Part One: Introduction
Preface
A girdle is an elastic garment designed to shape and smooth a woman's figure from the waist to the thighs. Most fashion historians agree that it was invented around 1910 by the French designer Paul Poiret, to be worn with the clothing he was designing. Compared to the fashions of the period 1830-1910, Poiret's revolutionary designs placed much less emphasis on the waist and fit much closer to a woman's body in the area of the hips and derriere. Poiret's revolution became permanent in the 20th century. His new understanding of the way in which women's bodies should interact with their clothing, and his invention of the girdle, was a major reason why the corset, which had determined the shape of women's clothing for most of the previous five centuries, went out of fashion.
Girdles were worn by most women throughout the period 1920-70. They were an important part of the fashion aesthetic of these decades. A woman needed to be smooth and sleek if she were to look her best in most of the clothing of this period.
Although girdles became the subject of jokes and the object of resentment when they went out of style in the 1970's, it is important to remember how much they were a part of the allure of the far more glamorous 30's, 40's, 50's, and 60's. Anyone watching the films of this period, observing the way women wore their clothes and moved through space, can see the effect of the ubiquitous girdle. The elegance of Grace Kelly, Rita Hayworth, Veronica Lake, Lauren Bacall, (the list could go on forever) was due in part to this universally-worn garment.
A glance at fashion magazines of this period will also give anyone a sense of the way the girdle was represented as a glamorous garment. Although, of course, ads and articles in fashion magazines had an agenda to promote the wearing of the girdle, the extravagant glamour of girdle ads and articles suggests that women found it plausible to associate girdles with perfumes, lipstick, slips, stockings, and all of the other accoutrements of femininity that tended to be associated with skies filled with stars and swirls, New York nightclubs, and Paris in the springtime. I certainly made this association of girdles with elegance, sophistication, and glamour, as I was growing up in the fifties. And I know that I was not alone.
-Suzanne
A Quick Overview of the Evolution of Girdle Styles
From the Virginian Collection
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This 1896 corset ad appears to use the term "girdle" in its original sense, referring not to the whole garment, but to the belt-like reinforcing band prominently displayed.
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The origins of the modern girdle as a shortened descendant of the nineteenth-century corset can clearly be seen in the example at left. The terms "girdle" and "corset" are used interchangeably in this 1921 advertisement.
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By the mid-1930s, girdle styles had assumed the basic configuration that they would retain to the end of the twentieth century.
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Garments like the 1941 example shown, covering the full torso from bust to to hips, have been known by a confusing variety of names: all-in-one, corsolette, and more. They held a substantial share of the underfashion market in the 1920s and 30, but gradually gave way to the divided bra-and-girdle configuration. Nonetheless, they remain in use today, sold with names such as "body briefer" and "shapesuit."
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The mid-1930s saw early examples of the panty girdle, a control garment with crotch piece and legs. Initially, these were primarily marketed as a lighter-weight alternative to the conventional girdle. |
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As the century progressed, shaping garments gradually came to depend less on lacing and rigid panels and more on rubberized stretch fabrics for more comfortable control. The rubber rationing of World War II temporarily interrupted this trend. |
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The immediate postwar period saw a return to the use of elasticized fabrics. Nonetheless, the typical girdle of the 1940s and 50s was firmly constructed, with extensive use of rigid panels and reinforcment.
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The stretch fabric known as "Lycra" became increasingly popular in the early 1960s, allowing the design of girdles that were light in weight yet still provided effective figure control. The long-leg panty girdle came to dominate the U.S. market, while open styles retained predominance in Europe.
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1968: the eve of a revolution.
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What happened at the end of the sixties? Read Why Girdles Became Unfashionable Or examine the illustrated essays
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The greatly diminished shaping garment market of the 1970s and 80s came to be dominated by the "control brief," a lightly elasticized, waist-length panty without legs.
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Continue to Part Two: Modern Girdle Styles
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Updated December 2003