1950′s Women’s Lingerie: Girded in Girdles and Armed with Bullet Bras
Freedom from bone corsets meant encasement in Playtex’s latex girdles
We thought we’d do a short pictorial essay of women’s undergarments of the 1950′s, an era when women were freed from corsets encased with whalebones replaced with rubber and latex girdles designed to hide a woman’s jiggly butt.
1950′s Olga Lace Girdle Vintage Panties
Before the advent of pantyhose, women used garters, attached to garter belts, to hold up their nylon and silk hose. During WWII when hose was scare, women used eyebrow pencil to draw a straight line from the heel to the back of the knee on their bare legs, hoping to “fool” people.
While the above are panties that include a garter belt, garter belts were often a separate item, layered over panties or a girdle.
Disarming men with the 1950′s Bullet Bra
Like the knight adding armor, women of the 1950′s added layers of lingerie: bra, panties, girdle, garter belt, and then a slip, where some slips were composed of multiple layers of fabric such as the one below.
1950′s Vintage Circle Skirt Petticoat
1950′s women’s undergarments were designed to lift and “separate” women’s breasts, control jiggly butts, and flatten stomachs, hold up hose, and purvey the image of satin and silk encased sexuality while girding women against feisty men.
By LBG
Image – 1950′s Olga Lace Girdle Vintage Panties
While the above are panties that include a garter belt, garter belts were often a separate item, layered over panties or a girdle.
Actually, until the mid-1970s, girdles nearly always had built-in garters. It would have been redundant and extremely unusual for a woman to wear both garter belt and girdle.
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LBG1 Reply:
May 4th, 2009 at 09:17
Thanks Virginian, appreciate the info!
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Blushing — My Mom confessed to me that she disliked wearing these and though she wore nylons, these she rolled down to a few inches above her knees with elastics of some sort to keep them up. The girdles? She disliked as I said, and rarely wore any underwear under her robe at home — even when shopping, on a bus, going to work etc. What a surprise when I went out after The Homecoming Dance & Prom!!! What I thought by experience was easily accessible turned out to be next to impossible to quickly or easily get inside/underneath the resistant & rubberized barriers! What was a young guy to do? HAHAHAHA!!! What memories!
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I have been searching for vintage lingerie. I like colors such as like the one on the Panty with garters, mint green .
I like aquamarine, lilac, peach, and all of the ice cream~pastry colors. Could you e-mail me any information that you might have. Thank You Very Much
Sincerely: Daphne
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LBG1 Reply:
October 2nd, 2009 at 21:50
Daphne,
If you click on the links under each photo they’ll take you to sites that sell vintage lingerie.
Have fun!
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Im looking for the old body girdle,They only came in wite,This itim came with hook andeye.I have been looking at corests but they all do up with lace.I dont like the mondon ones.Im old fashion and this is what i would like.Thank U Megan
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