1930s Pink Easter Dress and Vintage Underpinnings

I love a holiday, a great excuse to wear something frothy, frilly, and vintage.

I’ve been rather lazy the past several holidays, though, not wanting to shimmy into the underpinnings required to wear a well-fitted vintage dress, and then eat my own body-weight.

Since acquiring a handful of fabulous original vintage pieces, though, I’ve felt guilty not wearing them enough (some of them not at all, yet!), so Easter lunch was the perfect time to wear this new-to-me 1930s bias cut gown:

1930s crepe gown with 1920s/30s spectator t-straps shoes

It’s the most delicious peachy color, made from crepe, and oh so fluttery. It has a wonderfully deco rhinestone buckle on the belt, butterfly sleeves, and thanks to its bias cut, slips on over the head and hugs every curve in a very flattering way.

No thanks to the bias cut, though, and the material, this dress needs some very specific underpinnings that I don’t have. I wore my Rago all-in-one with a vintage slip over the top and I still had visible lines and texture from the Rago shaper coming through in very unflattering ways.  I’ve had this problem with other vintage dresses too, most notably a 1920s chiffon number that seemed impossible to wear.

So naturally I came home and began researching 1930s underpinnings, looking at both what they wore back then, and what was available now.

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As I mentioned before, I have a Rago all-in-one shaper, the kind with the crotch, but it’s honestly quite uncomfortable. I like the compression, but the bra cups are itchy, and the crotchy bits chafe something awful. The powermesh lace stuff is pretty, but it shows through thin materials, even with a slip over the top. I may try the open-bottom version at some point, but I really hope there’s something a little better out there:

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Perhaps it’s one of the What Katie Did corselettes, and I’d love to try one, but they’re a bit out of my price range at the moment, though I may find that, like corsets, you get what you pay for.

What Katie Did

I did end up purchasing a Flexees Wear-Your-Own Bra Full Slip, which claims to provide tummy, waist, and back shaping, and appears to be long enough to get the smooth hip line needed for 1930s. It was on sale and I like the option to wear your own bra, so we’ll see how this looks under those finicky vintage dresses!