Girdle

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about the women's underwear, in the Scots language, girdle refers to a cooking griddle

The word girdle originally meant a belt (or metaphorically speaking, something which confines or encloses, as in Tolkien's Girdle of Melian). In modern English the term "girdle" is most commonly used for a form of women's underwear that replaced the corset in popularity.

Youths boxing in a Minoan fresco on the Greek island of Santorini

Historically and in anthropology, the girdle can be a scanty belt-shaped textile for men and/or women, worn on its own, not holding a larger garment in place, and even less revealing than the loin-cloth, as was used by Minoan pugilists.

Constructed of elasticized fabric and sometimes fastened with hook and eye closures, the modern girdle is designed to shape and smooth a woman's figure, thereby producing a more aesthetically pleasing and attractive silhouette. Most girdles extend from the waist to the thighs. Older girdles were simply sheaths of fabric that did not cover the crotch.

In the 1960s, these models fell from favor and were to a great extent replaced by the panty girdle. The panty girdle resembles a tight pair of athletic shorts.

Both models of girdles usually include garters to hold up stockings.

Girdles were considered essential garments by many women from approximately 1910 to the late 1960s. They created a rigid, controlled figure that was seen as eminently respectable and modest. They were also crucial to the couturier Christian Dior's 1947 New Look, which featured a voluminous skirts and a narrow, nipped-in waistline, also known as a wasp waist.

A girdle that acts also as garter belt

Later in the 1960s, the panty girdle was generally supplanted by pantyhose. Pantyhose replace girdles for many women who had used the girdle essentially as a means of holding up sheer nylon stockings. Those who want more control purchase "control top" pantyhose. Many women forswear girdles, stockings, and pantyhose entirely.

Girdles and "body shapers" are still sold to women who want to shape their figure with a garment. Some of these garments incorporate a brassiere and thus become functionally equivalent to a corset. However, they do not incorporate boning and hence do not produce the constricted waistline characteristic of Victorian-era corsets.