Women’s Girdles and Undergarments in the 1950s The 1950s were years of rather restrictive grooming standards for women. While women had been wearing underwear, corsets, and bras for years, the manufacturers of the 1950s at least began paying attention to increased comfort.

The bullet bra, an invention of the 1940s, was a huge success in the 1950s. Marilyn Monroe and Lana Turner were famous for their bullet bra look, for as certain shirt materials clung to the bras, one could clearly see the pointy cone-shape of the bra underneath. This was called the “sweater look.” The cone-shaped bra helped smaller-breasted women appear to have a larger breast size.

Corsets worn in the 1950s were skin-tight undergarments that were meant to squeeze the waist, lift the butt, and raise the breasts. This was the look that all the stars had. So, everyday women flocked to the stores to buy their restrictive corsets in hopes of improving the look of their figures.

Just like the old corsets depicted in the movie, “Gone with the Wind,” these corsets had to be tied in the back. Wives would ask their husbands to help them pull it tight and secure it in the back, so they could squeeze into their slim-fitted clothes.

The girdle came in answer to women’s’ desire for greater comfort. Only running from the waist to the bottom of the buttocks, the girdle not only tightened the buttocks area, but also had straps for holding up the all-too-popular hose women wore at the time. The 1950s was a time of attempted perfection, in which each woman hoped to appear to have a movie-star body, using tight undergarments to achieve the effect.