Undercover

Undercover

There was a time not so long ago when a woman could go out and buy plain underwear. Young women walked freely, smiling contentedly because they could slip into little nothings that fit under their clothes and not worry about “containment”. There was a time when women didn’t worry about, let alone use words like, enhancing-shaper or over-bra-bulge eraser.

Oh who am I kidding? Women have always worried about what is charmingly known as, unsightly bulges. From the moment they hit puberty they worry that some part of their body is hanging out where it should be hanging in. It usually begins in middle school gym class when everyone is changing in that communal hell known as a locker room. You’d be trying desperately to change into horrendous gym bloomers as quickly as possible without revealing anything while surreptitiously checking out if you were the first or last girl in the known middle school universe to be wearing a bra. Too early was awful, too late even worse, and somehow you always felt that you were one or the other.

I remember pleading with my mom to buy me a bra when I was in seventh grade. I had absolutely nothing to actually put into said bra but hopes and dreams, but no matter, I absolutely had to have one. Luckily my mom had a friend who owned a lingerie shop so off we went to get me fitted with a training bra. What exactly I was training I had no idea but I didn’t ask any questions.

I stood there uncomfortably while mom and her friend, Gertie discussed my endowments or rather the general lack of. Gertie sighed and pulled out what I believe was a triple A cup and told me to try it on. I took the precious article of clothing and disappeared into the dressing room so that no one could see me. Gertie, caring nothing for 12 year old angst, pushed the curtain aside, took one look at me and sighed again. I was definitely a challenge.

She told me to take the bra off then proceeded to sew two seams into the cups to make them even smaller. She gave it back to me with a third sigh. I tried it on and was ecstatic. Never mind that I and the bra were perfectly flat, the important thing was that underwear-wise I was a woman at last. I was beginning the long torturous road that all women tread in this crazy world where free women are considered dangerous.

Our grandmothers wore corsets to shape their figures, but somewhere along the way corsets took on a dissolute, sexual air since they pushed things up or down too suggestively. Girdles took over when it became unladylike to present too many curves to the world. Women had to be firmly locked into battle gear to be decent. Only “loose” women dared to walk around comfortably in their clothes. Everyone else wore industrial strength undergarments that left little room to breathe let alone wobble. I don’t think anyone has ever considered a girdle to be even remotely sexy.

And now after a blessedly free period in the sixties, we’re right back where we started only now we call it shape-wear and it’s no longer confined to our mothers. Now all of us feel that we have bulges that we have to straighten out. And since that means either punishing workouts outs, or starving, or going back in time to when we were kids, we’ve elected to hide them. And so shape-wear was born. I hold Oprah responsible. When this lady announces that something is good, her followers rush out to buy it at once, whether it’s a book or a washing machine. And so one day when she announced that the best thing to wear under your clothes was something called Spanx, this product became a girl’s best friend.

The inventor of Spanx underwear, Sara Blakely, says that it was the universal scourge of visible panty lines that inspired her to create her product. So it seems that in order to convince people that you are not wearing any underwear beneath your clothing you have to wear an incredibly constricting piece of underwear under your clothing. Is it me or is it raining oxymorons in here?

The internet is crawling with shape-wear. For a mere $31.00 there’s an arm slimmer that you wear under your blouse so that your triceps and biceps can go from flabby to tres chic in a flash. But then if you’re already wearing a long sleeved blouse who’s going to see the flab to begin with? You can also purchase something called an “over-bra” which cures underarm bulges, a power panty (don’t ask), a mid thigh smoother, (I keep thinking it comes with strawberries) a hide and sleek cami, hi-rise tights, and if you’re fed up with dealing with bits and pieces you can go for broke and order full fledged commando Kevlar armor—the body suit. This covers you from head to toe in spandex so that you’re essentially wearing a suit under your clothing ensuring that nothing will ever fall out and that you will never breathe again. Sort of like Scarlet O’Hara clinging to her bedpost for dear life as she’s being crammed into her corset by her maid, Mammie.

Iran does burquas we do shape-wear. Foot binding anyone?