Guest Author - Norma Shephard

Neathies, underlinens, fripperies, and more – I learned the language of lingerie from my Great Aunt Ella. Auntie Ella introduced me to the world of hidden, but hoping-to-be-see, personal apparel. It was she who supplied the ruffle-bottomed panties and multilayered crinolines that I proudly wore under my dresses at ages five and six. At birthday parties, should a round of musical chairs happen to land me skirts up with my tush in the air, I was prepared. Each year at Christmas and Easter, the cherished undergarments arrived by mail in string-wrapped, brown paper parcels.

When my sister and I visited on summer vacations, Ella would don hat and gloves, double check the locks on her third -floor Montreal flat, and lead us downtown to purchase suitable replacements for the scanties that we had outgrown. We traversed the city by streetcar, scouring the shops on rue Sherbrooke, Ste. Catherine, and Ste. Laurence.

Elizabeth, who is four years my junior, remembers squatting on the sidewalk outside of Dupuis Frères in her pretty, Ella-selected knee-socks, to relieve the inevitable muscle soreness that resulted from our marathon shopping sprees. She would gaze at Ella’s stockinged ankles and “Mrs. Doubtfire” shoes while waiting for her discomfort to subside. It was at this point that Auntie Ella’s gloved fingers would snap open the clasp of her shiny, patent handbag and retrieve the Belgian chocolate wafers that she had packed for just such an emergency. To this day I never leave home without medicinal chocolate.

Under Ella’s tutelage I soon learned to recognize the finest cottons, combed to eliminate weak fibres, then twisted and doubled to increase their durability. A thread count of 200, or “Egyptian” cotton, implied 95 miles of spun yarn per pound; whereas, an 80 count or “American” cotton (which was fine for calicos) yielded 38. According to my aunt’s reckoning, English and German cotton produced a superior finish, and garments made from Indian or Peruvian cloth were simply not to be considered. Crepe fell under her scrutiny as well – the Cantonese, silk type proving vastly superior to the Victorian - an imitation, cotton variety.

Ella could identify silk by scent, almost from the door. I followed along, imitating her as she turned up her nose at the pink, plush pyjama-bags, and headed for envelope-style, embroidered-silk lingerie sacs instead. I never dared select anything myself; choosing instead to trust Ella’s unimpeachable judgement and faultless taste. After all, she had learned to dress from the best, apprenticing under her mother-a stylish, fun-loving, girly-girl, whose turn-of-the-century, Chicago shopping expeditions, were legendary in our family.

For my 6, 7, and 8-yr-old self there were socks, panties, and sleepwear to consider. Later, like big game hunters, we trekked through the city in search of the perfect bras for the empire, A-line, and tent dresses that I wore in the 60s. Ella provided instruction on how to handle beehive-coiffed corsetières who dared to suggest that they knew more than we did about fine lingerie.

When I entered my teens, Auntie Ella supplied me with fashion journals. I purchased Seventeen Magazine at the corner store myself, but Ella saw to it that American Girl and Elle (en Français, of course!) arrived at my door each month by subscription.

Ella was two generations my senior, and having come of age during la Belle Époque she spoke mysteriously of petticoats, waists, and pantalettes, yet kept pace with the latest styles. During the school year, when her gifts of slips, garter belts, and stockings arrived by mail, I marvelled at their perfect fit and up-to-the-minute chic. Thanks to Ella, I was the only girl at my high school to wear psychedelic printed hose.

“We’ll buy the best if it’s not too dear” was Ella’s mantra. It was also the imperative that compelled us in and out of store after store on those summer shopping excursions in the 50s and 60s. Once home, our tired legs would climb the curved outdoor stairway that led to Auntie’s front door where we’d revive with tea and biscuits, then set about to pre-launder our treasures. Ella’s under-things were not to mingle with the household laundry; she tended to them lovingly by hand in a complicated procedure with which I was not permitted to assist.

I thought of Auntie decades later, while looking for an Ella-approved way to freshen my own silk and satin fripperies, during a three-week tour of France. There was none. So I stuffed some medicinal chocolate in my purse, and headed for those cathedrals of shopping – the boutiques. After all I was in Paris. And I spoke the language of lingerie! For more on this subject, follow the link to my book, Lingerie; Two Centuries of Luscious Design.