Effect of girdles on silhouette

The girdle manufacturers would have us believe that you only have to put on their garment to be miraculously transformed, and periodically publish ‘before and after’ photos demonstrating the remarkable efficiency of their products. Not only do their girdles remarkably improve the models figure, but they usually also improve her posture, makeup and even hairstyle.

But this section we will look at some experiments I have done to see just how much affect girdles really do have. Looking at this figure, you might be tempted to suspect that in Figure 2 I was wearing exactly the same garment for all three pairs of photos. But you would be wrong; for the blue silhouette I was wearing nothing, for the green one I was wearing my Triumph ‘Ideal’ corselette over a Playtex ‘Second Skin’ LLPG (both of which are decidedly firm garments) and for the red one I was wearing an equally firm Playtex ‘I Can't Believe it's a Girdle’. In the lefthand image I have superimposed the outlines of the front and back views, with the back view reversed.

The differences between the three silhouettes are remarkably small. The corselette has noticeably smoothed my chest, but it has also produced some lumps at the back of the waist, as has the girdle, while the hollow in the crotch region of the nude silhouette is the result of a rather brutal operation performed in Photoshop for the sake of propriety. But, apart from the chest and this last difference, the three silhouettes never differ by more than one centimetre, or half an inch, which is quite remarkable considering that the photos were taken at different times.

Perhaps if I had more flab the girdles may have had a more noticeable effect, but it is obvious that the remarkable effects demonstrated in the ‘before and after’ photos have very little to do with the girdles supposedly producing them.


Appearance when wearing Triumph Ideal corselette

Although it does not appear in these outlines, my girdles do have one very obvious effect on my shape. Although they differ substantially in their shape, both men's and women's buttocks are normally rounded, and separated by a substantial groove. However even a relatively lightweight girdle, unless it is deliberately designed to separate the buttocks, will push them together to produce the 'uni-buttock' so fashionable last century. This is the ideal shape for a skirt, but both men's and women's trousers are designed to fit into the groove, and will not hang correctly if they are worn over a girdle.

Note that the only significant difference between the two illustrations is in the way the seat of the trouser sits. This effect becomes even more noticeable with an OBG, if it extend significantly below the bottom of the buttocks.


Appearance when wearing normal briefs

 

Effect of rigid corset

On the other hand a rigid corset is a completely different kettle of fish. I have a Voller corset, which I thought was made to measure, as the shop assistant took numerous measurements, but when I received it (after six months!) and found that it did not fit at all well, I was told it was made to order, to a standard woman's design, but not to measure. It has had a couple of darts put in, but as this diagram shows, it still fits extremely badly. It does produce a substantial indentation at the waist, when viewed from the front, but has very little effect on my side view. The pairs of curves on the left are the front view and reversed back view superimposed.

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