Our Undies Dilemma

In a recent email, Cathy Peterson wrote, “Perhaps we are the last generation with an affinity for lacy nylon satin silk layers and no bare legs. Will these delightfully feminine garments ever make a comeback? Will women again wear hose, stockings, tights, thigh-highs, pantyhose? Will lacy slips under dresses and skirts come back in style?”

I doubt it.

A few years ago, I needed a new panty girdle. Online, JCPenney had just what I needed. Since I planned to go to the mall, I held off ordering online because I figured I could buy the girdle in the JCPenney store at the mall. 

Turned out that the store did not have the panty girdle I wanted. Even worse, the store did not have any girdles – panty or otherwise! 

Curious, I searched the undergarment department to see if they carried any of the undergarments I normally wear (like long-line bras, corsets, waist cinchers, etc.). I came up empty-handed. 

Recently, my daughter was attending a dress-up affair hosted by her employer. She needed pantyhose, had none and borrowed a pair – from her father not her mother!

Today’s women just don't wear the same undergarments that yesterday’s women wore.

Luckily, girls like us can still get what we desire online or at the handful of specialty brick and mortar stores that are still in business. But I think the situation is going to get worse. 

My generation wears what our mothers wore, but the younger girls wear what their mothers wore and it’s not panty girdles and pantyhose. So as the boomer generation of girls like us grows smaller, the demand for our mothers’ undies will diminish and eventually disappear... maybe not today, but someday.

Not a great solution, but these days, whenever I buy “classic” women’s underwear, I buy two – one to wear and one to add to my undies stockpile.

And so it goes.

Wearing Shein

Roman Polanski femulating in the 1976 French film The Tenant.