Before the structure and corsetry of the 1950s was the softer silhouette of the 1940s. These photos are from a fashion feature on summer underwear from 1949, aren’t they beautiful?
1940s Summer Underwear
Underwear
Vintage Lingerie: 50 Enticing Intimates
I have a real visual treat for you this week, a collection of the very finest in vintage lingerie. One of the things I adore about vintage underwear is that it incorporates such a wide range of styles. We’ve got everything here from Edwardian bloomers, to 1930s tap pants, 1950s bullet bras, not to mention(…)
How To Get a 1950s Silhouette
Mid-century fashions are so popular at the moment, but the main reason more people don’t embrace 1950s fashions is because they dont naturally have a typical 50s hourglass figure. It might surprise you to know that this isn’t a case of biology (although it’s true that women are getting taller and larger as the decades(…)
Tiny Waists and Steel Corsets: The Tough Body Expectations of the 1900s
I love the blithe glamour of these vintage corset adverts. They remind me of the uber-glamorous Modess adverts of the 1950s (never before or since have feminine hygiene products been so aspirational). All of these adverts claim comfort (I guess that’s a relative term), and one even has a blissful cherub sleeping snuggled inside it(…)
Waist Training: a Visual History of Corsetry
I found myself wondering the other day about waist training and just how corsets and girdles have shaped women and fashions over the last century. The fashion for different body types has definitely changed with the decades, but what underwear was needed to help women achieve this? I hope we’re getting to an age where(…)
1940s lingerie, the Spencer corset
A before and after shot of a woman wearing a Spencer Corset from 1941. Source and copyright: This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.