'Hoist your bosoms to the sky - and give two fingers to gravity'

'Shapewear' is the fastest-growing sector of the UK lingerie market and celebrities swear by it. But does any of it work? Alex Clark struggled to find out

Alex Clark
The Observer, Sunday November 4 2007

Know this, my friends: when you are stuck somewhere inside an intransigent foundation garment, half-in, half-out, no way forward, no way backward, your elbow mystifyingly behind your ear, your breathing beginning to quicken and nobody expected home for several hours, you start to understand what it is to feel alone. And what it might be to suffer an undignified end, garrotted by your own smalls.

Too small, in fact. They'll stretch, they said and indeed they did, but there's a difference between needing a little gentle shaping and actual shape-shifting. And neither is there anything like immersion in the world of control lingerie to replace your rose-tinted image of yourself as Charlotte Rampling plus a couple of extra goes on the foot-pump with a vision of Andrea Dworkin minus the sound feminist principles.

After the first hour, I went and had some cheese on toast, a Silk Cut and a little cry. One does, however, need to learn perseverance. Repeated attempts saw me safely inside my Flexees, and even swapping blithely between different models. I can report that there's a particular kind of security in the pieces that cling to your legs; the neat little pants that have an extra sausage of fabric to hold your tummy in place, or the even more belt-and-braces model that extends down your thighs, giving you a brief flash of a Lance Armstrong-meets-Ethel Merman aesthetic. I must confess I had less success with the Waistnipper, a free-floating tube that looked terribly like something you should wear after a back operation, the main problem being that I think it might best suit those whose waists have already been pre-nipped by genetic good fortune and 300 sit-ups before breakfast.

It was time to press on. 'I am about to try on my new Spanx,' I had announced on facebook, instantly dividing my friends into those in the know and those not. 'What is Spanx? Some kind of cat?' was the most bewildering reply. Others were only too well aware that Spanx are miracle pants that make you look thin and rich and go-getting all at the same time. Once I'd got mine in place, I tried on that troublesome but expensive dress from the back of the wardrobe, the one that I thought looked chic but made people stand up for me on the tube. And there was a definite improvement and - Spanx's USP - no visible lines. Though perhaps not enough of a transformation to send me out into the public gaze in That Dress just yet.

Life cheered up immeasurably when I moved on to my breasts. This is, after all, where you're supposed to add stuff, not take it away. And what fun to experiment with Fashion First Aid's range, whose purpose is helpfully suggested by their names: Boostits, Liftits, Concealits and Tapeits. For the quickest fix of all, reach for the Boostits - known more or less universally as chicken fillets - and slip them inside your bra, which immediately makes you feel like an extra in a Carry On film. I even wore them to the football and, although nobody noticed, I'm sure it was because a) they were looking at the pitch and not me and b) I was wearing a duffel coat. And when you take them out, they're tremendously satisfying just to roll around the palm of your hand, a bit like stress balls. Elsewhere, a bit of fiddling with Liftits - transparent plasters with which you hoist your bosoms to the sky and then stick them there, giving two fingers to gravity - just made me laugh. They did work, mind you, and if you take the plasters off quickly enough, you even get a bit of depilation thrown in.

First prize, though, for out-and-out strangeness must go to the Faveo Freedom Bra which, by anyone's standards, is barely a bra at all. Instead, you open the box to discover two little cups that, by a combination of discreet silicon-coated fasteners and suction, somehow cling to your breasts. Nothing joins them to one another, nothing goes round your back or over your shoulders and yet somehow, by a technological miracle, you remain uplifted, concealed and free to wear your dresses backless, strapless and halter-necked. All you have to get used to is the fact that your breasts are wearing little hats. After that, it's a doddle.

Tried & tested

Fashion First Aid Boostits half-cup breast inserts, £16, www.asos.com

5 stars

Faveo Freedom Bra strange cups, £35, www.faveo.co.uk

4 stars

Spanx black body suit, £55, Debenhams, 08445 616161

4 stars

Tapeits £4.95, www.discoo.co.uk

4 stars

Fashion First Aid Concealits reusable nipple concealers in peach, £9 per pack, www.asos.com

3 stars

Flexees long-leg control pants, £26, Debenhams, 08445 616161