Tight Lacing

Today

Had a very pleasant afternoon, lunching with friends. We noticed and congratulated each other on some improvement in our figures. We noticed how our midriff "bagels" had grown smaller.

Regrettably, however, we still all had them and I doubt whether all the exercise and diet will entirely get rid. It's down to clever clothing and holding ourselves in, I suspect.

Today's fashions rely on the what's underneath being in good nick, so to speak, or covering up what shouldn't be shown. And those pin-thin models don't really help us to judge. Trinny & Susannah help in showing the way, but flab is flab.

In My Day

'Twas not always ever thus. When I was a child women were still corsetted. My mother used the services of a company called Spirella. About twice a year the "Spirella Lady" would call. She would closet herself with Mamma and measure up for the new set of corsets. I think I was sometimes allowed to be present on these occasions.

"Spirella" was a patented systems of flat metal spiral whalebone. They were flexible but held you in in all the right places. The corsets were salmon pink in colour (I don't know whether they came in other shades but that's what Mamma had) and did up with about 50 hooks and eyes. They also had laces for fine tuning and suspenders to attach to your stockings. They were very practical and a far cry from French underwear.

They also took a deal of getting into and, once hooked into them, there you stayed till bedtime.

I remember reading in one of those funny "overheard" books of a woman calling from her bedroom window to her husband "Will you be needing the use of my body or can I put my corsets on?". With Spirella in mind I can fully understand it.

The corsets conferred splendid posture as it was impossible to bend much once you'd got them on. However my mother did move with the times and, by the late '60s was wearing elasticated "corselettes".

Magic knickers do work, however, thanks, M&S. And I'll keep up with the exercise.