Binders. The world has gone mad.

You wore them over your vest.

They were just another layer of warmth on the days before central heating.

The buttons were just to fasten them, and the tapes tied the wrapover layer. Like this.

The tapes and rubber buttons were how you kept up your winter stockings if you were a child. Adults wore garters to hold theirs up. Then suspender belts were invented, the ones in use in the fifties and sixties were shaped to fit the curve of waist and hips and were a lot less uncomfortable than the reinventions that are available today, which are meant more as titivation of the viewer than as practical garments for wearing all day. However, an aspirin was still a useful substitute if the suspender button broke off. The advent of tights finally finished off the suspender belt too.

www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/liberty-bodice-suspenders-168451768

They were for warmth and the buttons held up stockings. My aunt at the time wanted me to wear a corset as well to keep my waist small. This was very important.?

The buttons were rubber, both the ones fastening the liberty bodice and those on the suspenders, so that the garment could be put through a wringer. Sometimes buttons were cloth covering a metal ring, for the same reason. This was before spindryers and tumbler dryers; the alternative to a wringer was hand wringing by a woman with raw red hands from scrubbing laundry that often had been soaked in soda crystals.

How have we gone from breast-binding being peddled to children to hideous underwear of yesteryear??

So it seems!

www.etsy.com/uk/listing/1053302362/vintage-linen-buttons-on-original-card

Rosie51

trisher

I apologise I thought from all the things posted on this thread that the assistants in Lush were in some way involved in selling these things. It just goes to show how many inaccuracies are posted on these matters and how foolish it is to believe a word of what is said in condemnation. It seems Lush is just providing a collection service. It's probably possible to order the same items and Click and Collect them somewhere, is everyone just as incensed about this service?

Why is Lush providing a collection service? The binders could just as easily be sent to the buyer's homes? Binders seem a very odd fit for a company that only sells cosmetic products. Will they be facilitating collection of other totally unrelated items? Probably not, unless it's related to gender identity ideology, they're a company that can't stop making grovelling apologies because they donated £3000 to a women's group.
Do you know of any other click and collect service for this company's binders, I couldn't find any?

Lush is providing a collection service because they are selling these binders to young girls without their parents’ knowledge. If they were sent to their homes the parents would find out.

I've just caught up on the posts comparing young girls clandestinely buying breast-binders online to children dressing up in mother's high heels. How many children wear mother's high heels all day every day without their parents being aware?

Yes, it is at best naive to suggest that this is just a helpful collection service. Lush isn’t offering to act as a drop-off point for other items - just something that very many parents would find troubling.

It is also concerning that it is a shop like Lush, which is the sort of place that most parents would see as wholesome, is the cover for this. Again, it smacks of duplicity, and if the issue were really as non-controversial as some pretend there would be no need for the cover of a cosmetic company aimed at the youth market. A child saying ‘Mum, I’m just popping out to the surgical supplies store to pick up some body-modification equipment’ is likely to raise alarm, but ‘I’m going to look at bath bombs in Lush’ will pass without concern.

Deliberate? You decide.

It's a commercial operation just like all the other organisations selling binders on line. There are lockers where you can collect stuff ordered on line without any contact wiith anyone. They are in most shopping centres. By all means object to binders if you wish but stop pretending the service offered by Lush is any worse than that offered by all the other suppliers of binders.

trisher

It's a commercial operation just like all the other organisations selling binders on line. There are lockers where you can collect stuff ordered on line without any contact wiith anyone. They are in most shopping centres. By all means object to binders if you wish but stop pretending the service offered by Lush is any worse than that offered by all the other suppliers of binders.

Lush is providing a collection service because they are selling these binders to young girls without their parents’ knowledge. If they were sent to their homes the parents would find out.

Yes, it's a cosmetics firm using its High Street facade to supply goods which might damage health to children without their parents' knowledge.
This reminds me of the icecream vendor who had been supplying drugs to local teenagers.

This reminds me of the icecream vendor who had been supplying drugs to local teenagers.
Exactly.

Yes, of course you can order stuff to be sent to lockers, but only if you have an Amazon account (or whatever) and a credit/debit card or PayPal account, which would mean you were over 18. This is rather different, isn't it?

I struggle to believe that Lush has anyone's best interests at heart with this campaign, other than their share holders. There is no altruism in a commercial business; they exist to make a profit.

Of course they do Chewbacca wwhich means some people must really want these things or it wouldn't be worthwhile stocking them.

Thinking about old underwear in the 1950s teenage girls were often brought their first roll-on by their mother. The garment was designed to flatten belly curves and hide the mons pubis. It was essentially restrictive. So were all these mothers abusing their daughters?
for anyone who hasn't seen one.

The garment was designed to flatten belly curves and hide the mons pubis

Really? I don't remember any of my friends nor I wearing one although my mother did.
The shape of that one wouldn't hide the mons pubis, would it? (I'd never heard of that as a reason for wearing one!!).

It’s the some people argument again. ???
Roll-ons or even corsets were never designed to hide the mons pubis except in some people’s minds. It wouldn’t work for that purpose anyway.

When it comes to childcare, I think a lot of 'normal practice' in the 50s would be seen as child abuse now, so I'm not sure how bringing corsetry into the argument is adding anything.

trisher, are you suggesting that there should be a laissez faire attitude to all retail? Is demand the only driver that matters, in your view? Are you really saying that if 'people really want' something it should be provided to buyers of all ages? Or should there be age restrictions on, for instance, cigarettes, lottery tickets, 18 rated DVDs, tattoos, pornographic magazines?

By 'eck you're good at whataboutery trisher! so much whatabout, some people and what if. Not so much with facts though.

Chewbacca

By 'eck you're good at whataboutery trisher! so much whatabout, some people and what if. Not so much with facts though.

And so many questions asked of us, but not much by way of answering ours (or just responding to points made in posts), and righteous indignation when your opinion is sought.

trisher that girdle looks a darn sight sexier than the ghastly Playtex ones I remember older women wearing in the 1950s!

Chewbacca

By 'eck you're good at whataboutery trisher! so much whatabout, some people and what if. Not so much with facts though.

whatabout some people or some organisations who give scant regard to safeguarding issues even when they pertain to children. Still as long as there's a demand and they will get them anyway, lets make it easier ?

It's simply pointing out that fashion has at different times demanded different restrictions on women's bodies. This may or may not be linked to trans issues.
The idea that wearing a binder is similar to taking drugs or accessing porn is ridiculous. Although it could perhaps be considered similar to smoking and drinking alcohol both of which are illegal for young teens, often indulged in, usually without the knowledge or consent of parents, and which make huge profits for their vendors.
Incidently there are organisations which will send free chest binders to anyone who is trans and couldn't afford to buy one. The only age limit they specify is that they cannot supply under 13s without parental consent because of US law. I'm sure any teen really interested or researching trans issues would find this out easily. So there's something else to worry you all.

This seems to be spreading. I have just heard that the local girls school has installed a gender neutral toilet.There are no boys at the school.

I saw an item on TV on one of those antiques shows. It was a dressmaking dummy that was made for the fashion of nipped in waists. Nipping in the waist pushed the liver and spleen up towards the chest, whereas binders only flatten fatty tissue and are physically harmless.

The problem is really that young girls are not better informed so they can resist silly ideas that will be of no benefit to them.