They call the denim jean the "modern day corset "!!
Gone are the days in which one had to suffer through the horrifying tortures of the "two way" or the "slenderella", as corsets used to be named affectionately .....
Well, maybe not affectionately.... I remember Mommy Darling had an appliance made out of thick rubber, rather like those rubber shower mats you get in hotels to stop you from slipping.!! It was made of tubular rubber about 18 inches in length, and you had to actually climb inside the darn thing.
Well climb is probably the wrong word to use, squeeze, squirm, squelch your way inside, would be a more appropriate choice of words !!
It helped to lather the inside of the corset with talcum powder to make the adipose tissue more sensuously slithery, more malleable and less resistant. The purpose of this machine of indescribable torture was to shape the body - miraculously transform a rather matronly figure into an hourglass shape, holding all the quivering flesh tight and firm and creating a rather more curvaceous arrangement of one's flesh.
Lets face it, the desired effect was to look...well...slimmer. But unfortunately that was not the case.
For a start, the corset needed to be manufactured out of some sort of nuclear withstanding compound that could only have emanated from NASSA. To cope with the battering that the corset took, the grappling with every ounce of strength a gal had, to apply the tortuous item, there was a considerable amount of abuse sustained by struggling fingers and thumbs.
The stubborn body armour needed to be coaxed, nay, bludgeoned over those quivering thunder thighs, grappled desperately past the multitudinous love handles, to sink thankfully and gratefully over the quivering gelatinous belly and then to be coerced even further across the dreaded midriff bulge.....
It was a labour of love, a heaving, sweating, extraordinarily exhausting labour of love.
(By the way, I still utilise the 'Slenderella's' cylindrical tube to house my knitting needles to this day!!)
And to what end I hear you ask Well for beauty of course, for vanity, for pride. Imagine how magnificent Mommy Darling now looked, her gargantuan size was now successfully reduced from a size 22 to a size 20 (around the hips that is) because what Mommy Darling did not realise , and what we all failed dismally to tell her, was that her hips may have reduced in size, but all that flesh had to go somewhere, and now her ample bosom looked the size of a block of flats !!!
To say nothing of her knees !!!
It was pure weight displacement, nothing else, poor Mom, she was totally exhausted but in vain oblivion to her plight, and one thing was for sure, NO ONE was going to enlighten her !!
My goodness, that was a long preamble, what I was really trying to tell you girls, is that the corset as Mum knew it, has now made way for the much more alluring denim jean brigade......
It is a miracle is it not The jeans strain pleasantly over the vast derriere, it is probably an optical illusion but the butt possibly looks a tad smaller......but HOLD ON.....what has happened to the size of our knees !!!!
And why do I have difficulty in breathing, is it because my midriff is now tucked uncomfortably but securely under my solar plexus.
Ah Vanity ... thy name is Woman...... but grateful thanks to Mr Levi !!