Wearing
Special occasion
An occasion is mostly a duration problem. Whatever is worn will be worn for far longer than anything is usually tested for.
The failure mode for occasion dressing is always the same: a garment chosen for how it looks in a mirror for ninety seconds, worn for twelve hours, most of them sitting down. The solutions are unglamorous and they work, which is the useful combination.
The one rule
Nothing worn for a long day should be worn for the first time on that day. Shoes get this respect and underwear does not, which is strange given that underwear is in contact with skin continuously. Wear the whole combination for a full evening at home first, sitting down for most of it. Long evenings are easier when nothing is new, and that includes anything bought for the occasion from a specialist boutique such as inWonderstate, which is exactly the sort of thing worth trying on an ordinary Tuesday instead.
Test the whole combination for one evening at home, sitting down. Almost every occasion disaster is prevented at that step.
The four structural problems
- Strapless
- The band does all the work, so the fit has to be right. A wide band, a firm elastic, silicone that has been wiped clean and skin with no lotion on it. Test by raising both arms and holding. See strapless.
- Low back
- A low back adaptor moves the fastening down to the waist and keeps the band below the bust line, which is the only place it can support from. A bra worn with the band pulled down to the waist supports nothing.
- Sheer
- The underwear becomes part of the garment. Choose something that looks deliberate rather than something that is trying and failing to hide, and check it in the light the event will actually be held in.
- Backless and strapless together
- Adhesive cups attach to breast tissue rather than to the ribcage, so they provide coverage rather than support, and their grip declines with heat and moisture over an evening. Judge them on that basis.
Duration
- Choose the band size that is comfortable seated, not standing. Ribcage circumference increases when sitting.
- Avoid anything on its tightest hook at the start of the evening. There is nowhere to go.
- Firm compression over the abdomen and a long meal are a poor combination. See shapewear.
- A short or a bonded edge brief prevents chafing over a long evening of walking and dancing, and no one will ever know which was chosen.
- Consider a slip. It stops a lined dress clinging as the evening warms up, which is the single most common late evening complaint. See slip and camisole.
Heat, movement and skin
A warm room changes everything. Silicone grip declines as skin warms and moisture increases. Adhesives loosen. Fabric that felt smooth at nine feels tacky at midnight. Anything relying on friction against skin should be treated as having a limited working life over an evening, and planned for accordingly.
Skin preparation matters in the opposite direction to intuition: body lotion, oil and shimmer applied to the ribcage will defeat a silicone strip completely. Apply nothing where a band or an adhesive is going to sit, or apply it hours in advance and let it absorb fully.
A small kit
Two safety pins, a spare pair of briefs, a fabric plaster for a heel or a strap rubbing, and a strap clip. All of it fits in a small bag and each item solves a specific failure that is otherwise the end of an evening. A pair of scissors small enough to travel deals with a scratching label, which is the most common source of irritation nobody plans for.
For anything that has to travel to the occasion rather than be put on at home, packing covers how to get a structured garment there without a crease in it.