 Male dancewear
geschrieben von Eric at am 18.02. um 06:58:58 - als Antwort auf: Dance Belts - then & now von Dr. Dancebelt >from Empira:>“...I had a Danskin dance belt and wore the darned thing backwards for a while. "Why do they have the label on the FRONT?" I thought............ Didn't understand the THONG thing for a bit. I think I saw someone putting it on the RIGHT way, that I figured it out...”>______________________________________________________________________>In the early '80s, the Danskin model 1100 dance belt was a favorite of mine, too. It was made entirely of stretch elastic fabric (89% polymide nylon/11% Lycra) and was wonderful for holding everything in place, while yielding to your body's demands. That was a new idea in dance belt design, and a transitional development leading to today's styles.>Prior to Danskin's introduction of the model 1100 sometime in the late ‘70s, dance belt design was pretty much restricted to one concept: A wide raw elastic waistband attached to a single flat-panel piece of no-stretch material similar to canvas running from front to rear between your legs. I have no idea when those were invented or if another design came earlier, because they were the only ones available when I started dancing as a teenager. >The panel on my single remaining dance belt from this period (made by Les Steinhardt) is wider in front (5"), narrowing to 2.5 inches in the crotch, and then widening again slightly in back (3"). The 3" rear isn't wide enough to be considered anything close to full-seat, but too wide to be called a thong. Thong or not, as you moved, the rear panel inevitably gravitated between your butt cheeks into a classic wedgie. The rear was wide enough to create confusion between front and rear, and many dancers have reported wearing their first dance belt backwards! >__________________________________________________________________ >from Tom Parsons:>“Empira, you think that was bad...! When I first took classes about>40 years ago, nobody told me you should wear the belt with things>pointing up! I took a year & a half of classes doing it the wrong>way. Fortunately, there were no permanent ill effects....”>____________________________________________________________________>As Tom mentioned, it was also unclear that the penis should point upwards while wearing a dance belt. Both he and I started by bending our poor little male members down, which forced the testicles up into their body cavity. I can only speak for myself, but not knowing any better and with nobody to ask, I just assumed the resulting discomfort was part of the price to be paid to be a dancer. Dance belts of the period were almost universally called "nutcrackers" for good reason. >When the Danskin 1100 first came on the scene, guys in my college dance classes practically tripped over each other racing to the store to get one. Its elasticity meant wearing a dance belt for several classes in a row or a multi-hour rehearsal wasn’t pure torture. Instead of the Les Steinhardt’s 5” waistband that always rode higher than your tights, the 4” (later changed to 3”) waistband and the 2.75” rear made the claim that you couldn’t see underwear lines valid for the first time. Even though it was stretchy, the front was still flat, so all your male parts were still pressed tightly against your body with a definite flattening effect to the overall “look”.>The success of Danskin led other dance belt manufacturers to re-think their designs. The 1980s were a high point for dance belt invention and originality.>Les Steinhardt came up with a stretch nylon elastic design of their own, with a thinner rear yet (1.75”). But the dawn of modern dance belt design began when Capezio introduced the first pure thong design. My first and only one was relegated to the trash years ago (which I now consider a significant absence from Doctor Dancebelt’s dance belt museum), but I remember an extremely stretchy single layer pouch and a “fuzzy” stretch thong. I don’t remember it as being comfortable in back, and the stretch pouch allowed more of a bulge to show in tights than anything did previously, without much control of what was inside.>My favorite dance belt quickly became a Wendy Knits, which featured a 3” raw elastic waist with double-thick pouch of 46% cotton/46% Dacron/8%Lycra. The pouch had enough stretch to move when it had to, but was firm enough to insure security. With its thong style rear, this became the template for most dance belts from then until now. Wendy Knits is probably the only company to ever advertise their new dance belt design in DANCE magazine, promising “support for the male dancer”.>(in my always-humble opinion) Danskin made one of the worst dance belts of all time when they tried a thong design with a narrow 1” waistband and a pouch/thong both excessively stretchy and too long. It’s possible a really tall person might have a contrary opinion, but mine would go well above my belly button before being tight enough to be useful, even though the waistband was at least a size too small. Others must have shared my opinion, because Danskin disappeared entirely from the dance belt scene soon thereafter.>Classic dance belt design has evolved and settled down into today’s thong styles, available in various materials and some small variations from multiple manufacturers. At least one maker offers a full seat model, but given the desire to create an underwear line-free look, as well as many dancers’ desire not to have their dance belt cut into their gluteus muscles, that style has limited appeal. Future advances in dance belts will probably come from using modern material technology such as seam-free microfibers, rather than changes in the basic design. From Eric:I agree that the Wendy Knits were the best dance belts ever! What happened to them, and is anyone making that design? Antworten zu diesem Beitrag:
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