Lingerie Trends

Trendy-Lingerie.com — Compared to the 1950s British women have grown two inches taller, half a stone (7 pounds or 6.35 kilograms) heavier, and have gained seven inches in the waist.

They’ve also gone up 3 shoe sizes, got an inch more in the hips, and have larger breasts. And yet they live about 10 years longer.

The UK’s Daily Mail reveals how the changing British figure has affected women’s wellbeing, in good ways and bad.

Regarding breasts the paper writes:

Our larger bosoms are due in part to the general rise in obesity.

Professor Michael Baum, an expert in breast cancer and professor emeritus of surgery at University College hospital London, explains: ‘Fat is laid down on breasts as much as thighs or bottoms, and we are experiencing an obesity epidemic, so the increase in women’s measurements isn’t that surprising.’

But other factors may be at play: nutritionist Marilyn Glenville, who specialises in women’s health and hormonal problems, says women in her clinic have gone up a cup size after being put on hormone replacement therapy (HRT) during the menopause.

This, she believes, is because the breast tissue is encouraged to grow by the ‘injection’ of unusually high levels of oestrogen into the body.

Now

‘There is a tendency for the Pill to stimulate breast growth,’ says Professor Pierre-Marc Cilles Bouloux, a consultant endocrinologist and physician at The London Clinic.

‘However, modern versions of the Pill contain far less oestrogen than their older counterparts, so it is not fair to attribute this shift in its entirety to the Pill.’

DOES IT MATTER? Bigger breasts alone don’t necessarily mean an increased risk of breast cancer, although obesity is a recognised risk factor in the disease. In the past 25 years, the incidence of breast cancer has risen by 50 per cent.

But bigger breasts are linked to backache and similar problems and, increasingly, larger-breasted women end up undergoing reduction surgery for medical reasons.
- Source: How women’s bodies have been transformed in the past 60 years… with huge implications for our health, The Daily Mail, Sep. 15, 2009

Fifties-style Lingerie

Interestingly there is a growing trend — if we are to believe the search phrases that lead people to the Trendy Lingerie website — toward 50s style, ‘Marilyn Monroe’ lingerie.

The nostalgic lingerie is popular not just with larger women — who prefer the sturdier support offered by the old-style bras and panties along with figure shaping wear like girdles and corsets. Younger women like the style as well.

Says Cindy Deavon, 21, “As a teenager I rebelled against the dowdy clothes and underwear my mother bought for me by changing into something more suitable at a friend’s house before going to school. Later I went through a goth phase, and it was then that I discovered corsets. I didn’t need them to shape my body, which is curvy enough. I just thought they looked incredibly sexy.”

“Some of my friends now also have started to buy corsets,” Deavon says.

She left the goth style behind years ago, but has added to her corset collection ever since.

“Nowadays I often buy custom-made corsets,” she says. “I like the whole process from the design to the selection of material, and from fitting to finished product.”

“I also like the way I feel when I wear my corsets, or any of my custom-made lingerie,” Deavon says. “It makes me feel special” she explains.

What to wear if you have large breasts

• Full-figure bras

No related posts.