Part One: My First Girdle
My first girdle was specially purchased for me by my mother so I could be properly dressed to be a bridesmaid. The year was 1946.
Not long after my 14th birthday my sister and I were invited to be bridesmaids in a cousin's wedding. I suspected then, and still do, that they wanted my sister and took me too to avoid offense. Mother cleared everything of importance with father. When she showed him the pattern for the bridesmaids' dresses, a satin dress fitted at the waist and over the hips, and told him that she was concerned about my figure, he looked at the picture on the pattern and said, "For goodness sake, get the girl a proper girdle!"
My problem by now was a surprisingly full figure for a 14-year-old. Mother never disobeyed father and the next day we went first to the seamstress to be measured for the dresses for my sister and me and then mother took me alone to an exclusive corsetry shop downtown. With little input from me, mother and the saleslady finally chose a white satin straight girdle and a matching longline bra. In the twinkling of an eye I was in a large fitting room in just my panties getting on the bra and, with considerable help, wiggling into the girdle. A seamstress appeared and, after my getting on stockings and getting them properly gartered, I was put on a pedestal in front of a mirror and there was much clucking and measuring by the three of them; mother, saleslady, and seamstress. Another girdle was tried and another bra. As it turned out there was more trouble getting the right girdle and bra than getting my lovely light blue dress completed.
About a week before the wedding we stopped at the corsettiere and I got into the previously chosen girdle and bra and mother put the purchase on her account. The girdle was really beautiful and fit me like a silken glove. It was cut high in the front and low, down over my buttocks, in the back. The waist band dipped a bit front and back. There was an appliqued flower on the tummy panel, little pink roses around it, and pink ribbons over the four garters. There were even little pink roses between the cups and down over the front of the longline bra. The front was arched up and the back arched down over my buttocks. It had four garters covered with pink satin ribbons and there were pink rosebuds on the tummy panel which had a white appliqued rose on it. The longline bra matched the girdle and had pink rosebuds between the cups. Both garments were wonderfully comfortable.
I left the corset shop in the new bra and girdle under my school uniform, feeling like a princess in disguise. When I put on the bridesmaid's dress at the seamstress shop and looked in the mirror I saw not an ugly duckling but a swan. Among other things, for the first time in my life I had some clothes fancier than my sister had, even though they were underclothes.
Bride and bridesmaids dressed in a large room in the church. Mother was my personal dresser. Aunts, cousins, and sundry other females saw me in the new girdle and clearly, for the first time in my life, I was seen as a mature woman. Best of all my sister wore a nice matching bra and straight girdle, but not new and by no means of the quality of mine. As I recall she also had her period and was grouchy. I got much more attention than she did, even when we were dressed. I wore my hair up and mother did a magnificent job on my make-up. I could scarcely keep away from the mirror. I was Cinderella at the ball.
I felt supremely confident at the ceremony, though I was the bridesmaid at the end of the line of six. At the reception I got many comments on my dress. My benevolent and proud father even allowed me a glass of wine. When the dancing started I was never without a partner.
That night at home when getting ready for bed I was surprised when my sister knocked at my door and came into my room and told me that I looked nice and that I was now all grown up. I couldn't believe my ears. Years later in reflecting on that moment I decided that mother and father made her do it, but when I asked her she said that she had really meant the compliment.
The lovely girdle was only part of my transformation, but looking back it was somehow the most important part. I left it out that night, with the bra, on a chair in my bedroom, and then wore bra and girdle to church the next morning. Somehow it made even one of my old Sunday dresses look good.
My second girdle was a panty girdle that I nagged my mother to get me shortly after the wedding so I could wear a girdle to school. It was a pink brief with a short leg and four suspended garters. It was made of an elasticized fabric with a satin tummy panel. I think it was a Jantzen, but I am not sure. Panty girdles at that time were described as for active or informal wear. The garters detached as stockings were not worn by younger school girls then, unless for dress-up. The ample crotch piece was nylon (or maybe rayon) and though the back panel was straight it didn't flatten my derriere too much. By the time I was a junior in high school I had a wardrobe of perhaps half a dozen girdles, half panties and half open. Mother supervised my shopping and girdles and bras were bought in pairs, something I still do. It wasn't that they were sets but rather that they were coordinated in some way.
High school dress in the late 1940's meant blouses and sweaters and nice straight skirts. Cardigans were popular. Bobby socks were, unfortunately, popular too. Most of my school friends were wearing panty girdles to school and sometimes stockings. We would show each other cute new panty girdles in the girls' restroom and talk about clothes and boys consumed our attention. In the spring we all wore lovely pastel cotton dresses which seemed to demand lacy open girdles, stockings, and lace-edged bras.
Late in my sophomore year I started working at the branch of the public library and came under the influence of the head librarian, the stylish but stern Miss Petersen. This was an after school and Saturday job which I kept through my senior year. My sister had worked there before me and Miss Petersen was a patient and friend of my father. Real girdles, not panty girdles, were de rigueur. Miss Petersen's pages were to be young ladies and she saw that they acted as such. We kept a spare girdle and stockings in space allotted to us in our lounge. If one arrived in a panty girdle she was expected to change to a real girdle immediately. Garter belts were regarded as declasse. I once saw a new girl being scolded by Miss Petersen in a back office. The girl was holding up her skirt and slip to reveal rather sagging panties and a garter belt and was sobbing as Miss Petersen lectured her on proper dress. She soon found after school employment at the neighborhood soda fountain where the dress code was surely less strict. As I have written elsewhere Miss Petersen was a marvelous influence on an entire generation of girls, not just in dress, but in deportment and self-discipline.
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