With the world spinning out of control, I feel badly to be writing something lighthearted but hark back to something within my remit. Everybody else I knew got their first bra’s from Marks & Spencers.
My mother had an account at Lockeys in Middlesbrough and she took me there, to a curtained alcove, where a kindly woman brought things and we chose a Silhouette. When it washed satisfactorily, another was collected and then – oh the sophistication ! – I acquired bought a Kayser Bondor. I looked the name up on Google – first place in the UK to manufacture nylon stockings. So the pattern was set. I was not big or small or special in the bosom department, so my bras were ordered alongside my mother’s cherished boxes of Aristoc stockings.
When I came to London on my 17th birthday I shared a flat in Earls Court, moving eventually to one half of a double room in South Kensington. On the curve just opposite South Kensington tube station was a shop called Elegante which sold just what I wanted. I never had drawersful though I did once have a matching minislip and pants in black cotton printed with tiny flowers which I thought was the biz, even if nobody saw it but me.
The pattern was set. I bought bras infrequently, washed them by hand, dripped them dry. The pattern of pants was set too – white cotton, medium size, hold the decoration. I didn’t buy often, I bought carefully (the aforementioned minislip and pants cost £25 ! which took a while to work off. No card, no credit, not much money ).
Underwear in the US where I went at 19 was revealing ie lots of stuff I didn’t want.
So I wrote to my mother to ask her to get me what I knew worked and send it to me. I have still a letter from home – one from her, one from my father, same envelope in which he says “ Your bra hasn’t come in yet – mummy will send it next week – hope you can hold out till then.” Eventually I found what I wanted Stateside so there was only this one instance
I love to look at lacy pretty frilly but I do feel a fool wearing it. A new shop in Kings Road, Chelsea offered a set in dark green lace
and I thought how my sister would have loved it.
Once back in London, I continued to buy my 36B at a variety of small shops or specialized counters – until even a “good” model left me looking decidedly lopeared. And I was earning well so I went (never shall I forget it) to the famous Rigby and Peller, known for underwear and making swimsuits for the famous including Princess Margaret.
In R&P, I tried on several much more expensive models the same size with no more success and said so to the estimable Marie who was tall and heavy and the only person in my whole life before or since to call me “modom.” Just once. Made my day. She asked me to face the mirror and I did so, naked to the waist. She disappeared and came back with three bras. I tried on one and was transformed. The other two did similar magic. “What have you done ?” I demanded. “34, double D fitting” she explained. “Bigger cupsize.”
I bought all three and remained a devoted customer till I wasn’t working.
A delightful Russian girl I only saw once fitted me with Wacoal (Japanese) in Fenwicks and as those have aged, I took a deep breath and talked to Denning who does unpaid PR for M&S, where I am intimidated by the numbers of everything. But last week, I walked in to find exactly what I wanted but not my size. Sizes vary so I took the next best thing and with the help of two delightful salespersons and Sue the fitter, tried it on, no I needed the size I thought I needed, come back when restocked. Wacoal on the phone had a bad line and a bad attitude. Peter Jones stock some of the range but said the assistant, “I can’t help you, I don’t know it.” And Ginny and I both knew Liz Truss was a wrong ‘un before people lost money. No woman of wit appears on national television with a bra as bad as that. First rule of live performance – hair and underpinning. I’m off to M&S.
Annalog 