Will you be putting that scrap of fabric on your Sears card?

Babble on.

Boo met me on the front porch when I arrived home last night. As I climbed the steps, he spotted the local rag lying there - you know, the one that gets delivered for "free" as a "community service". Don't get me started.

Anyhow, it was three times the normal size, and standing there with a mischievous grin on his little mug, he asked me to hold the door open so he could throw the bundle past me into the front hall. "Flyers flying!" he yelled, eyes crinkling as he giggled at his own clever joke.

Later that night, after the kids were both in bed and Litbit and I were leafing through the various loss-leaders designed to lure us into Canadian Tire, Home Depot, Dominion, et al, I spotted this on sale at Sears. The blue fabric, not the woman.



Now, is it just me, or is this a little racy for plain old Sears? Not that I'm objecting, of course. I've just always thought Sears bloomers had to double as both butt-cover and schooner rigging. Since when do they carry anything you'd like to see your wife in? Or out of for that matter?

As it turns out, some...interesting...soul has actually researched the portrayal of women's undergarments in catalogs and advertising over the years. He has charts. I kid you not.

Although usually displayed in ideal circumstances with relatively ideal models, nonetheless, the portrayal of women's underwear for sale in store catalogs represents a type of realism. These publications were what real women read and used to make their choices about the clothing (and underwear) that they bought and wore. Also, these images and their portrayal represented a real person's idea of what was attractive, what would sell, what represented current style, and (I suspect) some level or standard of censorship on what was acceptable for the depiction of underwear to be advertised in a family context. In that regard, the manner of portrayal of women's underwear at a particular period may indicate how the "erotic aspects of women's underwear" were controlled! Much of what follows here will focus on this last point. Therefore, I consider this as a sociological monograph as well as an exploration of the originally proposed subject.

Whatever floats your boat, I guess - although graphing the advertising of bras and girdles and stockings and garters by type of garment over a sixty-year period - let alone publishing your findings on the web - seems like a bit of a creepy hobby if you ask me.

Anyhow, according to this guy, Sears stopped showing stockings and garters for about a twenty year period from the mid-sixties to the mid-eighties. Aha! Since the last time I seriously studied the women's lingerie section of a Sears catalog would have been in the early eighties, prior to the sexy skimpies renaissance, this puts my mind at ease. My confusion is suddenly understandable.

If you're shaking your head wondering at the trivialities that attract my interest, don't worry, my wife did too. At first. And she married me anyhow.

Babble off.