You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman

It all hit home for me when my mom wrote me a letter describing the family Thanksgiving dinner. It was not concerned with family togetherness and delicious turkey, but instead was the saga of an ornate Victoria's Secret bra. It seemed that Clare, who attends Wesleyan University in Connecticut, was very proud of her lingerie and had taken to flashing friends and family. To make a long story short, the bra journeyed from Clare to her little brother, somehow ended up in my seven-year-old cousin's room and was finally placed in my uncle's pocket.

Now, this story may prove nothing other than that our Thanksgiving was more interesting than yours and that I picked the wrong year to miss it. But I think it illustrates the college lingerie phenomenon perfectly.

Clare's brassiere obsession is not unusual. I once observed a group of female acquaintances on the T. Coyly removing their Victoria's Secret purchases from their shopping bags, they titillated the whole train with a exhibition of low-cut red nighties.

People I barely know have shown me their extensive underwear collections, pointing out a favorite blue camisole and matching tap pants. Shopping trips invariably end up at the ubiquitous boutique, where people who question spending thirty dollars on a pair of jeans will gleefully spend forty on tasty little bits of fabric and lace.

For the uninitiated, Victoria's Secret stores are a Harlequin Romance come to life. Pastel colors, peach perfume and classical music enclose racks and racks of tasteful robes, teddies and underwear. (Incidentally, the scent and the music are for purchase--for those who want to capture the lingeriestore feel in the privacy of their own homes.)

This is not the hooker-on-a-budget look you'll find in a Frederick's of Hollywood catalog next to the men's "musical elephant" Gstrings. It is refined, high quality, non-controversial stuff. Victoria's Secret is the Gap of intimate apparel. It's not just underwear, it's lifestyle lingerie. And college students are crazy for it.

Mandy, a Victoria's Secret clerk at the Cambridgeside Galleria Mall, says that "Quite a few [of our customers] are from B.U., B.C., MIT and Harvard. Maybe 30 percent."

She offers her own theory on the success of her store. "The styles are current, almost trendy, and it's relatively inexpensive."

But why do college students say they want lingerie in the first place? Harvard first-year and lingerie aficionado Regina N. Ford thinks, "College is a time when you change from a child to an adult. For females this means that you want to feel like a woman, and lingerie is very feminine."

It's a good point, but I have a theory of my own.

Let's blame it on TV. Whenever there's a scene that involves waking up, going to bed, or sex, women wear beautiful lingerie. This is always true, whether a woman is a power-suited corporate cutie of "L.A. Law," a scheming soap opera vixen, Chrissy on "Three's Company," or Madonna. Sure, the rest of their wardrobes are priced out of reach and completely inappropriate for daily life, but you can have their underwear.

It might be silly, but lingerie is really a grownup version of playing dress-up. The added bonus is that you get to wear the stuff out of the house. Whether it stays under wraps or makes an appearance on a subway or at a Thanksgiving dinner, lingerie is totally indulgent.