I see on TV shows this comedy device all the time. The woman shows up, generally when she goes to some fancy party, wearing a dress that is very tight. Then of course she can’t sit down in it, with predictable hillarious results, such as The Nanny and I Love Lucy.
So in real life do women do this? Or is it a comedy device for TV and movies. Especially now-a-days with so many different kinds of fabric, it seems it’d make it easy to make a form fitting dress that could stretch to sit down.
I’ve certainly seen women wear dresses they shouldn’t sit down in. When they do sit, the dress rides up so high they practically need two hairstyles to get by.
These women, however, generally do not seem to care. Whereas I have a dress that reaches just below mid-thigh, normally - not at all short - but it’s form-fitting around the hips and legs, and when I sit, it does make me uncomfortable that it has hiked up a couple of inches, and I am very conscious of the way I am sitting.
::snerk::
Good one, Anaamika.
I think now dresses are a lot stretchier than they used to be. Garments designed to be close fitting often now include a small blend of elastic material. This reduces the need for tailoring, and the finished garment is less wrinkly due to the give. It’s also common to find unlined dresses where in decades past they would have more than a single layer of cloth. One consequence of this is that the dress provides less shaping and support, but on the other side has better drape. Women desiring a smoother silhouette must either have a very low body fat percentage, or buy those Spanx-type undergarments.
I confess. I’ve done it. It was not intentional. I bought a beautiful and form fitting dress to wear to a gallery opening. I bought it 3 months before the actual event and on the day of I brought it with me to work to change into before the show. Well, apparently those three months had not been kind to my diet. The dress that fit ok in February was SKIN TIGHT in May. I didn’t have any other option so I sucked it in and stood the entire party. I probably could have sat, but in order not to bust any seams I would have had to yank it up to my waist. So I told everyone that I was ok standing cause “I sit all day at work”
I don’t know if it is completely true, but the story goes that Dinah Shore was permitted by the IRS to deduct dresses as a professional expense only if they were to tight to sit in. Presumably that was to ensure that they were only used on stage.
I’ve definitely left the house in outfits that seemed great in front of the mirror but almost got be nabbed for indecent exposure or whatever’s still illegal. Mostly slits that wouldn’t stay in place (snerk away), skirt fabric that was lighter than air, tube tops with no support and materials that shifted up my thighs as I walked.
I remember a woman in a movie or book who said, “I’m wearing velvet, darling. If I sat down, these wicker chairs would leave marks that would show the rest of the evening.”
Thank you, but I’m afraid I can’t take full credit. I stole it from the old movie Kingpin.
It reminds me of Patsy Stone’s line from AbFab:
“One snap of my fingers, and I can raise hemlines so high that the world’s your gynecologist!”
The second part would depend on their age. I was amazed to see private school girls in Bilbao with skirts so short they would have been considered belts in my home town, but when they sat down they tried to pull the “belts” down, trying to turn them back into skirts. Usually they get over that by the time they turn 20, though.
Well the short skirts, we used to call, in the 70s, “airplane skirts.”
Or as Archie Bunker says “bend over in that and the mystery is over”
But I was thinking of women who intentionally buy dresses that form fit, because they look good, but then can’t bend over.
As I said, I’ve seen it on I Love Lucy and on the Nanny, Fran was known to buy dresses to show off her body but then she can’t sit down.
But obviously those are sit-coms so it’s done for comic effect. Lucy having to stand up while she eats or having to drive with the top down etc.
I was just wondering if women actually did that, or is it just strictly comedy. I understand how you could buy a dress and then gain weight, but then you didn’t buy it so it would be tight.
Kind of like I heard tales in the 80s of girls buying jeans and then putting them on and sitting in water so they’d shrink to their bodies exactly. I don’t know if that’s true either.
I’ve worn dresses that I have to be CAREFUL about sitting in…making sure legs are crossed etc…but that’s true of any girl who’s ever worn a mini-skirt.
The only thing I’ve ever worn that made sitting almost impossible was a corset from Frederick’s of Hollywood that I wore for Halloween. I literally couldn’t drive in it–my friend had to drive, because in order to sit in a driving position, I couldn’t breathe. I sat in the passenger seat in a very odd position, and thanked God it was a short drive.
I have new respect (and a bit of horrified fascination) for Victorian women. No wonder they were always fainting and needing smelling salts. It’s an inhumane device and I’m surprised it lasted as long as it did.
Maybe they said what I said that Halloween…“I do LOOK good, though.”
:smack:
A corset made for you, which fits properly, is a completely different experience than one bought off the rack. Trust me, I’m a historical reenactor.
I think the vain-woman-punished-for-her-pride was just something that happened in comedies. Although I’m sure somewhere a woman has bought a dress and didn’t think to sit down when she was trying it on. You see this a lot in family photos: Mom will have a dress that probably looked great when she was standing, but looked bad on her while sitting.
Then the corset you were wearing wasn’t fitted properly. A good corset supports and adds general shape, your issue is that you have not ‘trained’ your body to the correct form by wearing the correct corset from puberty. You were just cramming everything in by lacing it up tight.
if you really want to corset train, start wearing it daily, laced loosely and gently and gradually tighten it as you become accustomed and shaped to it. Sort of like the sofa to 5k, you start gradually, you dont just slam into a 5k race.
If you really want to corset train, you don’t use something bought at Frederick’s of Hollywood, though. They’re totally not right for it.
I have tried on skirts and dresses that I couldn’t sit down in. I think the OP means can’t sit down in, not shouldn’t sit down in, but I could be wrong. I think he’s talking less about dresses that ride up so high they’re obscene and more about dresses that literally do not let you bend enough to sit down. I’ve been in them before, but didn’t buy them for precisely that reason. I can imagine some women do, though.
No you’re right. I was just wondering if it was true or just something used in comedies
Get over wearing them or get over worrying about it?
Seriously. A Freddy’s “corset” isn’t a corset. It’s a cheap, mass-made, thin plastic boned bodice that looks like a corset. A real corset has steel boning, is fit to your shape and does not hinder your ability to breathe sitting down at all. And your posture will likely improve if you wear a real one.
A real corset, when someone plants their foot in your back while you’re holding onto the door frame and they PUUUUUULLL the strings… nothing rips.