Katherine's Vintage Foundation Secrets!

(Scroll down to "We'll start at the top," below, to go straight to the tips about buying your bridal foundations and skip the technicalities and fashion history lesson!)

I learned, early on in my movie-costuming career, that there were subtle details that gave a special magic, art and authenticity to certain styles and looks; details which were not at all obvious and could be easily overlooked. Nowadays, I watch historical movies with a trained eye and I delight in the ones that make me feel like I am whisked right back in time while I "tut-tut" disapprovingly when the movie's costume designer has been too naive to attend to these critical subtle details. Most people will not be able to put their finger on exactly why they are "being transported to another place" and why, at other times, they feel they are merely watching actors pretending. Whether we know why the magic is there or not isn't important unless we are responsible for creating the magic!

On your wedding day, you and your collaborators are creating the magic. So let's talk about some subtle details that might not be immediately obvious about the look you will be creating as the star of your wedding in your wedding dress!!!

Whirlingturban dresses specialize in referencing a period of fashion history, originally popular from the late Forties to the early Sixties, called the New Look. Fashion repeats itself. This look, at the time, referenced a much earlier period of fashion history, and fashion has regularly referenced different New Look period details ever since. There is no need to get too caught up in the history if you are not a vintage buff. There is something classically appealing about these styles and you'll find plenty of references to them right now in the very latest European Haute Couture. (Who doesn't love Audrey Hepburn?)

To capture not only the obvious elements of this look but to capture THE SOUL of it, it's important to know that the lingerie worn under the dresses of this period was absolutely and completely different from what we wear today! Wear today's lingerie (or lack of it) under a wedding dress in this style and in many cases you may forfeit a percentage of magic!

We are so accustomed to the undies we wear every day that we forget how much a part of fashion, self-expression and culture our undies are.

A Little "Undie" History and Trivia

Up until around the 1980's, lingerie departments were still called "Foundations". This is because, for much of the 20th century, what you worn under your clothes was the "foundation" upon which you built the rest of your look, every bit as crucial as the foundation of a house and often as firmly constructed! Imagine a house with no foundation! Schloompy!

Until the 1920's, Western women wore corsets. Corset shapes changed almost as regularly and differed as widely as dress fashions did from decade to decade. So if you look to buy a "corset" today, bear in mind that there are an infinite variety of corset shapes and styles although the vendor where you shop may specialize in a certain style.

Modern actresses who are not used to corsets have sometimes balked at having to wear them for acting roles. Corsets can be distracting when one is not used to them. However, not only will the actress not look the part because she will not be SHAPED the part, she will also not carry herself and move as women of the day did- corsets affect all of those things! There are also actresses who don't feel as though they are the character until they don the corset on because it does so much and can be magically transforming. (Relax, though- we will not tell you to get a corset!)

In the Twenties, flappers went to soft, unconstructed silk underwear. Flat chests with straight up-and-down, cylindrical figures in tubular dresses were the rage. It was also considered extremely shocking that one could discern natural female body parts silhouetted and moving under the outer garments! Really shocking and daring, and surely as much case for dismay among parents as today's tattoos and body modifications! To think that the natural body wouldn't be discreetly disguised under a kind of armour!!!

By the Forties, the undies were still relatively soft although not merely the silk flimsiness of the flappers. In the forties the outer garments gave lots of feminine shape to the body- the cut of the clothes, the tailoring, the draping, the shoulder pads- it was all emphasizing curves again.

The in the Fifties, we went to the look of sculpted megacurves from within. This look was accomplished in one of two ways. If you happened to be born with gravity-defying, exaggerated curves like Marilyn, and you were so daring as to not mind being be thought a shocking sinner, you could wear not a stitch under your dress and, in fact, be sewn into it so as to reveal your every curve, as Marilyn was on many occasions, God bless her! Imagine after centuries of everything from body armour at least a few layers of soft underwear under non-tight clothing what a JOLT it must have been to see Marilyn's buoyant and highly-contrasting dimensions in a clinging, form-duplicating silk dress without even a zipper to distract! Few were this brave, back in the day.

Everybody else BUILT those figures, using technology reminiscent of the WWII aircraft factories and cars of the day! Bullet bras pointed breasts skyward while engineered girdles cinched waists ingeniously and tapered hips aerodynamically:

In fact, gals got so accustomed to seeing a girdled bum that an ungirdled bum in a sheath dress came to be considered tarty and scandalous. (We have to take all these things into perspective when we start judging this, that or the other as scandalous and disreputable. "Scandalous" is so subject to current fashion and indeed has so little to do with genuine morals, but we do digress. )

The New Look in haute couture pure form involved what today seems to be an impossibly tiny waist! Google, "Dior New Look" and see some examples. Or have a look at this typical 50's fashion illustration:

Note that in the illustration above, the waist is visually SMALLER around in circumference than her HEAD is! MY HEAD is 22 inches around!

THUS, we ask, can we mere mortals wear this look? (Audrey can hardly be considered a mere mortal although her waist does, mercifully, appear to be a smidgeon bigger than her forehead.)

Okay, now we start to get someplace in terms of tips you can use to create your own special magic! For even though Audrey was a typical, emaciated star, her waist nipper practically screams at the sleuthing eye in the above photo. For this look, the undergarments were worn not only to "pull in" but also for a formal "sculpted look". If she can dance in it with Fred Astaire, you can be married in a waist nipper if that's what it takes to draw gasps of awe and create those heirloom photos!

Vintage Foundation Tips YOU Can Use!!

- If you are very slim. a B/C cup and just want want to be comfortable, Whirlingturban dresses with all their built-in structure should be sufficient for you already unless you are going to for a "radical waist nip" by today's standards.

-If you are modern bombshell in the tradition of the Marilyn's and Jayne's and if you are not ordering for a wedding dress, your Whirlingturban dress may surprise you and be the only thing you own that you feel you can wear braless!

-If you are modern, voluptuous bombshell and you are ordering a Whirlingturban wedding dress, welcome to the world of vintage foundations, and please do not neglect the first layer - the FOUNDATION- of your look!

We'll start at the top.

FOR SMALL BUSTED GALS ONLY:

If you are very small-busted, you will probably like the extra oomph that can be achieved with the right shaped/padded bra and small push-up pads. The object, with the New Look, is to get as much contrast between the bust waist and hips as possible. You want to go "out" at the hips and bust and "in" at the waist. We cannot get the right shape into our bodices by cutting them in an A cup; we must cut them into a small B cup. But every one of our A cup customers has been delighted with the results. You do not have to wear "falsies". We only ask for a minimal bit of pushing up of "the real you".

"Cookies" are small push up pads that are sometimes put into a removable pocket in the lower part of a bra or else can be purchased by themselves in a well-stocked bra or foundations department. They are not “falsies”. They are about the size of a small cookie and all they do is to push some of the flesh curve on the under side of your breast to the upper side of your breast, so that the breast clings attractively to the upper part of the bodice.

Push-up pads do the same thing but just tend to be a bit larger. They have different shapes, some also pushing both the outer lower breast AND the middle lower breast up. In the "top of the line" realm, there are the mega-realistic and favored-by-starlets "silicon gel bra inserts", known affectionately as "chicken cutlets" since they resemble in shape and texture an uncooked chicken cutlet. Still, we don't know that you want to be sporting these on your wedding night, whereas cookies and pushup pads can sneak by as part of your lacy lingerie package.

Whirlingturban assures you (with considerable authority) that this is what makes the Hollywood glamour queens what they are (or appear to be.) It’s that little bit of extra effort and expertise more than it is “extra generosity doled out to certain dolls by That Big Production Line In The Sky”!

We suggest you wear a BRA with your Whirlingturban dress *when you order a Whirlingturban dress as a wedding dress* unless you are going for wedding look that is "quite hubba-hubba".

We also suggest a bra for any dress we make for gals with more than a DD cup. Whirlingturban bodices are very, very structured. When purchased to be worn for less formal occasions, they are usually worn without bras, while sometimes for the larger cup sizes we reduce the amount of boning so that the bodice will mold better to the foundation underneath.

What kind of bra?

You need to use the type of bra for your body pics that you will be wearing with your dress. If you do not have your wedding bra at the time you send us your body pics, please endeavor to use one that has a cup shape similar to what we are describing below. It does not have to be strapless.

If you can resend your body pics later with your actual wedding lingerie and at the same time double check your measurements, this is ideal, and is required for gals that have figures that will be altered considerably by their special wedding lingerie.

For your wedding bra, you want a strapless bra that feels secure, that you do not have to worry about and which feels as though it is going to stay in place. You do not want a very low back since our dresses are not cut exceptionally low in the back and a low-back strapless bra feels less secure.

As I will mention below, I don't generally think a long line bra is one's best option for waist or midriff control. However, a long line bra or "Merry Widow" can sometimes feel more secure and less "slippy" than a shorter length strapless bra. Just be sure it's snug and flat against you; not adding any bulk or bumpiness that will show through your dress.

(Another option for security is a double-sided tape such as "Top-Stick". I got some recently at Sally's Beauty Supply. No movie costumer would ever be caught without it! It's a strong double- sided tape originally designed to keep toupees in place (!) and it can be used to secure anything on an important day including your bra, the upper edge of your bodice if it suddenly seems to want to slip down, your strap- you name it!)

It is imperative that you get a classic-shape cup. By "classic" in this context we mean somewhat retro in shape. We do not mean an exaggerated "bullet bra" like the one in the illustration above ut it has to be ever so slightly conical. Bra shapes change with decades just as styles do, so be aware of the cup shape. You can use push up pads in your bra, but do NOT use a "push-up bra" or Wonderbra that pushes all the volume of your breasts toward the center of your chest. This type of shape will fight with the classic retro shape of our bodices and will look all wrong. Do not use a stretch or sports bra for you body pics. (We assume you know not to use one of these for your wedding bra!). Do not use a molded bra that has a very modern, unnatural round half-grapefruit shape. In general we are wary of molded cups as they are usually modern-looking and not natural-looking so please try to avoid them if you can. Please do not use a minimizer; again, this is"mashing" and not a classic, conical, retro, breast-like shape.

A stitched, seamed-cup bra is preferable if you can find one. Otherwise please note the cup shape below and go for a shape like this:

Choose your wedding bra for shape and staying-in-place security first and pretty-when-your-dress-is-off second, not the other way around!!!

NEXT... TO THE WAIST!

Back to the trivia: We all know that Americans are plumper than they were several generations ago. But did you know that we are also taller, have bigger feet and woman have larger waists in proportion to their other measurements, as an issue completely unrelated to how much we weigh today compared to generations past?

In other words, a woman in the 1940's might have worn a size 5 shoe, had a 35 inch bust, a 23 inch waist, had 35 inch hips and been 5 feet 2 inches. A woman today with a 35 inch bust and hips will probably be 5' 4 inches, have a 25 inch waist and wear a size 7.5 shoe! Her "rear" is the same size; she isn't any "fatter" than the 40's gal with the 35 inch derriere. Our BONES have changed! So even if you're slim, your vintage counterparts had an advantage over you in making the New Look's waist-focused styles work.

Anybody who wants to do so can benefit from a "waist nipper" for a "New Look" style when worn as a wedding dress. (Some of our vintage-loving Whirlingturban customers who buy our dresses for purposes other than weddings use them, too, but most do not.) But if you have a waist measurement 27" or over, especially if you are wearing white (which is a "fattening" color) and 'absolutely especially' if you are wearing satin (also "fattening"), you just positively have to get yourself a waist nipper to wear with your Whirlingturban wedding dress!

There are many styles of these garments made now, and with all the great stretch fibers available today, they really are quite flexible, cool and comfortable. You don't have to wear a corset or something with metal. It is not only going to whittle down your waist gorgeously but it's going to give you a subtle elegant "sculpted" look and help the fabric of your dress move and glide over your body. You will just LOVE the way it looks! It will be a nice addition to your wardrobe for when you want to dress-up and wow them. All today's starlets have them;, it isn't a "fat girl" thing. And they are not expensive.

The main thing you want is to get one that actually does some work. For this reason, I am in favor of a separate waist nipper rather than a long line bra or an all-in-one body suit. If you get a separate garment for your waist, you will be sure to get the bra fitting right and the waist nipper working optimally and fitting correctly. The waist nipper can settle into the smallest part of your waist without dragging the bra down with it or shoving the bra up more than you want, etc.

It's difficult enough to get the perfect bra. To ask that the perfect bra for your dress also happens to be the perfect waist nipper is a bit much to expect. The bra is extending down to the waist down doesn't ensure that it is tight enough down there to really be working and pulling you in; long-line bras must of necessity be rather "one size fits all".

By the same token, just because you are wearing a stretchy undergarment of some kind in your waist region doesn't mean it is doing much. This goes for all-in-one body shapers as well. An all-in-one body shaper may be firming you but is it nipping the waist? Maybe yes maybe no. Have a look again at the illustration of the 50's contraption above. See how there are special sections and panels designed do accomplish something there in between the bottom of the rib cage and above the hip bones? It isn't just a pair of lycra bicycle shorts. So that one was built to do something at THAT spot. Yours must be, too, although there are many ways to accomplish that. The mere presence of stretch fabric isn't enough, however.

For the waist-focused New Look, we want to specifically move the soft flesh at the waist into a slightly different position. Before you get alarmed at the idea, this isn't anything different than we do with a bra. Just as we want a structured bra that shapes the breast rather than a stretchy sports bra that isn;t doing any "molding", we want to do the same with the waist. We aren't suggesting you move organs about or induce swooning. But the look will be adorable (just look at Audrey above) if you bring that waist in a little bit extra. So you can't wear sneakers or a shapeless stretch bra on your wedding day- you can live with that- and you might need a little waist nipper. You can live with that, too. You'll feel SO glamorous!

I am very willing to be proven wrong, but I don't see how something that stretches over your hips is supposed to contract so far as to then pull in your waist. Therefore I think waist nipping garments should have closures like hooks and eyes or zippers. Lace-up eyelets and busks can do the job but tend to leave a bump that is hard to cover up and make look smooth under the wedding dress.

Go to a WELL-STOCKED lingerie department and take a tape measure with you. Try waist-nipping garments. They can be mid-section only items or girdle type items or whatever. Have a look at what each one does for you.

- What does it do for your waist profile as viewed straight-on from the front?

-What does it do for your tummy, if that is an issue, when viewed from the side?

-what does it do for your midriff, if that is a concern?

-How smooth is it when closed? This is especially important if you are going to be wearing a silk satin sheath dress!

-Also for a sheath dress- what's it doing, if anything, for your hips and is that something you also need to consider?

-Compare the ones you like using the tape measure- how much does it take off your waist? It should take at least an inch off your waist measurement. (The smaller you are, the less it will change your measurements.) POP QUIZ: And why should you wear one for just an inch? A: Remember that even tiny Audrey wore one- it gives you a little bit more contrast at the waist, a little stronger "look". This is one of the subtle "X Factors" that makes the New Look distinctive. And it will also give your waist a "sculpted look" besides being "nipped in" just a little bit extra.

-Boning isn't a must in a waist-nipping garment but is probably a good thing. Check that your nipper isn't going to roll or flip as you move or sit, but don't expect to be able to slouch in it. Check that the boning, if there is any, feels like it isn't easily bent permanently out of shape. If you can bend it easily with your hands and it doesn't snap back into shape, it's very poor quality and it probably won't do a very good job for even one occasion. Be sure that the garment you choose isn't more of a costume for boudoir fun than it is something that is going to do the job.

Different stores can have a very different selection of garments in their lingerie departments! Don't stop at just one if you haven;t found the right waist-nipper!

If you would like to order online, here is a great resource:

www.Herroom.com

You can order as many as you want from them and return the ones that you don't like! This is really important: order several sizes of the same style! Many times, people end up going with a very different size from the one that the size chart said was going to fit them!!!!

If you find an undergarment online and want to get our opinion about it, please send us the link and we'd be happy to tell you what we think! If you find something you really like. please tell us so we can share it with others!

Crinolines!

If you are wearing a circle skirt for a wedding dress and want "poufy", you also need to shop for a crinoline to wear under the skirt. We have a model we that several of our customers have purchased: MALCO MODES PETTICOAT STYLE 591. These are generally carried at: http://memphisvintage.com/malcomodes.html

The manufacturer, "Malco Modes", makes other petticoat styles that are less suitable and are specialty items for square dancing- you do not want those- be sure to get Malco Modes style 591.

There are two U.S. ebay sellers who sell this style for less than Memphis Vintage. Be sure you have a very clear delivery time if working with the ebay sellers because they have been known to be VERY SLOW in delivering these petticoats!

If you must choose between one that is the right length and one that is the right waist size, buy the one that has the length. It is easier to change the waist size than the length with a quick alteration.

Customers often need to buy two crinolines to get enough fullness. If you have lots of time before your wedding, you can have some fun shopping for vintage crinolines which can be found in many fabrics, shapes and colors. You can get lots of skirt shape variation with your crinolines, depending on the placement, style and fullness of the ruffles.

The Malco Modes are made from cute and serviceable fabrics. Only the bottom will show, so if you want color or the look of a more luxurious or novel fabric, you can always add a ruffle to the bottom. It isn't that hard to add a ruffle and doesn't take an expert seamstress. If you have a pale or white wedding dress skirt and want a "colored petticoat", just add your color at the bottom so that your skirt of your dress doesn't take on a different hue from the bodice.

To support your skirt, you will want your crinoline to be about 2 inches shorter than your skirt unless you want it to show a little which can be very cute. In that case, get it the same length as your dress and it will "peep" out.