Well, I'll bet you've never got trapped in a pair of your own knickers...

Time was, my only knicker related disaster was going to be ‘that’ feeling, when you’re just, you know, on the bus, and feel SOMETHING at the bottom of your trouser leg and realise…last night’s pants are about to make a reappearance at the top of your shoe. (Bonus points if that ever happened to you whilst you were stood up, in a meeting, being your most professional self)

But, that was 30 years ago me (aka – a totally different person) and I am now much more sensible. Underwear defeats me in completely different ways these days. The indignity of the sudden ping of an underwire escaping whilst I’m paying in Sainsbury’s? Highly likely. Knickers though? They are simple…aren’t they? They either come in 5 packs from M & S, or they are whichever option you can bear to match a nice bra (clue – there are many uses for cheese wire, 'up there' is not one of them, as far as I’m concerned. Therefore, never the g-string, always the slightly more sensible ‘stuff everything in and hope for the best’ affair). What could possibly go wrong?

I had chosen a gorgeous bra, for my own portrait session – picture it – all burgundy plushness with a bit of rose gold detail. 20s vibes. Perfect, High waisted knickers because…stomach. Optimistic size ordered. (larger size too, as a more realistic back-up plan).

Now, there are certain things I expect as standard, from a pair of pants, and one of these is, stretch at the waist. They just…do. Except, these didn’t. They did have a really cute little rose gold effect detail at the back, which I ignored. Got them on. Watched the waist disappear into my flesh. Sighed, and decided to try the larger ones. EXCEPT…no stretch. I could not get these things OFF. This is where I am eternally grateful that I was in my own home, not a Bravissimo changing room. I mean, the staff are helpful, but I don’t think ‘extracting customer from knickers’ features highly in anyone’s job description. So, I was trapped. But, you know, safe. There’s that.

Because I was getting hot, in that panicky way you get, when you’re trapped in an item of underwear (you may not be familiar). Getting hot, does not make your size shrink. Quite the opposite. My panic was literally stopping me from being able to dig out the waistband of these knickers from my flesh, and there were two solutions I could think of:
– try, somehow, to get a pair of scissor in between myself and that waistband, or
- ask Robin for help.

Neither of these appealed. Both likely to involve scissors and potential injury. I grabbed the larger ones to see if they could magically help me understand wtf was going on here and…they did. Because that little bit of rose gold detail at the back was a CLASP, to be undone BEFORE putting these knickers on, and then done up, once on. Had I known that, and done that, I would have realised before I was in an inadvertent ‘I now have knickers that pass for a chastity belt situation’, and never done them up (because, quite demonstrably, they wouldn’t have done up).

Relief!
Kind of, because
1. I was still trapped
2. There was no way I was getting to that clasp on my own.

Amassing every scrap of nonchalance I could muster, as though this sort of thing happens all the time, no big deal, I wandered off to find Robin, to get him to find and undo the clasp, and release me from knicker purgatory.
Not my finest hour, most glamorous hour, but also not my maddest, so he took it entirely in his stride.
I could breathe again. It did however take me quite a while to pluck up the courage to try that larger size on...

Much love,
Anna
xx
(always on hand with Prosecco and understanding for all of your wardrobe mishaps xx)