A Strange Question...

[Madison Paige]

Ladies,

In the years that I've been wearing vintage I've noticed something very strange. Whenever I try on a vintage dress from the 50's through early 60's, the dress will fit like a glove every where, except there will be this really bizzare buldge of extra fabric in the stomach area. At first I just thought a few dresses were made kind of strangely, but time and time again I find these dresses with the weird stomach buldge! And it's not like I have a extremly weird body shape, I have wide hips with normal sized stomach, very normal!

So my question for you lovely ladies is, what am I missing?! Has anyone else come across this? What is with this weird buldge? I'm just so confused.

 

[Lady Day]

Um, are you talking about the ponch right below your belly button? The one all women have? Um...wow. I have no idea how to reply to this one lol

Maybe its your foundation garments?

As for ill fitting in that area, I dont have a prob. I guess I got enough ponch

LD

 

[Ada Veen]

I'm not quite sure where the bulge is... most fifties stuff I have has a full skirt, so the belly is hidden... which is nice as I have a bit of a round belly

 

[BettyValentine]

Do you have a very flat stomach? I've noticed that a lot of narrow-skirted dresses from the late 50s/early 60s have a little bit of a curve cut into the front of the dress. I assumed it's to accommodate that little bulge right below the navel that most women have. But if you have a very flat stomach without the little bulge, maybe that would make a little empty pocket of fabric instead.

 

[gluegungeisha]

I get that too, and I have a very flat stomach.

I don't know if this would apply to the 50's and 60's, but last week I saw an image of a woman with a very cinched Victorian waist (with corset) and her little stomach pooch seemed much more exaggerated. Maybe it accommodates extra pooch after cinching with a foundation garment...?

 

[Madison Paige]

Um, are you talking about the ponch right below your belly button? The one all women have? Um...wow. I have no idea how to reply to this one lol

Maybe its your foundation garments?

As for ill fitting in that area, I dont have a prob. I guess I got enough ponch

LD

Um...nope, that's not what I'm talking about. It's actually in the stomach area. There's enough fabric to accomadate someone who was two months pregnant! But I've only noticed it on pencil skirt dresses. And I don't have the flattest stomach in the whole world, and there's still extra fabric.

Hmm...I hope someone get's what i'm talking about! Otherwise you ladies will think i'm the most bizzare chick on the powder room!

 

[Miss 1929]

To quote Christian Dior:

"Without foundation, there can be no fashion".
You just can't wear tightly fitted 50s clothes without the right girdle. It will never look right. Check out the photos in vintage magazines of the day and you will see that these women were all wearing serious strong underwear!
Not comfortable. But gives an elegant line!
Especially in the early 50s, you see a lot of built in forward pelvic thrust - some Freudian response to the war just past? A subtle way of saying "here's my womb"? Who knows?

 

[Twinkle]

Hi...

You said you had 'hips', I presume in the way most propper ladies have them where they are nice are curvy....Well on wiggle style pencil dresses if the hips don't fit too well (eg the dress is a spot too tight) the dress will move up to a position on your body where the dress fits, this will mean that any excess fabric will gather around your middle.... I have 'hips'... serious british pear shape and this always happens, especially when I don't have a girdle/corset/foundation on...

Hope this helps...

 

[epr25]

Could it be that you are wearing your belts tight and this is exagerating the full gathers or pleating of the skirt? I run into this if I wear a skirt that is a little tight. It's like it squishes my stomach and makes it stick out in the area that you are talking about.

 

[ShortClara]

I know what Madison Paige is talking about! I have a gorgeous late 50s/ early 60s black wiggle and it has the pooch. I have a very flat stomach and it's not flesh under the pooch making it pooch - it's a pocket of fabric almost right in the front under the waistband. And I understand about foundation garments, but, at least in my stomach area, a foundation garment wouldn't help, as I'm lucky and it's flat already. It's an outward puff of fabric, and it's there when the dress is on the hanger. They are not all built that way, but it happens.

I'm wondering if the skirt is supposed to be tulip like, poofing out allover, and maybe our hips fit in the dress, but the dress is made for someone with smaller hips so that the whole thing "tulips" out and not just the front? KWIM?

 

[Snookie]

Here's another theory...

Could the extra fabric be the "wearing ease"? meaning, they made the skirts as tight as they could, but because they didn't have stretch fabrics, they had to add a little extra fabric to allow the wearer to sit down, walk, etc?

I think it might be ease and/or just that it was the desirable silhouette of the era. You know, something along the lines of subconciously emphasizing distinct female attributes, thus encouraging the belief in acceptable gender roles in the post-war society?

I guess that's two theories...

 

[hotrod_elf]

I have a late 40's dress that is that way. I just thought that the prevuse owner had a pouch and just stretched it out.

 

[ShortClara]

Could the extra fabric be the "wearing ease"? meaning, they made the skirts as tight as they could, but because they didn't have stretch fabrics, they had to add a little extra fabric to allow the wearer to sit down, walk, etc?

The ease ends up in a puddle right in front of your abdomen - not a terribly helpful place for walking or sitting! LOL I think it may have been a silhouette enhancer, just not one I understand. [huh]

 

[Barbigirl]

I am thinking you are talking the pooch like on this dress?

I definately could not have sat down in this dress if there was no fabric pooch. As it was the seam in the side of the skirt popped out a bit when dancing.
I do think it is wearing ease, and if I had less pooch there would have been a lot more ease!

 

[ShortClara]

Barbi, you're gorgeous and I love the dress! Mayeb you are right - I guess there's some hidden dress physics I can't understand.

 

[Barbigirl]

Barbi, you're gorgeous and I love the dress! Mayeb you are right - I guess there's some hidden dress physics I can't understand.

Thank you Clara, I like your theory about the having smaller hips making it look more upside down tulip-ish. Which if I lost 5# I think that dress would have more of that effect because of the pleats in the front.