Hurrah for SUPER SIZE knickers

Thongs are prehistoric. Even ‘big pants’ are SO last year. Ladies, it’s time to go huge . . .

T hErE are some things in life so blissfully comforting for a woman that you have to release an involuntary ‘ahh’. Maybe it’s that moment in the day when you swap your high heels for slippers. Then again, not much beats whipping off your bra in the evening or sinking into a hot, scented bubble bath.

All the above tick my boxes. But now, in my late 40s, I have something else to add to the ‘ahh’ list. For me, straight in at Number One is climbing into a pair of huge, soft granny knickers.

As a former dedicated thong-wearer, I am a complete big pants convert. I’m never happier than when they come up to my armpits and are loose enough to tuck my shirts and jumpers into.

Sexy? hardly. But I don’t care. No lace to scratch against my skin, no flimsy bits of fabric to disappear into places I’d rather they didn’t. heaven.

And it seems I’m not alone in rejecting flimsies for something altogether more sensible. Sales of G-strings have been declining steadily for the past five years and now it’s hard to spot a thong on the rails at all.

Most major retailers report that G-strings account for a fraction of their sales, while undies that offer considerably more bottom coverage — whether they be Brazilians, boy shorts or midi briefs — are on the increase.

YOU need only browse the lingerie sections at M&S, John Lewis and Debenhams to see it’s true. Bigger pants fill the shelves while the G- string languishes, unloved, in the bargain bin.

One pair of knickers in six purchased in the UK comes from M&S, where they report that fewer than one in ten of the styles they sell is a thong. M& S’s new rosie range (modelled by rosie huntington-Whiteley) features no fewer than 14 styles of big knicker and one single, solitary thong.

Soozie Jenkinson, head of lingerie design at M&S, says: ‘There is no place for Bridget Jones boring knickers in our ranges. however, our customers love anything lacy at the moment, including the bigger knicker shapes, whether it’s to match with a bra or to add femininity to their underwear wardrobe.’

And it isn’t just us oldies who are saying so long to the thong. Younger shoppers are rejecting them, too. A recent report in The New York Times claimed it was considered ‘ cool’ among under-35s to wear big knickers.

For the younger generation, part of the reason is a shift in fashion, with higherwaisted clothes more popular. Plus there’s the trend, favoured by singers such as Taylor Swift and Ellie Goulding, for wearing sheer clothes with huge, armpithugging girdles underneath.

But the main reason for the G-string’s demise is that they are the most uncomfortable piece of clothing ever invented.

They’re bad enough when you’re standing up. But if you have to sit for much of the day then, oh my word, the chafing. Imagine sitting astride a length of dental floss for eight hours.

Some high- tolerance types learned to live with the permanent ‘wedgie’ feeling, while others, including me, never truly got used to it and were forever looking for a dark corner in which to perform inelegant adjustments.

In the Nineties, thanks to the fashion for low-rise jeans and our obsession with not having a visible panty line or VPL, G-strings flew off the shelves. In my 20s I wore nothing else — but back then I was three dress sizes smaller and my buttocks didn’t resemble a couple of balloons a week after the party.

Like most thong-wearers, I cherished one pair of big knickers for nights on the sofa and days when I could be reasonably sure that no one would see me in them and I wouldn’t get run over.

I carried on wearing thongs in my 30s and up to the age of 40 — until I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror of a changing room with unflattering lighting. By then a size 14, I gasped at what looked like a giant lump of cottage cheese eating a piece of string. Oh dear. Time to invest in more fabric. The fact is that, as well as being horribly uncomfortable, G- strings don’t look good on anyone bigger than a size 8 or older than Miley Cyrus. When the top of them appears over waistbands it looks trashy and, worse still, if you wear a thong with tight-fitting clothes, your wobbly bum cellulite can be seen through the fabric. At least big pants provide an extra layer of camouflage.

Women kid themselves that men like a woman in a G-string. But the truth is that unless she looks like a South American supermodel they really aren’t that keen. After all, do we really like to see a man in skin-tight budgie smugglers?

Initially, I tried Brazilian knickers — somewhere between a thong and a bikini brief — which offered a little more coverage but had a terrible tendency to ‘creep’. As for the popular ‘ boy short’ style, they just made me feel as if I was wearing men’s underwear. Plus, they are very hot and sweaty when worn under trousers.

The old-fashioned silk French or camiknicker unfortunately created so much static against my tights that I felt in danger of spontaneously combusting.

So I ventured into the world of truly huge pants. Yes, I still hold on to a few pairs of floozy frillies for special occasions, but they mostly nestle, untouched, in my underwear drawer.

FIRST, I bought a pack of three midis from M&S, before working my way up to the giant applecatchers I favour now. I remember watching that famous scene in Bridget Jones’s Diary when hugh Grant caught sight of Bridge’s massive knickers and exclaimed, ‘ Oh Mummy!’ Fourteen years on, they now look positively skimpy to me.

While G-strings left nothing to the imagination, my current knickers leave everything to it.

And unlike G- strings, big knickers are easy to care for. G-strings were so delicate that you’d be lucky to get a dozen wears out of them — an aggressive spin cycle was often enough to snap them. I’m pretty sure my granny pants could survive a cyclone and some of them are coming up to their tenth birthday.

I also don’t have to worry about any muffin tops making a break for freedom. Everything is nicely tucked away.

As for VPL, I no longer care. In fact, I think I’d much rather the whole world knew I most definitely was wearing underwear than suspected I wasn’t.

Practical, comfortable and longlasting. No wonder big knickers are such big news.

Pricey pants The average woman has £836 worth of underwear, but a man’s collection costs £274