Intro

If You Please loves an hourglass figure and believes that if you're lucky enough to possess womanly curves, you should definitely show them off! If, like me, you're not so curvy, we've got a treasure trove of beauty enhancing lingerie to accentuate your assets.

Lots of our lingerie is 'vintage-inspired'. For most brands this means that the designer has styled their lingerie around a vintage look. Some of our brands however use traditional methods when grading their lingerie. This will result in the garment's measurements being different to modern lingerie, usually smaller.

To help you find the right size and style to suit you, we've put together this simple guide to retro lingerie.

Retro lingerie low-down - What each item can do for you! 

The Girdle

A stretchy, over-the-bottom body shaping suspender belt.

How to wear it: Step into it and pull on over the bottom. Wear with stockings, over your knickers.

What it does: Nips the waist in, smoothes the tummy, raises the bottom and holds your stockings in place.

The Corselette

A magical body shaping bra and suspender girdle in one.

How to wear it: Step into it, cross your legs and pull up over the body. Wear with stockings and knickers.

What it does: Everything! It supports the bust, flattens the tummy, pulls in the waist, lifts the bottom, smoothes out the hips, improves the posture and holds up your stockings.

The Six Strap Suspender Belt

Unlike modern suspender belts, the six strap has (you guessed it) six metal suspender straps and a reduced waistline to ensure it stays put.

How to wear it: Over or under your knickers, depending on the style of your outfit (or how easily they need to be removed).

What it does: Keeps those all important stockings in place.

The Bullet Bra

An authentic 50's style circle stitched, pointed bra.

How to wear it: With whatever you like! They look great under a tight shirt or sweater but you can get away with wearing them every day too.

What it does: Gently moves your breasts into a 50's conical shape, lifts them higher than a normal bra, gives an amazing amount of support. 

Full Briefs

Big knickers are back!

How to wear it: A retro full brief goes well under a skirt, or anything with a high waist.

What it does: They tend to lift and support the bottom a bit more than modern pants and usually flatten the tummy.



Products By What Katie Did

Wonderful 50's inspired brand What Katie Did is responsible for supplying us with our authentic circle stitched bullet bras, shape-wear and hand made corsets. Here's a simple run down of how their sizing works:

Bullet Bras

What Katie Did's bullet bras are almost completely non-stretch and so appear tighter beneath the bust than a highstreet bra from, for example, La Senza or M & S. If you're used to wearing designer bras by the likes of Kiss Me Deadly, La Perla or Agent Provocateur then your bullet bra size should be the same. Their band sizes measure as follows;

If you're unsure of your size you can measure yourself using a tape measure. Whilst wearing a bra, measure the circumference of your rib cage, just below the bust, to find your underbust measurement. To find your overbust measurement, measure the fullest part of your bust. This chart should help you find your size.

A few tips:

If you have breast implants you can still wear a bullet bra but it will fit differently due to your breasts being slightly less shapeable. If your implants are new of very firm, you may like to opt for a larger cup size and fill out the tips with our bullet bra pads.

Our bullet bra models are wearing theirs without bra pads. If you buy the correct size you shouldn't need them, but if you're in between sizes or would like a more striking sweater-girl shape, they're available in either black or white.

Underwired Bras

What Katie Did's underwired bras measure as follows;

Corselettes and Glamour Shapewear

When most people hear the word 'shapewear', they associate it with practical, flesh coloured, body smoothers and Bridget Jones granny pants. Well that's just not our style. We specialise in vintage inspired 'glamour shapewear', which nips, lifts and sucks you in in all the right places as well as making you look amazing!

The bra sizes of What Katie Did's corselettes roughly co-ordinate with the following dress sizes:

32" - WKD dress size 10, 34" - WKD dress size 12, 36" - WKD dress size 14, 38" - WKD dress size 16

If your body size doesn't match your bra size, you may want to experiment with bra cup grading.

As you go up a bra band size, the size of the cups also increases. For example, the cups on a size 38B will be the same as a 36C, 34D & 32DD. If you're usually a 34D but a small dress size 10, you may want to go for a 32DD instead. If you're a 34D but a larger size 10, go for a 36C. This grading system works on all bra sizes.

Please note, What Katie Did's corselettes are meant to be tight to wear. Their waist and hip measurements match the measurements of their briefs and girdles and the bust measurements coincide with the underwired bra measurements.

Glamour shapewear: N/B. The glamour longline bra is measured the same as a bullet bra. The girdle measurements for hip and waistline are in the table above.

Knickers, girdles, thongs and suspender belts

What Katie Did's briefs, girdles and suspender belts are made from stretch power-mesh, usually with a decorative panel at the front. They offer support and light control to the tummy and generally make you look fantastic! Their thongs are available in three sizes. Make sure you check your measurements as they look great but sizes come up quite small.

They measure as follows:

Knickers, Girdles & Suspender Belts             Thongs

Corsets

What Katie Did's corsets are designed to temporarily reduce the waist by 3-4 inches, with the exception of their curvier Morticia corset, which pulls you in by 4-5 inches. Make sure you take this into account when choosing your size. Corsets come in even sizes, 18", 20", 22" etc. If your waist is usually 28", you should choose a 24" corset, if it's usually 32" you should choose a 28" corset and so on.

How to put on a corset:

Firstly, undo the knot in the laces at the back and without unthreading, pull the lace up fastening apart to increase the gap at the back.

Undo the busk at the front and put the corset round you like a belt.

Fasten the busk at the front then firmly pull the laces from the waistline to tighten the corset.

Tie in a bow at the back.

Kiss Me Deadly

Kiss Me Deadly creates beautiful vintage-inspired lingerie for femme fatales. They too use traditional sizing methods and so, like What Katie Did, their garments can appear up to 4 inches smaller than some high street brands.

The following chart gives a rough guide to Kiss Me Deadly's knicker, suspender belt and girdle sizing. The amount of stretch in a garment depends on the fabric. The Van Doren 6 strap suspender belt stretches enormously, the Jolie not so much for example.

With respect to Kiss Me Deadly bra sizing, using the 'traditional method' means that the actual underbust measurement of one of their bras is 4 inches less than a highstreet label, such as La Senza. If you take your high street bra size and go a band size down and a cup size up then you should find a good fit.

N.B. Their bra measurements are very close to What Katie Did's bullet bra sizing so you can use their measurement chart as a guidline.

The Vargas Dress

An all time best seller, the Vargas Dress is Kiss Me Deadly's statement piece.  It can be worn beneath clothing as a super-flattering corselette but is also sexy and feminine enough to be shown off in the boudoir. It is un-boned yet smoothes out bumps where we don’t want them whilst nipping in the waist to show off the best of your figure. Sizing can be based on your bra size.

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