The Boyish Look 1919

St Laurent : A history of Womens Underwear

At the end of the 'Great War' fashions returned briefly to the styles in fashion before the war. However in 1919 a new boyish look was introduced.  The brassiere became a flattener which, in conjunction with a straight corset, endeavoured to eliminate all the girls natural curves. 

Flattener, with rubber girdle, 1926

St Laurent : A history of Womens Underwear

 

In the 1920s corsets made from sheet rubber were introduced.  These could not ‘breathe’, and were often advertised as slimming garments as they made the wearer sweat profusely.  The most successful rubber corset was the Charnaux, introduced about 1930.  This had perforations in the rubber which allowed the body to breathe -- at least to some extent.
Natural rubber is made from the sap of the rubber tree, which grows naturally in Brazil.  When the bark is cut the sap runs out as a sticky white fluid which quickly coagulates into a lump of crude rubber.  Once the rubber has coagulated, it is very difficult to work, but in 1930 a process was introduced which prevented the rubber from coagulating when it was collected.  This allowed the rubber to be shipped back as liquid latex.  When the latex was injected through nozzles into baths of acetic acid it coagulated into even threads, allowing the manufacture of elastic thread of any desired diameter in unlimited lengths.  Techniques for knitting or weaving this thread into elastic fabrics were soon developed, and revolutionised the corsetry industry.


The most successful new fabric was Lastex -- a two-way stretch knitted fabric.  The rigid corsets had always had to have some sort of fastening -- lacing, zip or hook and eye -- to allow them to be put on, but the first elastic garment was the ‘roll-on’, a simple knitted elastic cylinder, without any fastening or means of adjustment, which the wearer could roll onto her body.

Scandale Occulta
Roll-on 1934

As the lady matured she would progress from roll-ons to ‘step-ins’ (with some boning) or ‘wrap-ons’ (with some form of fastening).  Women who had started their lives in rigid corsets usually continued to refer to their corsets, even if they had switched their allegiance to the modern elastic garments, whereas their daughters continued to talk of their girdles, even if they had graduated to rigid corsets.

Early panty girdle

Gossard 1934

The impetus provided by the new materials, and the new manufacturing techniques, revolutionised the design of underwear, and nearly all the major developments of the 20th century were foreshadowed in the 1930s.

 

The first pantygirdles appeared about 1934, and were reported as being very successful, although they do not appear to have been widely adopted in the States until after the war, and did not become popular in Britain until the 1970s.  Most of the major developments in bra design also originated in this period.

Nylon was developed in the late thirties, and the first nylon stockings were released just before the outbreak of war.  They caused a sensation, but soon disappeared from the market as the limited supplies of nylon were requisitioned for parachutes and similar more important uses.


Classic laced girdle

Colmer: Whalebone to See Through

However, despite all these new developments, many of the older ladies remained loyal to their rigid corsets, and these only disappeared as their customers died out in the last quarter of the century.

Bon Ton advertisement

The Home Annual magazine, October 1932

The corselette the delightful lady on the right is wearing appears to be made largely from rigid material, with a small elastic gusset at the front providing some freedom of movement, while the lady on the left is wearing a classic laced rigid girdle.

Notice that in both these advertisements (which both date from the early 30's) the breasts have returned to favour. It is not clear what the lady on the left has under her slip, but her breasts do look unnaturally rounded, and those of the lady on the right are certainly elegantly shaped and supported.

Notice, too, that in almost all these advertisements (most of which come from Australia) the models are wearing stockings. For some unknown reason advertisers in the United States were coy about showing their models in stockings, and the suspenders (garters) on the girdles were usually left hanging.

Just before the outbreak of war there was a renewed emphasis on the waist, and corsets became more common, but wartime shortages soon put an end to this trend.

<< C20/1

>> C20/3

Home