Combat Underwear for Marines: But Is It Slimming?

You've gotta love this as a product slogan: "Protection for your privates, both literally and figuratively". That from BCB International, which has just produced some 120,000 pairs of ballistic boxer shorts for the USMC, says Stars and Stripes.



These ballistic boxer shorts are meant to protect troops from debris and flame from a blast.
Felicia White/Stars and Stripes







Curiously I came across this story after reading a piece in the March 28th issue of The New Yorker Magazine about Sara Blakely, the inventor of Spanx, a high-end fashion girdle (sorry! it's now called shapewear, I believe) for men and women. "Blakely, who recently turned forty and is a size 6, with long blond hair and bright-white teeth, believes that there is no figure problem—saddlebags, upper-arm jiggle, stomach rolls—that can’t be solved with a little judiciously placed Lycra. Her first big idea, in 1998, was to chop the feet off a pair of control-top panty hose so that she could get a svelte, seamless look under white slacks without stockings poking out of her sandals. The resulting product has sold nine million pairs since October of 2000, when Blakely started Spanx."

It does make me wonder if Sarah Blakely had a chance to bid on the ballistic underwear contract, though in my limited experience the US Marines achieve their svelte look without the aid of shapewear. Perhaps though other services could look at her product, for example the Armoured Corps (Spanx for tanx!).