I despise that much-used innuendo “winter draws on”, but really, have you looked in your knicker drawer recently? I cannot be the only woman who slides towards autumn relishing the thought of big, sturdy knickers, greying vests and ancient bras that should have been binned years ago. As you may have gathered by now, I am a lingerie disaster area. So allergic am I to the word lingerie that I won’t buy anything that is attributed that description. What’s wrong with that good old Aussie catch-all, “undies”?
It was with trepidation and grumpy reluctance, then, that I agreed to allow Helena Boas, co-founder of smart underwear purveyor Bodas, to come to my home and go through my knicker drawer. This is tantamount to allowing your best friend to go through your handbag. Boas and I know each other, but we’re certainly not bosom buddies (sorry). “You have your wardrobe made over, so why not your underwear?” she says, perusing everything that I have laid out on the bed with suspicion. “Is that really all you’ve got?” she asks. Of course it’s not. Would I really show an undie expert my big, grey work-out knickers or my favourite bra, bought from the Gap in New York for $5 six years ago? The best thing about Boas’s visit, though, was that it got me to actually rummage through the aforementioned drawer and throw stuff away. The most interesting thing about knicker drawers is, of course, the stuff in there that isn’t underwear – you know, the old (very old) love letters, birthday cards from the children, cotton hankies of sentimental value, receipts for things you weren’t quite sure about and then forgot to take back and, of course, sex toys (I don’t have any but, readers, you may).
Boas says that the right underwear can change your life – “Well, not actually change it but it can make you look and feel differently”, she says. It’s all about comfort, support and the “line” – how your boobs look in a particular bra, whether you’re wearing the right size and whether or not you have a VPL in trousers. Boas says every wardrobe should have a few simple workaday bras with adequate support, a multifunction bra (for strapless occasions), a T-shirt bra (no nipples, please) and comfortable knickers that are the right size and work on your shape. She thinks my sorry collection is “a bit black and, well, sort of white” and then she asks the big question: “What do you wear when you go out?” I wear exactly the same underwear to go out in as I do for the rest of my life, I tell her. Boas is aghast. “It’s important,” she says, “to have a few special things.” She measures me, writes a prescription, and the pretty bras and knickers in cotton and Lycra/cotton mix arrive the next day. Impressive. She even persuades me to wear a thong, a contraption I’ve never come to terms with. “The trick,” says Boas, “is to buy two sizes larger; that way it doesn’t go… well, you know.”
email: ledburyroad@bodas.co.uk coolhunter@thetimes.co.uk