New site suits historic Corset Shop, known for lingerie in hard-to-find sizes
April 22, 2015 by admin
Filed under Latest Lingerie News
SAGINAW TOWNSHIP, MI – Corset Shop Intimates, a business with a long history of serving women in Saginaw County and the surrounding area, has moved to a new location on State Street in Saginaw Township.
Shop owner Linda Hancock said the move to 5801 State is ”breathing new life into a very, very old business.”
Corset Shop Intimates, previously on North Center near Gratiot, offers shapewear, high-quality lingerie, bridal lingerie, bras and more. It also is a fully-accredited mastectomy boutique.
The shop carries a mix of popular and lesser-known brands, including Wacoal, Chantelle, Braza, Rago and Spanx. There, women can find fashion bras, everyday bras, sports bras and nursing bras in a wide range of sizes. Shoppers also can find pocketed bras and post-mastectomy prosthesis at the shop.
“One of the things that we’re known for is being able to fit the challenging fit,” Hancock said. “We have AA cups through N, and we start at a 28 band and go up to 56, so there really is not somebody that we’re not able to fit.”
If the store doesn’t have a customer’s size or a particular color in stock, employees will order it.
“We have something for just about everybody,” Hancock said.
Sharon Boss alters a bridal boustier at Corset Shop Intimates on State in Saginaw Township, Tuesday, March 31, 2015. The store recently moved from its former location on Center. The shop carries a wide selection of sizes of standard undergarments and also carries authentic steel-ribbed corsets. It is the only boutique for “miles and miles” that is nationally accredited for mastectomy bra fittings, says owner Linda Hancock.
In addition, shoppers can find waist-training garments and corsets, which are coming back into fashion thanks to some celebrities, Hancock said.
“On a daily basis, we get requests for waist-training garments, and we’re talking about people that want steel-boned corsets that lace up in the back.”
Hancock said she can order “just about any corset in any fabric.” But women who are considering waist training should educate themselves first, she said.
“You have to really know what you’re doing when you wear a steel-boned corset.”
For some, it’s a steampunk fashion statement, Hancock said. For others, it’s a method to achieve a certain silhouette.
“Some of the actresses are doing this to give themselves that chiseled, hourglass figure (that) is coming back.”
The store also carries a line of men’s underwear, Saxx, because most men’s underwear sold is purchased by women, Hancock said.
Pieces of history can be found throughout the store, from fixtures that once belonged to Jacobson’s in downtown Saginaw to the black-and-white photo of women at work at the Modart Corset Co., which operated in Saginaw in the 20th century.
There are private fitting rooms, including a private mastectomy fitting room. There’s a sewing center, too, where staff can alter lingerie for a custom-fit.
Corset Shop Intimates accepts Medicare, numerous Blue Cross Blue Shield plans and other major insurance providers.
The shop’s new location, formerly The Listening Room, also is home to the vintage Twilight Drive-in Theater sign. Bill McDonald, who owns McDonald Auto Group in Saginaw Township, owns the building. He said he plans to preserve the sign and relocate it to another one of his properties later this year.
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“As a kid, I remember going to the drive-in theater with all my friends,” McDonald said. “It brings back a lot of good memories for people that remember.”
The corset factory
Hancock points to the framed photo of women at work at Modart Corset Co. that hangs on the wall behind the front counter.
Hancock said her shop has a direct tie to the factory, which was founded as LaFrance Corset Co. in 1909 in Saginaw.
In 1910, LaFrance Corset Co. became Modart Corset Co., according to a timeline on the Corset Shop Intimates website. In the 1930s, the company’s name changed again, this time to LeMonde Corset Co.
LeMonde closed in 1948, at which time Ina Jackson and Margaret Loney opened The Corset Shop in Saginaw’s Morley Arcade.
Hancock said there had been a small corset shop inside the factory, and Jackson and Loney, former factory employees, wanted to keep the business going.
The building that once housed the factory still stands on Lapeer. The Castle Museum of Saginaw County History now owns it and uses it as storage space.
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Tom Trombley, deputy director of the Castle Museum, said the factory was a large employer with about 250 workers at one time.
“In 1923, they were using 600,000 yards of material every year,” he said, reviewing an article in The Saginaw News archives. “They claimed that the elastic used … would reach from New York to Philadelphia without stretching.”
“And every minute of the working day, four Modart corsets are made, inspected and shipped to some part of the United States or Canada,” Trombley read aloud from the microfilm.
Using museum records, Trombley couldn’t confirm Jackson and Loney’s connection to the factory, but he didn’t discount the possibility.
“We just don’t have a way to verify their connection to the company,” he said.
Soon before opening for business in the new State Street location, Hancock found another piece of Modart history in the unlikeliest of places. When she saw it, it gave her chills, she said.
“A month before we moved (the store), my husband (J. Brian Hancock) had a meeting in Hawaii, and we were there for 10 days. And we took an extra three days to meet with some very good friends of ours … and we were walking down the street, we stopped in front of an antique store looking at the dishes that my mother-in-law had. And then my eyes go to that sign.”
It’s a Modart ad that appeared in the September 1919 edition of the Ladies’ Home Journal.
Traveling right before the move was stressful, she said, but she took the antique shop find as a sign.
“You’re supposed to be here. I was supposed to see this.”
Another piece of history she aims to find is a Modart corset made in Saginaw.
“I’m hoping.”
Hancock said the Corset Shop is more than a business, “it’s a mission.”
“Everybody that works in this store is passionate about what they do, and it is a private mission in every one of my employee’s life to serve women and to help them be the very best that they can be.”
Customer service
Hancock said shopping at her store is unlike shopping at big-box stores and department stores for a few reasons.
“We serve you. We don’t expect you to find your bra. That is what we are trained to do. We are professional fitters,” she said. “Our eye for proper fit has been honed by the work we do with our mastectomy clients.
“The other huge difference is that we carry a much larger range of sizes that you cannot find anywhere else in town. There’s no one that carries an N-cup in this town. You won’t find anybody for miles that carries that.”
Custom alterations and special orders are other things that set the shop apart, she said.
“If we don’t have what you need, we get it,” Hancock said.
The Corset Shop opened for business at its new location in March. Hancock said her customers come from near and far, and being on State Street is more convenient for many of them. It’s also on a major bus route, making it more accessible for customers who don’t drive.
The new location is attracting new attention, too.
“We have a lot of new customers that see us, and, every day, we have first-time customers,” she said.
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There are still a few projects to do, including painting the outside of the building, repairing the parking lot and installing a handicap ramp.
Soon, Hancock plans to offer customers special appointments called “celebration appointments.”
A customer can schedule a free, private appointment, enjoy a cup of tea or a glass of wine, be pampered and try on whatever she likes, “for that woman that wants to have an experience trying on lingerie of all different kinds,” Hancock said.
Corset Shop Intimates is open from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday, from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Thursday and from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday. The shop is closed on Sundays.
Heather Jordan is a reporter for MLive/The Saginaw News/The Bay City Times. She can be reached at 989-450-2652 or hjordan@mlive.com. For more news, follow her on Twitter and Facebook.
