Kim Weist will be stripping — but not down — up.
Weist will be putting on her underwear piece by piece — all seven layers of it. Her undergarments are big bulky “Victorian unmentionables” — not sexy little numbers from Victoria’s Secret.
The one-woman show she puts on involves a lesson in fashion history and a little demonstration that will make people laugh and appreciate the simplicity of just putting on a bra and pair of panties.
Weist, 43, will be presenting her show at the First Presbyterian Church on Wednesday as a fundraiser to support the church’s mission trips this year to Montana, Peru and Mexico.
“What I do is I put on Victorian underwear piece by piece and as I do that I explain each piece. There is a funny story with each piece,” said Weist, a Pendleton resident. “Victorian ladies wore a lot of underwear under their fancy clothes and some are funny like corsets and big hoop skirts.
“The Victorians called undergarments unmentionables because you didn’t bare talk about it and heaven forbid if anybody saw it,” she said, chuckling.
The minimum layers women wore in those times were seven, and that is what Weist throws on herself. The act is tasteful and modest, she pointed out, and both men and women are invited to attend her show.
“I actually put each one on,” she said. “The first layer is a chemise, like a short nightgown. Then I put on some drawers, real funny looking, huge bloomer-type things. Then a corset, a corset cover, a petticoat, a hoop petticoat and another petticoat.”
Some women wore up to 16 petticoats under their dresses to make the skirts appear fuller and wider, like Scarlet O’Hara’s outfits in “Gone with the Wind.”
“They wore 10 pounds altogether. People were falling down, petticoats got tangled in legs, they couldn’t sit in chairs,” Weist said, laughing. “Then they came up with the hoop petticoat with steel sewn inside so the skirt could be big with less petticoats.”
Weist’s stage is set up to look like a Victorian dressing room and the performer also displays authentic samples from 1850 to 1870, the decades she focuses on. The undergarments she wears, though, she made herself.
“When I started I couldn’t find samples and anyway I thought it was kind of yucky and wasn’t sure if wanted to touch anybody’s old underwear,” she said, giggling. “So, I made my own from authentic patterns.”
Weist started doing this presentation just over a year ago and has done it at least 15 times. She first gave the presentation in a club she was in as a gag about art and culture and since it was a hit she has begun performing for other clubs and churches.
“When I do churches I give a short testimony on how God brought me to where I am — doing underwear. That surprises people,” she said. “I tell them how much of a troubled past I had and now I’m up on stage in front of everybody.”
Weist, who has been married for 18 years and has a 15-year-old son, is a window treatment fabricator by day and an underwear model by night.
“This mostly gives me the opportunity to help women laugh and have a good time,” she said. “Some kind of giggle, laugh, or say ‘Oh my gosh are you kidding?’ It is unexpected humor. I love catching people off guard.”
What: “Victorian Unmentionables — Secrets of the Victorian Woman”
When: 1:15 to 2:30 p.m. Wednesday
Where: First Presbyterian Church, 230 W. Ninth St., Anderson
Cost: $10
Tickets available at the church. Deadline to purchase tickets is 3 p.m. Tuesday and tickets won’t be available at the door. For more information call 642-0219
Community
Unmentionables
Window treatment fabricator by day, underwear model by night
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