ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the 'everyday significance' of lingerie in feminine women's lives, from the moment of browsing and purchase to the multiple sexual and non-sexual contexts in which it is put on, worn, and taken off the body. The popular visual representations of lingerie that are promoted to women through branding, catalogues, and advertising emphasise the display of the body as an object of visual sexual pleasure. An analysis of the practices of buying and wearing lingerie necessitates an engagement with an embodied narrative that is wholly absent from the visual emphasis on 'looking sexy' that pervades lingerie representations. Class identifications frequently intersect with gender in women's lingerie choices and uses. Dieting and weight loss were often mentioned by women who sometimes felt 'too fat' for certain lingerie styles. Comfort was something that was regularly raised when discussing what lingerie styles women would or would not choose.
