Directoire Controversy
/Directoire Controversy
Fads and Fancies No 1 (1950)
Dear Rosemary,
Letter No. 77 by Escort caused quite an argument in our private club the other evening. It was mentioned that he had said that directoire knickers were only worn nowadays by schoolgirls and old maids. Several of the girls present heatedly denied this and were led in their arguments by Helen, who is about as glamorous a girl as anyone could wish to meet. She agreed that some directoire knickers, and especially those of the 1920’s were too full and didn’t emphasize the figure sufficiently, but maintained that modern knickers, if tastefully chosen, could be equally glamorous as the French type. She said that they were much more comfortable and warmer on cold winter days because of the elastic around the legs, and that she herself wore them frequently. The majority of us replied, that, although we certainly couldn’t accuse her of being either an old maid or a schoolgirl, we thought that the flowing lines of the French type were much more glamorous. Helen grew quite excited about the subject and declared that she was wearing directoire knickers at that moment, and that if one of the girls who was wearing the French variety would volunteer to help, she would show us her own and let us decide on the spot. After some hesitation among the girls, Jean blushingly promised to help her out.
Two chairs were placed in the center of the room, Helen stood on one, and Jean on the other. Amid hushed expectancy Jean started by slowly raising her skirt. Although perhaps not quite so glamorous as Helen, Jean was a very pretty brunette with a magnificent figure. As the hem rose we saw the garter tops of her sheer nylons, then came white flesh broken by the elastic of her black suspenders, and then the tops of her lovely legs disappeared into the graceful curves of delicate green French knickers. Warming up to her job, she gathered the skirt together above her waistline and showed us how they were fastened at the side, by means of buttons. She pulled the legs out sideways to show the fullness, and then showed how they fell back into graceful lines; she turned around once or twice on the chair for all to see, and then gently dropped her skirt down again. Next it was Helen’s turn, she started to lift her skirt with tantalising slowness, her beautifully shaped thighs, clad in shiny, transparent nylons, slowly came into view. Metal clips of her suspenders appeared, and then, at last, her smooth bare skin. After some four inches there appeared the legs of her black satin directoire knickers. As the skirt rose, the view became more perfect. With her skirt above her waist she displayed the truth of her argument. The knickers fitted tightly around her waist and clung, smooth and glistening, over her hips. They floated out towards the legs which were some three or four inches long, and were pouched over around the elastic gathering. Helen then explained that one had to be careful to see that the elastic around the legs was not too tight, this also applied to the waist, where the elastic had to be of very good quality to allow for the stretching over the hips when dressing and undressing. She showed us how much it had to stretch by lowering the elastic waistband, she turned around once or twice, and then asked Jean to lift her skin again, so that a direct comparison could be made. When seen together on two lovely girls it was obvious that both types of knickers were equally pleasing and after much discussion we decided that, although a French type were probably more glamorous, the directoire kind could be very chic and certainly could not be relegated to schoolgirls and old maids.
Yours, Connoisseur