Actress Lesley Manville: ‘I’m so glad the days of girdles are over’

The 1950s was a time of all-out glamour, huge skirts and cinched waistlines – but it came with a great deal of discomfort, all thanks to girdles and corsets.

Whether you watched your mother pulling in her stomach every day with a tight undergarment, or you remember wearing one yourself, they were all the rage for decades, and now Oscar-nominated actress Lesley Manville has admitted what plenty of women think – that all that form-fitting underwear may’ve made for a shapely silhouette, but it’s so much nicer now women can be comfortable.

The 62-year-old British film star opened up to Starts at 60 about her new movie Phantom Thread with actor Daniel Day Lewis, saying she was forced to wear a girdle for more than 12 hours a day during takes – and it reminded her so much of her own glamorous mother.

“I remember my mother putting it on, it was like a swimsuit with a bra and it sucks in your tummy, with suspenders on the bottom to keep your stockings up,” Manville recalled. “She would put that on even if she was just at home. My mother was a very, very chic woman and dressed very nicely. She was a beauty. I held her up as a great inspiration of all things 50s when she was so glamorous.”

That said, the actress admitted she was very happy not to have to wear a girdle herself any more, despite having had the opportunity to wear what she described as amazing costumes while playing Cyril, the sister of dressmaker Reynolds Woodcock, in the film, which is set in 1954.

“It’s great now that women are liberated, they don’t have to wear corsets, girdles, or even bras, you can do what you want and be comfortable. Women want to be comfortable,” she said.

“Nevertheless, it’s glorious when we do take the trouble to dress up. That period in particular was really celebrating women and their shape and curves. It was a very beautiful period. The price to pay, of course, was that you had to have uncomfortable undergarments.”

One of the signs that women of all ages are being celebrated just as they are is the fact that in recent years, women over 50 are being chosen to lead films, not act as accessories to the main character.

They’re “not just being mothers or grandmothers, but being businesswomen, women in relationships, women who have romantic lives, women who are not having to suppress their sexuality because they’re over 50, they’re still celebrating themselves,” Lesley said. “That’s crucial.”

Movies like Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and Mamma Mia have centred around women over 50 as lead characters, and both have gone on to receive huge praise and sell million of copies worldwide.

“People want to go to the cinema and see films that reflect their lives in some way,” the actress said. “Mamma Mia might be a musical fantasy, but the three starring roles are women who are over 50.

“There’s a shift and it’s good, women are no longer feeling that, just because they’re past 50 or 60, that they need to be confined to some frumpy cupboard that tells them they’re not allowed to celebrate themselves and explore aspects of themselves that perhaps they used to explore 20 years before. They need to carry on doing it.”

Phantom Thread is released on DVD on May 5.

Do you agree with Lesley that it’s good now that women can dress more comfortably? Do you miss the fashion of the ’50s and ’60s?