Deportment classes: 05 (Singapore)

 

How to get in and out of a sports car without showing your knickers?

I was the only one in the class who was able to answer this question.

Don’t forget, we were still in mini skirt phase in Singapore at the time.  (Actually, writing this has just made me realise that they’d picked the right person in Miss C|eo Manning: her hot pants and page boy haircut were as frozen in the Sixties as our mini skirts!)

Sports cars usually sit quite low, which is already problematic enough for getting in and out of.  Add to that the fact that to get into one, it usually means that it’s parked by the kerb.  This adds four inches (nearly 2 cm) to the distance between your feet on the pavement and the floor of the car, making it even more difficult to step elegantly into the car without opening out your legs wider.  In a mini skirt, it’ll be well nigh impossible.  At best, clumsy and inelegant.  At worst, hitching up your already short skirt to stride into the low floor of the sports car.  And of course, exposing your knickers the moment you sit down — probably not “sit down” but “flop down with a heavy thump” as it’s so low.

Miss Manning posed this question to the class:  Does anyone know how to get in and out of a sports car with elegance and without showing your knickers?

No one knew the answer.

I was the only one who did.  

There’s more than one way of doing it, depending on the length of your skirt (how manoeuvrable your legs are), and on what the distance is between where your feet are (on the pavement or on the ground) and the floor of the sports car.

One way is to hold on to anything you can, and ease/swing your bottom onto the low seat while holding on to these supports and keeping your legs/knees together.  Then swing your legs into the car, still keeping your knees/legs together.  This will ensure non-exposure of your knickers.  

The supports would normally be the top of the open door for one hand, the roof of the car or the top of the seat back for the other.  It does require a bit of muscular strength and dexterous balancing.  A small price if you want to be in the sports-car clique.

Even if one’s skirt allows it, one should try to avoid stepping into the car one leg first, sitting down, then moving the other leg in.  It’s all to do with visual inelegance, as it means opening out one’s legs.

Miss Manning was most impressed, and gave me the top mark for this.

(How did I know about getting into and out of sports cars?  Read my blog on this — to come.)

(Singapore,1974)