Part One: Reasons For Wearing Girdles -January, 1966
1-1. Why Women Wear Girdles
Flexnit Corp., who recently decided that more questions about girdle usage needed answering, commissioned an independent research organization to prepare a report on the prospective merits of front panel girdle design. Seventy women were queried in depth, all of them regular girdle-wearers from suburbs and nearby areas of New York City. Ages ranged from 25 to 65. This report, released first to Intimate Apparel, summarizes their conclusions and represents perhaps the first time such comprehensive interviewing has taken place.
Although women cite a wide variety of reasons for wearing girdles, the reasons may be grouped into two major categories: support and appearance improvement. It is interesting to note that the relative importance of these reasons varies with the uses to which a girdle is to be put (formal occasions vs. casual or everyday usage), and the figure requirements of the wearer.
Support, which includes comfort, is an area of particularly important concern when women have some abnormal physical condition and when the girdle is to be worn while doing routine household chores (cleaning, shopping, etc.).
An improvement in appearance is particularly important when a woman is going to be in a social situation or when she is generally unhappy about her appearance.
Each of these areas of concern (support and appearance) present a variety of problems to consumers both in girdle usage and in girdle purchase. and each is described in greater detail below:
Support
A sizeable number of the women interviewed indicated that they wear a girdle primarily for support. Included among these women were a number who reported having some specific problem with their backs (most of these 'conditions" dated back to their first pregnancy or to post-pregnancy days). These women literally cannot go without a girdle for any length of time without feeling pain. Often, their doctors had recommended that they wear a girdle and, in this way, started their girdle-wearing days. Illustrations of these feelings follow:
- "I wear one all the time, and I notice that if I don't put one
on, my back starts aching very quickly."
- "Women who have had children feel the tiredness first in their
backs when they are working."
- "I started with the (brand name) after my doctor recommended
it when I hurt my back and I feel I just can't go without it so it goes
on the first thing in the morning and comes off the last thing at night."
- "I started wearing a girdle after my first child was born. It
supports my stomach. You're not as fatigued at the end of the day if
you've been wearing a girdle."
- "I wear it for my bad back. I put it on as soon as I get out
of bed... before my back went bad, I never wore one, but now it is so
important to me that I can't do without it."
- "I wear it for support. It's very plain but it gives the right
support. I am never without it. I get sick to my stomach if I leave
it off."
- "Before that, I used to wear only garter belts just for my stockings. Then when I started working, I found that I would stand with my stomach braced out and bust out, so I thought it needed something for support."
Appearance
While appearance improvement is the major emotional reason for wearing a girdle, it is also an important "rational" reason. Most of the women who said they wear a girdle mainly for appearance were aware of one or more figure faults in their build. Many of these women are uncomfortable when they wear a girdle but are willing to endure the discomfort in order to improve their appearance. Interestingly, these women looked for opportunities where they could avoid wearing girdles. They liked to wear loose fitting clothes around the house- shifts, muu-muus, etc.- so that they could conceal the fact that they were not wearing a girdle.
Most of these women were so self-conscious about their figure faults that they would not dream of going someplace important without wearing a girdle. Some examples of these women's attitudes toward wearing girdles follow:
- "I need support in the thighs and tummy, and feel very uncomfortable
without a girdle. I've lost 55 pounds in the last year, but I still
can't go without a girdle because I feel sloppy not wearing one."
- "I looked around when I first wanted a girdle since I had no
previous experience in girdles. I knew that I wanted something to keep
the bulges on the side and the tummy. I wasn't interested in something
heavy. I wanted a light one."
- "Sometimes it's a necessity. If I put on weight and want to look
good in a dress, I get into it. I don't have a very good time, but I
look nice."
- "After I got married my hips started getting bigger, my stomach
began spreading out and so on. So I thought I would wear a girdle and
I began to wear one . . . I first bought a garter belt and it was so
tight I couldn't wear it so my sister-in-law put it on and stretched
it for me . . . that's what started me wearing a girdle."
- "I don't like to wear anything fitted without a girdle on because I feel like everybody is looking. I've been wearing a girdle for a long time and started because of my big hips. They've slimmed out some."
An infrequently-mentioned reason for wearing a girdle was stocking support. While all women, of course, used a girdle for holding up stockings, only a few wore it specifically to meet this need. Most of the women who used a girdle mainly for this purpose were rather thin and found garter belts uncomfortable.
It should be noted that few women wear girdles for just one reason. Although certain reasons are more important to some women than they are to others, most women wear girdles for a variety of reasons which are fairly common to all women. It has also been proven, as depicted later, that many women are also responding to social and emotional pressures by wearing girdles.
Continue to Reasons For Purchasing New Girdles
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Originally Posted April 20, 1997