I saw this book, and I debated for a couple of months about whether I wanted to pay for it or not. It seemed like a neat idea, but I figured it couldn’t teach me anything that I didn’t already know. Having a crossdressing boyfriend who enjoys lingerie and all of the female underthings, I decided to give it a shot and purchase it anyway, and I’m actually really happy that I did.
The Lingerie Handbook, written by Rebecca Apsan, is 185 pages long. It was published by Workman Publishing and has a copyright year of 2006, so this book still contains very modern information. It’s the physical size of a regular book, and the pages are made from regular photo paper. The front of the book shows pink stripes with pictures of Rebecca Aspen in her lingerie shop in New York. There isn’t any nudity involved. The backside highlights some of the topics the book will be touching on. Because of the pictures and personal nature of the book, I wouldn’t recommend reading this in the workplace. There isn’t any nudity though, so you could take it out in public as long as you weren’t embarrassed by pictures of women in lingerie.
The book is bound very nicely, and it doesn’t look like any of the pages will be falling out of the binding anytime soon. The book was received in perfect condition and packaged in a little plastic bag like this sex shop I trust always does. The books they sell are always received in perfect condition, but when I order ones off of Amazon.com, they’re almost always a little beat up – even when bought new. I think it has something to do with Amazon.com’s warehouse.
This book is a neat little book overall. It covers all of the basics of lingerie and regular underwear as well. It covers topics about bras, panties, slips and sleepwear, shapewear, stockings pantyhose and tights, care and upkeep, and how to dress to undress. The author of the book owns a beautiful lingerie shop in New York, and she is also credited for being the one that chose the Sex in the City’s characters lingerie. She approaches the topic of lingerie as something that every women should be wearing – regardless of whether someone else will be seeing it or not. She believes that wearing gorgeous underclothing can change our outer confidence and make a difference with our appearance – even if no one else can see the lingerie itself. She’s a proponent of finding proper fitting and enhancing lingerie even for plus-size women. Apsan does include some information about finding proper plus-size fitting clothing which I fully appreciated.
The models in the book actually look like real women. No kidding, right? They range from a size two to about a size 10. There are lots of pictures of women in lingerie, but there is no nudity included in this book. There are also some hand-illustrated drawings that show things like how to put on a bra or stockings. They’re well-done and very informative.
One of the neat features about this is the before and after pictures. It shows a picture of “before” – when the lingerie wasn’t fitting properly or enhancing then it shows a picture of “after” – when she put the person in proper fitting lingerie. It amazes me how much underclothing can really enhance your body. Another thing she does with the pictures is to show what unproper fitting and proper fitting lingerie looks like. There are pictures of too-tight panties next to pictures with too loose panties then a picture of “just right”. She uses the pictures to help the reader know how well-fitting their own panties are. It’s really neat, and I found out most of mine are actually too loose.
Another cute feature takes just a couple pages of the book in each chapter. It gives a couple pages of a timeline of the history of the piece of clothing in question. For example, the bra history goes all the way back to Roman times and as recent as 2006. It gives important changes, manufacturers, and celebrities that helped advance the popularity of the item in question.
One of my favorite features of the book is included in every chapter. It shows a picture of each type of something and explains the basic differences between them. For example, in the bra chapter, we gets pictures and descriptions of Full-Figure Bras, Seamless bras, padded bras, balconette bras, demi bras, contour bras, full-cup bras, and about ten more. I never knew many of the differences between the basic bras, so this was extremely helpful to me. It does the same with different types of panties, lingerie, stocking, and shapewear.
It’s split into different chapters. The first chapter, about bras, covers the basics of how a bra is built, why it’s important, what types of bras exist (demi, full cover, etc.), how to pick out a bra, how to measure yourself for a bra, how a bra should fit, and how to properly put on a bra.
The second chapter, about panties, explains what types of panties work best for different types of outfits, explains how panties should properly fit, talks about the different types of fabric, and gives a bit of background about why panties are important.
The next chapter is all about sleepwear. It’s a pretty basic chapter that just explains the types of sleepwear as well as why it is important for many women to wear sleepwear to bed.
After that, we have a chapter on shapewear. It talks about how to properly put it on, the properties that make shapewear unique, how shapewear has changed, how to pick out the proper shapewear for your outfit, and this chapter shows before and after examples of women with shapewear.
Stockings and Pantyhose, the next chapter, talks about how to properly wear pantyhose to avoid looking trashy. It talks about why pantyhose work well, the different types of stockings and whatnot that exist, the differences between stockings, pantyhose, and the rest, and how to properly put on and present runs in pantyhose and fishnets.
The next chapter is about dressing to undress. It talks about the different styles of lingerie, and even gives a neat little day-by-day seven-day idea for buying lingerie to surprise your partner for a week. This chapter also includes a neat section about lingerie must-haves as well as a step-by-step guide to putting on a garter belt. I honestly never knew that the underwear should go over-top of the garterbelt itself. The second half of this chapter is all a guide on how a male can pick out lingerie for a female. It’s actually very helpful on the female side as well since it includes a neat little chart for “If she’s self-conscious about (body part), by her (this lingerie) because it (does this).” I know I’ll be using this in the future.
The next chapter is about care and upkeep. It talks about how to care for your bras and your silk lingerie. (No washing machines basically) It even has an article about ways to make a washing machine less dangerous. There’s even this handy little chart that deciphers the washing-instruction tags that most lingerie have. It then goes on to talk about how to develop your own lingerie system to keep your clothing nice and neat for easy storage and finding. As a last addition to the last chapter, there’s section about the different types of material and why they are used for lingerie as well as cleaning information.
I am thoroughly impressed by this book. I’m not too interested in different types of lingerie, so this book was a huge eye-opener. It was enjoyable to read, and I actually feel like I learned a lot of new information. For example, I never knew that fastening a bra in front and sliding it around to the back is actually really bad for a bra. I was always taught that it was the best way to do it. I feel like I know a lot more by reading this book, and I’ll happily be recommending this to others if they want to expand their knowledge about lingerie and find proper-fitting bras and panties.
