Garter belt

The suspender belt, the ultimate symbol of seduction

The suspender belt alone embodies seduction. Today, if it once again takes center stage, as a means of seduction and an object of fantasies...this was not always the case: the suspender belt has a long history behind it.
The garter appeared in antiquity to hold men's stockings below the knee (at the level of the shank), its use gradually changed until it reached its current position. As for the invention of the suspender belt, we owe it to Féréol Dedieu who in 1876 imagined, for medical reasons, a system that would allowavoid compression operated by the elastics on the thighs of these ladies, designed to hold the stockings in place. The suspender belt was born. It is linked to the corset, then favored by most of the fairer sex. In the 1930s, it was popularized by Marlène Dietrich who made one of the sexiest and most provocative uses of it on screen, in a legendary scene from The Blue Angel by Josef von Sternberg. The suspender belt continued to become more popular until the 1960s, when it was dethroned by the pantyhose, more comfortable and much more suitable for wearing the mini-skirt, which was all the rage.
In the 1980s, the suspender belt regained its nobility and established itself as an object of desire, of fantasies, even of fetish in some. It stands out as an essential attribute of seduction.
Cinema - always the great generator of universal fantasies - will add another layer, notably on the legs of Emmanuelle Seigner in Lune de Fiel, by Roman Polanski.
Amusing anecdote, in 1980 it was the subject of a rumor launched in the Echo des Savanes, which attributes its invention to Gustave Eiffel, supposedly urged by his wife to invent a system which would prevent stockings from corkscrewing... While this is not the case, the rumor persisted, and it is a legend which is still relayed today on certain blogs.
An obligatory attribute for decades of any self-respecting pin-up, the suspender belt seems to have many years ahead of it as seductive attribute of all femme fatale worthy of the name.