Vintage Necessities: Secondary Undergarments, Girdles and Garters

In order to truly live a life that is taken out of the past you need to completely take on the part. An aspect of this is wearing vintage/vintage style everything, even things people don't see under your clothes. There are a few layers that women wore under their clothing, including underpants, bra, slip, girdle, garter, and stockings. The first layer is bra and underpants. Next comes the girdle and garter. Last is the slip, stocking, and crinoline layer. These I call the primary, secondary, and tertiary layers.

Over the next few posts I will discussing the different layers. Girdles are the most complex, I think, so I will start with those.

Girdle:

I have several girdles, open bottom, corselette, waist cincher, shorts, and even spanx. I am not a huge fan of spanx, because they do not give that vintage feel. They smooth, more than control.

I want to note, that I do not buy vintage girdles. I am wary of vintage underpants, girdles, and bras, because of the wear that they may have. Underwear gets worn out, and becomes less useful. A stretched out bra is useless, as I am sure most of you know. A stretched out girdle will not perform as advertised.

I am not a large woman, but am not by any means small either. I do not feel that I need the girdle to improve my figure, but I think that the girdle helps provide the perfect vintage feel to an outfit. If you buy the right ones, they are more like sexy lingerie than granny underwear. Spanx are not the sexy lingerie I am talking about. I wear girdles to make me feel sexy, not to make other people think I am sexy (that is an added bonus, though).

Another thing about girdles is that they give you that signature walk (think the Joan of Mad Men wiggle), especially the open bottom girdle.

Open bottom girdle:

There are many different types of girdles that were popular in the 50's and 60's, but I think none is more so than the open bottom girdle. If you ever watched Mad Men, you will recognize it, especially on Betty:

The best brand that I have found, that is pretty much identical to this (sorry you can't see the bottom) is by Rago. They have been around since the forties, and still make products in almost the exact same way.

You can get them in black, white, black and pink, and a few other options. They have light to extra firm control as well. Most of their girdles have garters, and on some of the designs they are removable.

Waist cincher/ nipper:

The waist cincher/ nipper is like the corset of girdles. The main difference is that it does not have lacing, it comes up under the bust, and it is not as constricting. They typically have elastic bands at the waist that pull it in, and they flatten out the stomach.

Corsets give you a figure like this:

See how the figure is pushed up at the top, and down at the bottom. This gives a pooch, I suppose you call it. The waist may be small, but the rest of the shape is not ideal.

The waist cincher does something more like this:

The waist cincher gives a smoother figure, with the waist gracefully curving in, and the rest of the figure being smoothed flat, not pushed up or down. One thing I found when buying these, is to go a size down. With Rago, the brand can run slightly big in this type of girdle, but just this one. There are a few different types of cinchers/nippers that the brand carries. If your waist is 28, I would go with the nipper that says 26, that way you will have your waist pulled in a little extra, and the over all fit will be better.

The waist nipper they have (821, pictured) does not have garters, but all the other cinchers do, though they are removable. I have a Rago 21 in black.

Corselette:

The corselette is a full body, open bottom girdle. That means it has an included bra. I prefer this type, because it makes my life so much easier when dressing to just pull this on.

This ad features many types of girdles, but the one the model is wearing is the type I am talking about. Once again, Rago has quite a good selection of open bottom girdles (as well as many full body girdles that are not open bottom).

These styles come in: black, white, pink/black, red/black, and mocha/black. I have white and black/red.

They have a low back, which is great for low back dresses. And, the bra part gives you a great vintage shape for under clothes (especially pull over sweaters).

Also, never underestimate how sexy this is. Not everyone has to see it for you to feel sexy. I find just wearing it makes me have a little more confidence, even when no one will see.

The garters are not removable on this.

That is all that I have for you. I am not going to discuss my shorts or spanx, because, well, I almost never wear those. The shorts are good for tight pants to prevent camel toe, but I almost never wear pants. I already discussed how I feel about spanx at the beginning.

All of my girdles have garters, so I do not wear them separately, and will not discuss them separately.

I hope this was useful, and that all of you can start exploring the world of girdles.