Is there still a case for slips?
Even Duchess Kate shuns undergarment that was once a staple
The best days may be over for the undergarment. With fashion calling for more skin, more women are skipping them
In the 1940s through the ’ 60s, you could look in any woman’s underwear drawer and find a slip: Silky, lacy, sexy. Think Elizabeth Taylor in her Oscar-winning role in Butterfield 8.
And there’s Rita Hayworth’s 1941 picture in a lacy slip, which helped make her a top pin-up girl for GIs during World War II.
Not familiar with those iconic images? Well, therein lies the problem: Who wears slips nowadays?
Apparently not Duchess Kate of Cambridge, a future queen of the United Kingdom and current queen of fashionable good taste. Like all horse-mad British royals, she turned up for Royal Ascot in June, resplendent in a creamy lace Alexander McQueen dress.
With the sun shining behind her and photographers snapping away, it was as clear as her slender thighs that she was not wearing a slip. Even the lining of the dress was as translucent as the dress.
Shock? Horror? Pitiless tsktsking from snooty British scolds? Not a bit. No one cared. Just like Princess Diana in 1980, crowed the Daily Mail, recalling when Kate’s late mother-in-law, then Lady Diana Spencer, accidentally showed off her shapely legs when she was photographed in a sheer white skirt against the sun. Diana blushed; Kate did not.
Nowadays few women seem to need a slinky slip in between their skin and their skirt or dress. Type in “slips” on the websites of retailers such as Saks Fifth Avenue, Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus, and what comes up is more often Spanx-style shapewear or dresses designed to look like full slips.
“Slips have gone the way of the dinosaur as a method to camouflage lingerie/underpinnings,” says retail analyst Krissy Cabot of Cabot Social Media Corp.
The global lingerie industry, which includes bras and panties and a dozen other product categories, totals more than $28 billion annually and is growing. But no one seems to have any data on sales of slips, or if they do, they don’t want to talk about it. Victoria’s Secret, the leading underwear retailer, with as much as 60% of the U.S. market, declined to discuss sales data with USA TODAY.
But it seems clear from the testimony of celebrity stylists, fashion historians, manufacturers and retailers that sales of slips for their origi
nal purpose have been slipping, and for some time.
“Slips are not really worn anymore,” says Cheryl Paradis, account executive for Mapale, a Miami-based lingerie manufacturer. “It probably started in the late ’70s and early ’80s when people stopped layering and became a little more comfortable showing skin.”
So what happened? Fashion historian Colleen Hill, a Fashion Institute of Technology in New York curator, says many women stopped wearing full slips during the 1960s and into the 1970s as hems hiked up and half-slips, camisoles and teddies became easier and more wearable choices.
“The elimination of the slip also coincided with the greater acceptance of the bare or ‘natural’ body,” Hill says. “Sheer, unstructured bras and slips were often all that was worn under clothing.”
Celebrity stylist Robert Verdi, whose clients have included Eva Longoria, Fantasia and Kristen Wiig, puts the declining relevance of slips down to “celebrity culture.”
“The watershed moment? Madonna and her generation when they took the undergarment and turned it into an outer-garment,” Verdi says.
He and other fashion followers and lingerie makers point to other factors: The rise of Spanx and similar shapewear to smooth out bumps and lumps, and the rise of a more casual attitude about wearing revealing apparel.
Couple this with the decline of modesty among celebrity women parading down runways and red carpets in outfits clearly showing they aren’t wearing panties, let alone a slip. And don’t forget the rise of luxury soft-to-the-touch fabrics, thus eliminating the need for protection against scratchy wools and tweeds.
Debbie Sessions, co-founder of vintage fashion website VintageDancer.com, says that back in the day, slips kept delicate dress fabrics from snagging on girdles, corsets or bras and covered up dreaded panty lines.
“Today we achieve the same thing with a thin tank top or a smooth-cup bra,” Sessions says. Eventually, most women stopped wearing dresses as their primary day clothes and started wearing smoother lingerie and sleek pantyhose.
Verdi points out that many contemporary dresses have a slip built in, only now it’s called a lining and even that might do little to shield, as in the case of Kate’s McQueen dress.
“Slips used to protect from perspiration, protect fabric and skin, or add a layer of warmth when women more often wore skirts than pants,” Verdi says. “That was ... when people took care of their clothes because they kept them longer.”
Even if the original purpose of a slip is irrelevant, fashion has evolved them for a new purpose.
Commando, a Vermont-based brand of modern undergarments, has seen sales in its slips category increase almost 40% since 2013, says founder Kerry O’Brien. When she started her business in 2004, she thought there was an opportunity to fill a niche after hearing that no one wore slips anymore.
“I feel like I had to re-educate a whole generation on how to wear a slip,” O’Brien says. “I find that women are still wearing slips because everything drapes better with a slip, it helps with opacity when you’re dressing for the office and it’s comfortable.”
“The elimination of the slip also coincided with the greater acceptance of the bare or ‘natural’ body.” Colleen Hill, Fashion Institute of Technology curator