Lingerie and shapewear played a very big part in fashion in the first half of the 20th century. Corsets and bustles shaped women in the early 1900s whilst breasts were strapped down in the 1920s.

What Katie Did focuses on the 1940s and 1950s when woman's natural figures were celebrated and breasts and hips were in fashion. Hooray! However, all was not as it seemed as underneath the dresses serious help was at hand.

Breasts

The ideal breast shape in the 1940s and 1950s is completely different to the rounded shape aspired to today. The breasts are pushed up and into a pointed shape. Personally I don't think this had very much to do with fashion, but more to do with the technology in bra manufacturing at that time. Bras were still in their infancy and up until the 1940s they would be a very simple soft-cup design with little support. The 1940s saw the introduction of a more supportive 2 piece cup design (similar to that of our Maitresse bra) whilst the early 1950s saw the launch of the bullet or cone bra.

Waists and Hips

Although, by today's standards, women were extremely well groomed during the war years, fashion was hardly top of their agenda. This didn't change until well after the war ended and  Dior launched his 'New Look' in 1947. Women either loved and aspired to the look, or were outraged at the amount of precious fabric it used. His 'New Look' dresses had a waist cincher built in to cinch in the waistline before the skirt dramatically flared out.

Throughout the 1950s it would have been rare for a women to go out without some kind of shapewear and a girdle or corselette would have been worn on a daily basis. Marilyn Monroe was one of the exceptions and there was a lot of bitchy gossip about her lack of a girdle during screenings Niagra.

Nylons

Everybody knows about the scarcity of seamed stockings during WWII. What they don't know is that they weren't just scarce, they were impossible to get hold of. Although fully fashioned nylon stockings started to be made in the USA in 1939 (production stopped a few months after it started as all nylon was designated for war use), they didn't start being made in the UK until the late 1940s, and even then, for the first few years they all went for export to help pay for the war debt. True 1940s fashionistas should keep an eye out for  vintage rayon or silk fully fashioned stockings.

In the 1950s the vast majority of stockings worn would be seamed fully fashioned. Seamfree RHT (reinforced heel and toe) stockings did start production in 1949 but were not very popular as the new machinery didn't offer the same fit as fully fashioned stockings. It wasn't until the mid 1960s that RHTs took over in popularity from fully fashioned stockings.