New Knickers
Image source Antigoni
Gentlemen, you may wish to look away now. Be warned. Consider it a ‘spoiler alert’ …
Ladies, I have a hankering for new knickers. In fact, you could say I have a need for them. Gone are the days when knicker elastic could be purchased by the yard and, with the deft application of a safety pin, be threaded through to replace elastic so tired it had given up and gone to sleep… frequently causing embarrassment or severe contortionism as you tried to unobtrusively hitch the offending garment back into place whilst smiling in sweet unconcern. No, these days the elastication is part of said garment and once it has given up the ghost there is little that can be done. It is either part of the garment itself… at which point the whole thing just sags … or is ‘bonded’ to the waistband… at which point you may end up going involuntarily commando.
In the early stages of its demise you may feel a certain freedom as the elastic relaxes… or even, for a brief and glorious moment, be convinced that the diet is working… but after a few such encounters with the loosening ties of decency, you have the awful realisation that something is about to give. The other option, where the elastic is bonded to the top hem, is all well and good… unless you pull a little hastily…and the stretchy stuff simply parts company with the body of the drawers.
Because, of course, we are not talking lingerie here…. Those fragile flimsies you need only breathe on to have disintegrate. I used to have a drawer… nay several drawers… full of the stuff. Insignificant scraps of satin and lace… tangas, thongs, shorts and silk confections à la parisienne… I even had G-strings (which I am sure must have been invented by a dentist, given their resemblance to floss) and something called a C string which looked more like an Alice-band to me… Would I choose to wear the stuff? Very seldom. I prefer something that a) actually fits the real curves of the female form and b) doesn’t make whatever I’m wearing look like a badly tied sausage.
Most of the lingerie was acquired as gifts. The first time one’s partner comes home with a tissue wrapped and perfumed box of silky gorgeousness, you are pleased… delighted… you may even be proud of him for going in there and actually buying it (even if the sizing is unrealistic). Rare and occasional gifts of this nature can be rather nice. Especially when his fantasies have been adjusted to your actual size. When, however, they become an occurrence so frequent as to be predictable, you begin to wonder… If he needs you gift wrapped …? Something other than the elastic has to go… and most of the lingerie went with him.
That was a long time ago and these days I buy my own. Now don’t misunderstand me, I like lace, silk and pretty things as much as the next woman… but…there appears to be an exponential price increase in direct disproportion to the amount of fabric used and to this my frugal soul objects. Nevertheless, a compromise can be reached whereby we find something both attractive and comfortable which doesn’t require a mortgage.
But, you see, I got to thinking… as you do… Knickers are important. And whether you wear briefs, thongs or full-blown bloomers, you need them to have certain characteristics. They are the foundation upon which any outfit is built and in order to look right you have to feel right first. Should we wrestle our forms into something designed for a sylph merely to please someone other than ourselves? Should we follow a fashion designed with starved models in mind in pursuit of the prevailing fashion? Or should we choose to create a foundation that feels right for us… one that fits our skin, suits both our shape and our taste; moves with our activities, changes with our mood and forms a suitable canvas upon which we can build the outer form with which we face the day?
My mother, always an attractive and elegant woman, gave me a superb piece of advice when I was young… go to the ballroom in warm boots; you don’t look attractive if you are blue with cold. The same thing applies to underwear…though I am not advocating thermals here. Just comfort. Unless you feel right, you won’t look right.
But it applies equally to the way we see ourselves… to the foundation we create for our personality and the way we often try and shape ourselves to meet the ideals, needs and desires of others. We can be really adept at fooling ourselves that we are that person too… just as we can convince ourselves we will fit in that little lacy number without looking like an overstuffed haggis… But if our own taste really runs to the simplicity of pristine white cotton and soft lace, why would we wear anything else? If we have a penchant for whalebone and lacing, why should we wear silk and ribbons? In the same way that we choose the right foundation for an outfit, we need to find the comfort and compatibility with life in our own skin. Working, you might say, from the bottom up.
