Part Three: Setting the Record Straight
Are Girdles Really Coming Back?
Aren't Girdles Awfully Uncomfortable?
Why Bother?
Women wear girdles to make their clothes fit better, to support their backs and stomachs, and to correct what exercise and diet cannot. I feel, however, that there are other reasons to wear girdles. They can be very seductive and even lovely garments. Many men find them very attractive. They deserve a place in the pantheon of lingerie. Having been worn by so many glamourous women in the most glamourous years of the twentieth century, they are certainly as worthy of a place in that pantheon as garter belts, slips, or teddies.
-Suzanne
Are Girdles Really Coming Back?
This is a complicated issue. There is no question that the days are long past when girdles were considered an everyday wardrobe requirement for all adult women... and that was how they were regarded in the mid-twentieth century.
This belief began to fade in the late 1960s. The popularity of the miniskirt, the development of pantyhose, and the advent of the women's movement all contributed to a reassessment of the girdle's role. By the mid-1970s, girdles were considered decidedly unfashionable in most circles.
However, beginning around 1990, the garment experienced a distinct, if limited, revival. Thanks partly to the fashion leadership of designers like Jean-Paul Gaultier and pop stars like Madonna, and partly to the effects of aging on women of the ever-influential Baby Boom generation, girdles staged a comeback.
As Mae wrote recently,
The owner of my corset shop says the girdle business is the best it's been in decades, and growing. For years she did well enough with bras for the under-forty set, but now it's both bras and girdles. The owner thinks Madonna is the woman of the hour because she introduced the young to the girdle as a fashion statement. It's no longer such a dirty word! Apparently a lot of very young ladies of all sizes are getting into real boned and zippered girdles.
Suzanne's experience supports this view, as well:
I have also talked about this topic several times with two women who, owning separate corset shops, are in the front lines of this issue. Both of them tell me all of the time that the girdle business is booming, that younger women are returning to them, that younger women come in all of the time to buy girdles... because they want to look nice, because they've had a baby, because they've gained a little weight, because they have back problems, because there's a return to dressing up, because there's all the retro stuff, because it's in all the fashion magazines, etc. They are convinced that the girdle is back big time.
I must say that I take what they say with a large grain of salt. They know that I buy girdles and that I am a relatively young, not overweight woman interested in style and fashion. I will say, though, that I have seen these women selling shapewear of all kinds to younger women. They order the stuff and it sells. And I have seen many more younger women buying the things in department stores than I ever used to see.
So, are girdles coming back? The answer is "Yes, but..."
Girdles are coming back to a limited degree, but they almost certainly will never resume the role of an everyday wardrobe essential.
For one thing, modern women quite rightly do not feel the need to wear any particular garment, under- or outer- , in order to be "lady-like."
For another, society is nowhere near as formal as it was thirty years ago. There is no longer the need to dress up for everyday activities. Office wear has become much more casual than it was. People go to nice restaurants in jeans. You can rejoice in this freedom, or you can bewail it as the decline of elegance, but it's a fact and it's not going to change. We will never return to the days when the axiom "A lady never leaves the house without a girdle" was presented as serious advice.
However, it does seem that for those occasions when women do choose to dress up, they are far more likely to give some consideration to the use of a shaping garment than they were say, ten or twenty years ago.
As mentioned above, I suspect this may be partly due to people like Madonna and Cyndy Lauper taking over the girdle and redefining its image as something retro, funky, and cool, but I suspect there is another dynamic at work, too. In 1980, the days when women had to wear girdles were still fresh in most minds, and the memory of this dictum tangled in the memory with so many other restrictions on female freedom. In response, women made it a point of principle: "I'm never going to wear one again." The Bad Old Days were too close... if one weren't resolute, they might return.
Nowadays, that's no longer a worry. The specter of June Cleaver is merely a joke, not the looming, threatening presence it was in 1975 or 1980. A woman of thirty can decide to try on a Nancy Ganz shaper without summoning up awful memories of the day her garter popped loose in tenth-rade history class and she had to shuffle to the girls' room with her stockings drooping down, or the fights she had with her mother about going on dates ungirdled. To someone who never had to make the decision to cast off the girdle, it's only a piece of underwear now, not a social issue.
-Virginian
To learn more about the shift away from girdles in the 1960s and 70s, read:
...or visit the illustrated features:
For more information on present-day attitudes toward girdles, read
Aren't Girdles Awfully Uncomfortable?
If a woman has never worn a girdle before, she may find that it feels "different," the first time, or first few times, she wears one. If a woman is serious about giving girdles a try, she should have some patience, seeing if she likes wearing them after a few tries, rather than after merely one occasion of wearing one.
A girdle must fit right. A girdle that is too tight in the thighs, in particular, can cause severe discomfort in the course of a day. On the other hand, once you've grown accustomed to it, you can wear a well-fitting girdle all day and hardly notice it's there. My personal record is about 38 hours, involving a transatlantic trip to attend a wedding. Women often have to sleep in their clothes while traveling, on a long-distance car trip, or on a plane, and if they wear a girdle, well ... it has never really bothered me to have to do this.If you're used to girdles, it's not a big deal. There is a kind of Zen of girdling that sets in after a few minutes or a few hours, depending on your mood, the girdle, and the weather. If you're in the mood to be dressed up, if the girdle is not a real killer, and if the heat is not intolerable, 20+ hours is easy.
Finally- and this may surprise some- many women find wearing a girdle to be a very pleasant experience. The held-in, held-together feeling produced by a girdle makes many women feel more organized, more alert, and more authoritative, as well as more attractive. Many women find that girdles make them feel more feminine, and more graceful. Even a very comfortable girdle will improve a woman's posture, helping her to stand and sit straighter (this may account, to some extent, for the improvement in alertness). A woman wearing a girdle will walk and sit with a charming, careful grace that is distinct from the impressions produced by ungirdled informality. In addition to the pleasant tactile feeling of a girdle, many women enjoy the "vintage" feeling, the sense of dressing and moving like the truly classy Hollywood actresses mentioned earlier.
-Suzanne
Read what other women have to say:
Don't Men Hate Girdles?
Many men find girdles attractive... many more, I think, than has ever been acknowledged. I have a strong impression that most men currently over the age of 40 are turned on by them, because of the associations they formed during childhood and adolescence. It appears that a significant number of men in their thirties are attracted to them too. And some particularly sophisticated young men in their twenties, with an film or literature of the early and mid twentieth century, may be as well.
In any event, I do not believe that girdles in any way deserve their reputation in some circles as matronly garments unattractive to men. As they become more common, I believe that they will lose this reputation and that they will become what they should become: a delightful garment that can help a woman look her best in her clothes and that can provide a certain romantic magic in the relationship between a man and a woman.
-Suzanne
For a wide-ranging discussion of men's attitudes towward girdles, read
Continue to Part Four: Buying a Girdle (For Ladies)
Return to Encylopedia Contents
Page designed and maintained by 
Updated December, 2003