Stockings, suspenders and heels

Somebody has to write down that knickers go on over the suspender belt rather than under it, because almost nobody dresses that way by habit and the reason is entirely practical. This page is about what garments do physically: to a position, to the skin, to balance, and to the order in which things can be removed. What clothing signals is a separate subject and lives elsewhere.

Consenting adults only. Everything on this page is about adults over 18 who have freely agreed to it.

Written from first-hand experience or extensive research by the editor.

Two adults over 18. Dress as costume and as a change of register is covered at roleplay, uniforms and what to wear. This page is the mechanical half: what a garment does to a position, to the skin under it, to balance, and to the order things come off in.

Stockings against tights

Tights are one garment from waist to toe, and that decides everything about them. To reach skin they come off entirely, shoes first, or they get rolled down past the knee, which ladders them. Either way there is a break: somebody bent double dealing with clothing, and both legs bare at the end of it.

A stocking is independent of everything above it. The leg stays dressed all evening, because nothing between the stocking top and the waist has to be disturbed to reach anything. Bare below with the legs still covered is the arrangement set out at degrees of undress. Mechanically it comes to one fewer garment and no pause.

Hold-ups do the same job with no belt, which helps if the belt is the part putting you off. The silicone band grips a cool leg well and a warm one much less well, so they migrate, and one that has slid to mid-thigh cannot be put right by the person wearing it while she is bent over a table.

Seams have a use of their own: a seam shows at a glance whether a stocking has twisted, which makes it a standard with a visible pass or fail, and that belongs with inspection.

The order things go on

Here is the part nobody writes down, and the reason this page exists. Knickers go on over the suspender belt and its straps. Not underneath.

Most people dress the other way round out of habit, because knickers go on first everywhere else in life. Worn under the belt, the straps run down over the top of them to the stocking tops, so taking them down means undoing four clips first, by feel, with somebody kneeling on the floor swearing at a small metal clasp. The stockings drop the moment the clips are off, and it all has to go back together afterwards.

Worn over the belt, the knickers are the outermost item on the lower half. They go to the knee, or off, in one movement, at any point, with no clip touched. The belt stays fastened and the stockings stay up.

Women who wore these daily knew it without thinking. Suspender belts were ordinary clothing until tights arrived in the sixties, and you cannot use a lavatory with your knickers under four clips, so they went on top. The habit went out with the garment.

I found it out the slow way. An evening I had thought carefully about in every other respect stalled while I worked out, in poor light, that the knickers would not come down because four clips were over them. The scene did not survive the fumbling.

Straps, and where they sit

A belt has four straps as standard, six on the better ones. The rear pair run down the back of the thigh, and depending on the belt and how high it sits they can cross the lower part of the target area.

That causes two problems. A strap lying across the area takes the stroke instead of the skin, so you get a protected line with a red band either side of it. Taut elastic under an implement also marks in its own right, and a metal clip under a cane is the same problem as a stud on a back pocket: it will split skin that would otherwise have reddened.

Two fixes, both trivial. Unclip the rear pair and leave them hanging, since the front two hold a stocking well enough for a standing position. Or turn the belt so all four straps sit down the sides of the legs. Check with a hand rather than in a mirror.

What a heel does to the position

A heel is postural before it is decorative. Standing in one puts the ankle near the end of its range and pushes the line of the body forward, so to stay upright the pelvis tilts, the lower back hollows slightly, and the bottom rotates up and back.

That is the same geometry as being told to arch, set out at arching, adjustments and being told to present. The sit spot comes into the path of the stroke and the skin over it goes tight, which makes anything land more sharply and mark more readily.

The difference is where it comes from. An arch is held by muscles somebody is consciously using, so it collapses within a few minutes. A heel gives a smaller version of the same tilt for as long as the shoes are on, with nothing held and nothing to correct.

Height sets the degree, and the useful range is lower than people assume. Two inches gives a noticeable tilt at almost no cost. Four takes balance away faster than it adds anything, and a block heel does most of what a stiletto does with far less instability. Calibrate on somebody standing flat, then let her put shoes on, and you have increased the intensity without deciding to.

The other half of heels

A heel cuts the area you are balancing on down to a few square centimetres and holds the ankle where it rolls most easily. Anyone bent over furniture in them has their weight forward on their hands, which unloads the heel. A flinch that a flat foot absorbs becomes a stumble, and somebody who has to catch herself cannot do it well.

Standing still is the underestimated one, and I have underestimated it myself. The calf is held short and loaded continuously. I left somebody facing a wall for twenty minutes in four-inch heels because it seemed right, and what I got back was a person who had spent the last eight of them thinking about her calves. Corner time is meant to leave someone alone with what has just happened. Cramp prevents that efficiently.

So my own rule. Heels for the standing and formal part of an evening: the summons, the scolding, being looked at, a short spell in a corner. Off before anything that involves being bent over furniture or held in place for long. Being told to take them off marks that change better than any sentence I could say.

Skirts, briefly

A skirt gets judged on one question. Will it stay where it is put?

Length decides most of it. A skirt ending around mid-thigh turns up into a narrow band at the waist that will not stay there, while a longer, fuller skirt folds up and holds its own weight. That is the reverse of what people buy for this.

Test it beforehand. If it slides back down, either somebody holds it, which occupies a hand and is frequently the point, or it gets tucked into its own waistband, which is the reliable version and is described at degrees of undress.

A pencil skirt is a different item. It holds the knees together and shortens the stride, so it restricts a position instead of just covering one. Some people want precisely that. Others find it intolerable, and they tend to find out while bent over a table with their legs held by something they cannot adjust. Ask first.

Get dressed once, in advance

The page comes down to one instruction. Put all of it on beforehand, in the order above, then check that everything which has to move can move without anything else being undone.

Bend over and watch what the skirt does. Reach behind you and take the knickers to the knee without touching a clip. Run a hand over the seat for a strap or a clasp sitting where an implement will land. Walk six steps in the shoes. Two minutes, alone, with nobody waiting.

The alternative is finding all of it out mid-scene, and what it costs there is a stop. Half an hour of accumulated register comes apart while two adults deal with a clasp. More on the dull side of clothing at what do I wear.