Month of Vintage Underwear: Keeping Warm

Winter is coming, and I’m not going to stop wearing skirts.

Not this year. Not this time.

I really like skirts and dresses. I wear pants, and a good pair of jeans is nice, and all, but most of the time I feel the most like myself in skirts and dresses. The problem, of course, is winter. It gets cold, and all of my resolve departs, and back into pants I go.

One of the primary purposes of undergarments is keeping warm. Now with things like central heating and better insulation, and lives where many go from house to car to building without much time spent outside, it’s easy to forget that.

Modern bras and panties are not good at keeping you warm. A long-line bra with a girdle that covers your core is way more effective. Throw on some big tall socks and it’s downright cozy. Continue reading “Month of Vintage Underwear: Keeping Warm” →

Month of Vintage Underwear: Sourcing Reproduction Garments

There’s a lot to be said for a good vintage reproduction.

Reproduction garments are new and shiny, and have never been worn. Their elastic is not 50 years old. They are less delicate. You can pick your size. You can sometimes even choose the color!

And yet, I don’t buy much repro, mostly because of the cost. However, there are some brands I like.

Merchants With Which I Have Experience

Rago Shapewear

Rago is not technically a reproduction brand–they’ve just been making stuff since 1945. A lot of it is pretty much the same. My (used) Rago cincher-girdle-thing is this one. It does the mid-century job. This is shape wear that does not mess.

Leg Avenue

Your basic stockings. Ubiquitous to costume shops and sex stores. I think they’re overpriced, but it’s convenient if you need to pick up a pair of stockings in real life.

Ebay

Not just the world’s garage sale–there are sellers of reproduction lingerie! Some of my favorites have been:

Europastyle0092–Good quality steel-boned corsets at an unbeatable price.

Handmade Petticoats–I love my petticoat from this seller–a collective of sewing ladies in Wales–and their prices are very reasonable. Goodness knows I don’t want to gather all that organza!

Brands I Don’t Have, but Have Seen Up Close and Covet

What Katie Did

If I were going to spend significant money on vintage reproduction lingerie, this is where I would. They have a variety of period-appropriate silhouettes in period-appropriate colors and it’s so purty I can hardly stand it. But I refuse to spend $50 on a pair of tap pants. That’s just not going to happen.

Orchard Corset

A wide selection of corset styles, and they’re well made and sturdy. Many colors and fabrics, sometimes good deals to be found in their clearance section. I don’t wear corsets enough to need more than one, at present.

Any good sources I missed?

Month of Vintage Underwear: Sourcing True Vintage Lingerie

“Where do you even get those things?”

Since you can’t pick up a 1950 girdle at Target, I often get questions about just where my underwear comes from. The short answer is: “Dead people. Almost every time.”

Ebay finds, 2014. I.e. most of my true vintage underthings (the black one is repro). — Most of my true vintage underthings (the black one is repro)..

The longer answer is the following sources:

Continue reading “Month of Vintage Underwear: Sourcing True Vintage Lingerie” →

Month of Vintage Underwear: Day 7, Corsets are a Cinch

We all knew this day would come. I wore a corset to the grocery store.

A word about this corset: It’s not really terribly mid-century. By then, women were way past the level of cinching that had been popular in the late 19th century, and were using garments that were smaller than mine. These cinchers or “waspies” were somewhat like my corset, just shorter. But I don’t have one of those. Neither have I a “Merry Widow”, which was popular at the time. But I do have an underbust corset, which works about the same way.

Observations:

This feels so good on my back. I mean it. With steel bones and even pressure, I have never been so well supported.
I could have gone quite a bit tighter, I think, but as this corset isn’t broken in, yet, that would have been uncomfortable. If I were serious about using it a lot, I’d wear it for a couple hours a day, until it conformed to my shape more. Then we can talk tightlacing.
I am not responsible for how off kilter this is, as I neither laced myself up nor took the photo. 😉
I walked to the grocery store, the bank, and around the neighborhood for about an hour and was perfectly comfortable. At least, until it was time to run across the street, and then I had to adjust and breathe from the top of my chest.
It took a couple of layers to cover up the lines in my clothes.
The autumn afternoon was beautiful.

Have I gone too far? Or…not far enough?

Month of Vintage Underwear Day 2

Today was the first real test…

There was no way I was wearing a girdle today. I had an audition, followed by a rehearsal, followed by an acting class, and didn’t want to answer questions like:

Why can you only move up and down, and not side to side?
Did someone tell you that you should stand up that straight?
Why are your sides reinforced like a robot?

So I popped on a bullet bra and a garter belt and some stockings and called it a day. Continue reading “Month of Vintage Underwear Day 2” →