore one of M&S’s most powerful girdles and referred to it as “The Beast!”

"Granny wore Spirella corsets all her life. She claimed to have started in corsets when she was 10 (liberty bodice?) and every year thereafter was visited by the Spirella lady except during the war. She was heart-broken when Spirella closed in the late 80's and she invested heavily from her pension to purchase six corsets to 'see her out'. This they did, however, she lost a lot of weight in later years and when she died, all her corsets had been taken in, sewn and re-sewn as the stitching had parted under the strain."

Some very detailed recollections of the Marks and Spencer girdle are included in the page on Marks and Spencer.

"Clothes maketh the man, but foundations maketh the women" as my corsetiere was wont to say. There is no doubt that the combination of the Triumph Doreen long-line bra and M&S girdle was one of the best foundations that a woman could wear. This would come at a cost of less than a quarter of the made-to-measure Spirella equivalent.

Millions of American women, from grandmothers to grand-daughters wore the Sears hi-rise, long-leg panty-girdle in the 1960's. The panty-girdle was never so popular in Europe as it was in America. British women went from girdles to mid elastic knickers without the intervening decade of panty-girdles that their transatlantic sisters enjoyed.