Village Ladies 1

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The traditional silhouette of long-line bras with French Knickers really does conjure up a 1940s ideal of glamour and sexuality with an over-riding elegance, and there are many “pin-up” images of models and starlets of the day posing in this kind of lingerie, a look that modern-day vintage style pin-up girls also aspire to. The French Knicker shape may have tailed off into the ‘50s and ‘60s, but in the 1970s there came a fabulous resurgence of the romantic lace and frills of bygone eras with designers such as Janet Reger introducing a new generation of women to the feminine joys of French Knickers and Camisoles, and our Camiknickers evolved into Teddies. As a fan of a floaty nightie or a cute pair of PJs, Susie specialises in vintage nightwear and lingerie from all eras which she showcases at her own fashion shows, Pop-Up Boutiques and in themed photoshoots.

We'll star things off with a catchy tune courtesy of Ernst Lubitsch's 1931 film, The Smiling Lieutenant. I grew up knowing that most men adored women’s bloomers, and of course, girl’s knickers, too, and I soon discovered that life in a remote, country village was far more knickers-orientated than any town or city, anywhere!When I was young, many mature-aged women far out here in the country were only too eager to undress to their knickers, as I mentioned for the picture above. Look at all those women enjoying those big, sexy knickers, and I know exactly what they are really thinking, even if each of them would ‘deny everything’ if there was a man within a mile!

This truly was the Mid-Century wonder fabric, a good example of scientific developments influencing fashion, and exploded into the 1950s in the form of full wide petticoats to go under the “New Look” style dresses (thank you to Christian Dior for introducing the flattering, feminine shape using obscenely generous amounts of fabric to twirl away the deprivation of the war years!

It's the last vintage video (but don't go away because there's one more video you'll want to see below)! Around that time, when skirt fashions had started getting shorter, we couldn’t bear to put our favourite knickers aside for briefer knickers, so wherever we were during the day, when the men were at work we relaxed and enjoyed exposing our knicker-legs to each other. By the 1930s there was a vogue for bias-cut clothes and material cut like this tended to elongate the figure and lingerie became slinkier and more figure-hugging.

What's so strange about this video is that these women are presumably alone yet still expected to undress in an alluring manner, and the connection between being fuller-figured and lacking in "feminine wiles" couldn't get more obvious. I think one could be forgiven for assuming that knickers, or underpants as we know them today, have been around in a similar form since the dawn of time but not so! But we had a delicious choice of knickers, from soft, white cotton knickers to silky nylon knickers, and all in between.To me, the 1980s became the second heyday of this style of lingerie with glamour models like Samantha Fox bringing our traditional French Knickers into a whole new world of cheeky sexuality, always with a hint of silky, lacy romance and opulence.