adventures with innerwear

Aventures with Shapewear

Marks and Spencer’s was having a 70% off sale—an event my daughter and I waited for with unbridled enthusiasm. Normally their stuff , though good, was so overpriced that we didn’t even enter the shop!

“Come,” said my daughter, there is a new thing called “shapers.”

“What is that ?”

She explained, ”everyone wears it. It pushes all this extra fat you have around your middle (She meant my paunch) and gives you a deadly shape.”

Actually it sounded a bit like the whalebone girdles women wore in the last centaury. Perhaps it was a more civilized and comfortable version of the same? I vaguely remembered reading an article about shapers. A woman decided that she wanted an eighteen inch waist. She wore some sort of garment ( probably a shaper ) for two years continuously. She developed heart burn, some sort of abnormality of her intestines and at 36-18-38 looked like a freak!

“All the movie stars wear it,” said my daughter.

I decided to look at the photographs on page 3 more carefully.

“You don’t need to wear it all the time, just when you go for weddings and stuff.”

Since my son was getting married, I thought it was a good idea.

The shapers were not on sale.

“Lets go,” I said.

“No” said my daughter, “try it on. That way I will know which size to buy when it is actually on sale. You have to take a size smaller than what you normally wear in clothes so that you look slim.”

That did not sound very comfortable. When she was not looking I took three, a size smaller, my size and a size bigger.

We went into the changing rooms. The smaller one did not go past my knee. I called my daughter and she managed to yank it off. We then tried the actual size. After a lot of tugging and pilling I managed to get it on.

“I can’t breathe. I am going to die,” I said.

“What ma, you make such a fuss!” With a lot of tugging we got it off.

“This will not work,” I said, “I am alone a lot of the time. Who will help me on and off with this thing?”

I had visions of being stuck in that choke hold for many hours, perhaps even all night?

We pulled on the last large one. The effect was unbelievable! It made no difference to my shape at all! The paunch, if anything, looked a little worse!

My daughter gathered up all the shapers and disappeared to return them.

“ I can’t understand this” she muttered, “perhaps over the years your fat has become hardened?”

 I started dressing again. To my horror, I   found that she had taken my upper inner wear and returned it!

Frantically, wrapped in a voluminous duppatta I sneaked out and explained my predicament to the lady at the counter. (My daughter had gone to the car). She allowed me to rummage in the “returned garments” basket. I fished out my personal item.

“That “ she said accusingly, “is Marks and Spencer’s innerwear”. She refused to hand it over.

“I wear only Mark sand Spencer’s, I bought  it several months ago, please smell it,” I said, “it has a combination of my deodorant, perfume and sweat. Just smell my kurta after that and see.”

She looked daggers at me, but she did smell both garments. (I don’t envy her job)!

“Okay,” she said, “its yours, you can take it.”

Hugging it to my chest, mentally cursing my daughter, never again wanting to be “shaped” I dressed and headed to the car park.