11. What Women Wore
In response to several questions having to do with what women wore in the late fifties and early sixties:
While I have a fairly detailed memory of what I wore, and what my sisters and closest friends wore, my memories of what was worn by my peer group (i.e. gym class) or women in general (i.e. swim club) is a bit vague. Still, these are my impressions:
1) Open-bottomed girdles were generally dominant from 1956, when I first became aware of women wearing girdles, to 1962, when I first wore one. While this may have had something to do with the fact that skirts were relatively full in this period (for young teenagers like my sisters) and therefore thigh control wasn't needed, I do remember that longer open-bottomed girdles were worn under narrow skirts as well. I remember having a sense that girdles with legs were considered more informal. My two eldest sisters had some and they wore them with more casual dresses and skirts. These girdles were lighter control than their normal school girdles and didn't have elaborate boning or decoration. I don't have any memory of girdle briefs in this period. I don't know for sure, but I suspect they weren't widely worn.
2) The long-leg panty girdle started becoming the girdle of choice for high school girls around 1962 or 63 and were, I assure you, totally dominant in the period from 1964 to1969, when they started going out. Certainly a major part of the reason for this is that skirts and dresses had become overwhelmingly narrow and close to the body, so thigh control was needed (ironically, getting thigh control often meant letting the girdle leg be visible underneath the fabric of the skirt or dress). Also, there was a significant change, at this time (I'm sure some of our local experts on chemistry and weaving can enlighten us about this) in the material from which girdles were made. I believe that Lycra actually came in around 1964. The new materials seemed to make it possible to have a really firm control long leg panty girdle without bones and without as much ride-up of the girdle leg. I don't think the popularity of pants had anything to do with it.
3) I didn't wear girdle briefs much in this period and still don't because I prefer having thigh control. But many girls wore them, as I remember, under pants and shorts. They virtually never wore them under dresses to school. They were definitely considered casual wear, and a lot of girls liked them because they didn't "show" quite as much under tight pants as a long-leg panty girdle (though these too were worn under pants by girls who believed they needed them, including myself on the few occasions on which I wore pants).
4) The decision of what girdle to wear was determined by a girl's figure strengths and weaknesses and by the dress or skirt to be worn. No man, and no one born after about 1958 can ever possibly imagine how much (too much) careful thought was put into the question of what girdle to wear with what dress on a daily basis, by millions of women, for several decades. My sisters and I used to have short consultations about this issue before dressing for school, and long consultations when we were getting dressed up for a date or occasion.
In retrospect it is both quaint and horrifying. But you have to remember that there were an infinite variety of girdles to choose from in those day, and we had extensive and highly specialized girdle wardrobes. I had girdles that gave more tummy and derrier control and less thigh control, more thigh control and less derriere control, girdles with boning, girdles without, girdles that could be worn comfortably all day long and girdles that couldn't, etc. We had to decide what trade-off we were willing to make of comfort for control, depending on the formality of the occasion. There were so many things to consider. We were like batters choosing a bat or golfers choosing a club or iron. During high school (1964-8), I wore a long-leg of some kind about 80% of the time. I often wore open-bottoms with fuller skirts, and I had a few boned and zipped and one memorable Playtex rubber girdle for occasions when comfort was not an issue and I had to look my very best.
5) In those days panties were indeed always worn under open-bottomed girdles. Some girls wore panties under long-legs and some girls didn't. I get the impression that it was sometimes a matter of contention between mothers and daughters.
A few other points that have occured to me since my last post:
1) One other factor that was often involved in girdle choice was weather. During the summer, wearing a long-leg panty girdle all of the time could be trying. I still did it, if I had a summer job, or if I was going on a date or anywhere special. But for summer days that didn't involve any public demands, my sisters and I wore what we called summer girdles. These tended to be rather comfortable light to medium control panty girdles that were either open or short-legged. I particularly prefered something called "boy leg" panty girdles for wear with more casual summer skirts and dresses. I have no idea why they were called "boy leg," but what they were were short-legged panty girdles with the garters suspended from the bottom of the girdle leg (rather than under the girdle leg as was the case with long-leg panty girdles). I wish they still made these, but I haven't seen them in years. The short legs offered the possibility of free and therefore cool thighs. Yet the fact that it was a panty girdle, and not an open-bottomed girdle offered a greater freedom of movement.
2) Dress-up girdles were a whole different category. Although many of the long-leg panty girdles I wore were extremely controlling and could be worn with the dressiest clothes, I always owned several boned and zipped (in one case rubber) professionally fitted girdles that gave extraordinary control and were worn for church, the dressiest dates, and the dressiest social occasions (weddings and such). In addition to making it possible to look your best and then some, these girdles made it possible to have the most perfect, "lady-like" posture. They weren't comfortable for long periods of time, but they weren't that uncomfortable either. They were like corsets in that respect. They were also like corsets in that they put you into a specific formal mind-set that made you feel very elegant and that made you care less about comfort. They put you on stage, as it were. I loved wearing these girdles. I loved the specialness of them and the clothes I wore with them.
3) Another factor that had to be taken into account in girdle choice was the way in which a specific girdle, as my mother would say, "indented" you. That is, if you were wearing a closefitting dress without a belt, it was necessary to wear a high-waisted girdle so that the point where an ordinary girdle would "indent" your waist would not be visible.
4) When short skirts came in, long-leg panty girdles paradoxically became even more universal than they had been before. The reason for this, as I remember from my personal feeling, and from a few discussions I had with other girls, is that it seemed more modest for a long-leg panty girdle leg to peek out than for a stretch of bare thigh to be visible. It was not until pantyhose came in and girls started wearing girdles over pantyhose that shorter leg panty girdles started to be popular.
Continue to Girdles Under Blue Jeans
Copyright 1995 by Suzanne. Used with permission of the author.
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Originally Posted April 20, 1997