Under Control

Good corsetry and underwear can do wonders for your shape, writes DEIRDRE MCQUILLAN, and it doesn't have to look like sausage casing

THE LEXICON OF lingerie is padded with words that make us feel good, like support, comfort and uplift, just what we all need on these dark wintry days to cheer the spirit if not the flesh. Susan Hunter, queen of lingerie in Ireland, says we like some sense of control in our lives, even if it’s being held in by our underpinnings. A debatable point, but with waists back in fashion, corsetry is enjoying a revival as thongs and G-strings (once memorably described as two molars mid floss) are démodé, cast into the nether realms of poor taste and porn stars.

When it comes to underwear, women want comfort, a good fit and good looks. “Women are buying for themselves,” says Hunter. “They want comfort, but also a bit of frou-frou – you can’t be captain and sensible all your life. It’s a bit like shoes: you buy what you want and what suits your personality.”

There may not be the equivalent of seven-inch stilettos in underwear, but the 1950s vogue for the hourglass silhouette has renewed interest in shapeliness.

“Corsets are strong and controlled, but you must like the look of them. US buyers don’t care what shapewear looks like once they feel it is doing the job. Half the time shapewear looks like sausage casing – a cure-all, like a wetsuit,” says Hunter. Europeans, she says, are different. For them it must be beautiful to look at as well as doing the job. “And you can do wonders with good corsetry and good underwear.” (Tara Crowley, a successful Irish wardrobe consultant I interviewed recently insisted that the right uplift or adroit haulage, can make a woman drop a clothes size.)

At one of the most beautiful boutiques in Paris, Chantal Thomass on rue Saint-Honoré, the lingerie is always sexy and alluring without looking cheap or tacky – maybe because women who design underwear for women bring a particular perspective to it.

In Ireland, Caoimhe O’Dwyer has carved a niche for herself with tulle, lacy silks and wedding confections made to order. And Marks Spencer is ever reliable, with Soozie Jenkinson at the helm combining innovation with fresh and fashionable collections. Among its colourful spring undies are new patterns and prints, boy shorts, lace bras, sculpted bodies, bustiers and lots of cheeky polka dots. Brevity may be the soul of lingerie, as Dorothy Parker once famously quipped, but levity plays a part too.

chantalthomass.fr susanhunter.ie caoimheodwyer.com

Flattering fit

Pauline Chetty of Intimate Lingerie in Tara Street, Dublin is a bra (and bridal) fitting specialist with 25 years experience.

“It takes a long time to learn how to fit a bra, but it’s my eye that does it all. I stand by my fit,” she says. “I can just look at someone and say ‘you are a Freya girl or a Fantasie girl [underwear brands]’.

“Eighty per cent of women are wearing the wrong size bra – you wouldn’t wear the wrong size shoe, so why wear the wrong size bra?”

She says every woman’s shape is different, every brand is different and brands have different ways of measuring “and some come up with crazy sizes”. Every time a woman buys a new bra, she should be fitted. “For every woman there are one or two bras that suit them well. If underwear doesn’t suit, then the whole outfit will look wrong”, she says.

Catering for all sizes and occasions, particularly bridal wear, her stock is extensive and she also makes to measure where necessary. Part of the attraction is that the service is private “because everybody is shy of their bodies”. She herself has a wardrobe of seven bras, one for each day of the week “and once a month, twelve times a year I put them in a pillowcase and machine wash them at a wool setting and then start the month again. There’s no point in having one bra and wearing it to death. Good brands last.”

She also does bikinis – “I cater for the bigger ladies and I can make girls who have no boobs look two sizes bigger”.

For further information or to make an appointment, visit intimate-linger.ieor call 01-6771010 .

IN BRIEF

Emporio Armani’s latest lingerie campaign features Rihanna slithering around in silk and satin and photographed in Dublin by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott.

Meanwhile, midfielder David Beckham will expose the new bodywear range for HM at the Super Bowl in Indiana tomorrow.