Underneath It All

Isn't it funny how we get used to new things and after a while it feels like the new things are the way it's supposed to be? I clearly remember back in the 70s, watching TV with my mother and seeing a Bali bra commercial on TV. They were showing beautiful, happy models wearing Bali bras and they bragged about the wonderful, natural shaping and Mom said something about how it would make you look like you weren't even wearing a bra. I didn't have as strong an opinion as she did about it but I tended to agree with her. I was young and still happy to even need a bra and I didn't want to wear anything to reduce the appearance of what little I had.

Fast-forward to the present. Now almost all bras are the more rounded "natural" shape and the few that are not get reviews on Amazon complaining that they are "too pointy" and "cone shaped" as if that was the most horrible clothing faux pas in the world.

Recently Tasha wrote about sewing retro bras and linked to her earlier post about retro bras. Now this got me interested in trying one myself. My fitted dresses and blouses never seem to fit quite right and it occurred to me that maybe a different shaped bra would make a difference.

The main limitation I have is that I am absolutely fanatical about having seamless cups so making my own is probably not going to happen. Fortunately, we have Amazon reviews and sometimes it's the negative reviews that are most helpful. By reading a whole bunch of these reviews I managed to find two retro shaped bras that are also seamless. Both are Playtex brand.

This one has unlined cups and the sides and back are wider than normal. I'm probably not going to be able to wear this with anything sleeveless. Also, I get just a bit of wrinkling on the cups but, overall, it's not too bad. It's wearable, at least in the winter.

And here's the other one. It's my favorite of the two. I think it will work fine for summer clothes although it is lined, which can be a good thing or a bad thing just depending.

Now, I hope you're still reading because here's the funny thing. When I first tried these on I was a bit freaked out. These bras don't look pointy at all on the models in the pictures but when I looked down at the girls I was like, OMG! they're so pointy! I thought, "I can't wear these in public; everyone will be staring at my pointy boobs." But when I looked in the mirror it didn't look quite so bad so I decided to keep them and give them an honest try. After wearing each of them for a whole day I was sold. My clothes definitely fit more like I feel they're supposed to.

I bought several more of the second one and for about a week it was the only style of bra I wore. Then I put on one of my modern shaped bras and a strange thing happened. I felt like it looked kind of wrong. Actually a little bit gross. Now don't get me wrong. I don't think modern bras are gross or that anyone else looks gross when you wear them. It's just how I felt about myself wearing one after a week of wearing so-called "pointy" bras. It's really funny how easily we get used to things and then whatever we're used to seems right.

Briefly

This is going to be a little off topic but if you'll excuse me I'm going to talk about my underpants for a little bit. I have the worst time trying to find acceptable underwear. Currently my go-to, though still imperfect, choice is Bali's cotton Full Cut Fit. (if I remember the name correctly) They're what some of you like to call "granny panties". And can we talk about that for a minute? I hate that term. It's pejorative. It's age shaming and it's trying to make people feel embarrassed about their clothing choices. Can we just stop it?

But anyway... I don't necessarily want the high waist but if you get a lower waist you get stuck with a higher leg opening in the back and I can't stand that. I don't see how anyone can tolerate having the elastic or the edge of the leg opening going across the the butt cheek instead of underneath it where it belongs. On the other hand, aside from the too high waist I don't really like the Bali fabric. It's a cotton spandex - 10% spandex according to the label but it feels like it has hardly any at all. It also tends to pill or get fuzzy after a few washings. But they are wearable so they're what I generally settle for. I have also tried Bali's Skimp Skamp (TM) and in some ways they are better but the narrow leg elastic is extremely uncomfortable.

The "World's Best Fitting Panty" (TM) has the perfect fabric, a cotton spandex with a nice firm, but not too tight, stretch and the waist on the regular briefs version sits slightly below the natural waistline but they have the too high in the back leg openings which is totally unacceptable to me.

So I recently decided to try something totally different: the so-called "boy short". I had not considered these before because the term "boy short" is very off-putting. I am not a boy and I don't want to wear "boy" anything but, desperation. I tried two different brands so far and even with legs they somehow manage to be too high in the back. I know there are "boy shorts" with longer legs but I don't want longer legs. What I really want is some comfortable cotton spandex underpants with not too high a waistline that completely cover my butt, which is admittedly not small but neither is it huge. It shouldn't be this hard.

By the way, when you search for boy shorts on Amazon a whole lot of unmentionables that I really don't want to mention or ever see again come up in the results - items that are most definitely not boy shorts! Seriously Amazon? You need to fix your search function so that only the stuff we're actually searching for comes up.

I did once try sewing underwear but after three tries I was not able to end up with anything wearable. The main problem, I think was the inability to find the right fabric and elastic. But maybe I will try again someday when I get sufficiently desperate.