Monthly Musing ~ Everyday Indulgence?

With 'Sweet Treats' and baked goods driving the monthly colour inspiration for September, I posed this question over on Instagram, 'For you, is lingerie an occasional indulgence or everyday delight?'

Photo by Holger Link on Unsplash

I've seen a definition of the word lingerie from the new 'In Intimate Detail' book which states:

While many people think of lingerie as 'sexy' attire, lingerie is a category of women's fashion, not something limited to a specific activity.  Lingerie includes all women's underwear, sleepwear, loungewear and shapewear.   

And I completely agree that 'lingerie' includes all categories but if used in casual conversation it does conjure up images of bras and panties in luxurious fabrics, with lace and ribbons, beads and bling and all the bells and whistles.  Whereas, if you use the word underwear then that tends to imply practicality and plain cotton.

So as sewists of lingerie do you still tend to keep your fancy me-mades for best and stick to plain, possibly bought, probably cotton underwear for the 'everyday'?

Keeping for best is certainly something I do for my outerwear.  Even though I don't quite conform to my small towns' conservative way of dressing, (my best friend remarked today that I was looking very artistic - I may have been wearing loud floral leggings and a heavily tartaned tunic with ugg-boots) I still keep my fancy dresses for formal occasions and if I was to wear my glittery gold stilettos for the school run then they'd certainly loose their shine, figuratively as well as literally.

Photo by Charisse Kenion on Unsplash

The same goes for baked goods.  While I have been known to devour half a pavlova, I'm pretty well behaved generally.  I don't doubt that in one sitting, I could consume a whole packet of my favourite biscuits (Squiggles Hokey Pokey btw, in case anyone cares to send me some) but I think some indulgences are better left as fantasy.  

My intimates are different though.  I'll happily wear my most extravagant sets any old time and so I'm trying to understand what the difference is?  I wonder if it is because no one else is going to see them and therefore potentially remark on their appropriateness or inappropriateness for the occasion.

A good friend of mine recently asked me to slightly alter a RTW pair of lacy knickers she had bought and her teenage daughter, on overhearing our conversation, loudly and disbelievingly exclaimed, 'You wear lingerie?' like it was something that needed a very special occasion to be brought out of the dresser drawer, an occasion she deemed her mother to be lacking.  By the way, my friend was very quick to retort, 'Of course I do!' 

So really, why wouldn't you wear your most outlandish lingerie everyday?  I can think of many pro's - the feel-good factor of indulgence, the pride from wearing something gorgeous of your own creation, treating yourself like a queen....

The only con I can come up with is when it comes to washing it is a wee bit laborious to handwash your delicate smalls but I conclude that that is a small price to pay for sweet, everyday indulgence and it sure is better for your health than biscuits!