Olga Erteszek and daughters
I remember changing clothes after P.E. at Paul Revere Junior High in ninth grade. Jeannie Gardner, one of the most popular girls, had a locker a few spaces down. Usually the locker room screamed with chattering girls jammed between rows of metal cabinets. But on that day, lots of the eighth and ninth graders had already fled to their next class. Jeannie and I were the only girls along the wooden bench that separated us.
I was in my Olga underwear: Young Secret black bra, a four-section contour cup, and a panty garter belt with a tummy-flattening Lycra band. My stocking foot was propped on the bench while I attached the mid-thigh hose top to a garter dangling beneath my tricot panty. I sensed Jeannie staring, mesmerized, as I snapped the black rubber tab into a metal ring. I was enjoying the attention, as Jeannie usually ignored me—not that I cared much, though she was prettier and more popular.
At fourteen, petite and shapely Jeannie resembled Sandra Dee. She went out with an older guy, an eleventh-grade football star who drove a red convertible Mustang. I spied the Plain Jane white undies gathering up at her waist with a droop at the butt, like they’d been washed and worn too many times. After working alongside my mother to construct my very first bra and visiting the Olga Company so many times, I couldn’t help but notice that the bra covering her perfect breasts puckered at the sides, while the stretched-out elastic stood away from her underarm. I suspected her mom bought her Lollypop underwear, three to a pack at Sears and Roebuck on Pico Boulevard. Her cheap underwear distracted me from who I thought she really was and it made me feel spiteful, not Christian-like at all. I assessed and judged like my parents were forced to do on that painful path to freedom. Though in the ninth grade I wasn’t paying much attention.
“That’s groovy underwear,” Jeannie said, sizing me up as I plucked my skirt from the hook in my locker.
“Thanks.” I wanted to say more but nothing came to mind.
“Did your mom make that?”
“Yeah.”
“Wow,” she turned away as if finished with me, reaching for a white ruffled blouse hanging inside her locker. Then, as she maneuvered each button down her perfect chest, to my surprise she addressed me again.
“Chrisie, I was wondering, where are your parents from?”
“They were born in Poland.” I was surprised at her interest, because I doubted Jeannie’s mom shopped in the fine stores that sold my mother’s creations. I suspected she shopped at Penny’s or Sears and Roebuck, stores to which the Olga Company had no interest in selling.
“Then why aren’t you Catholic?”
All the Catholics at Paul Revere Junior High knew each other; they attended St. Martin of Tours in Brentwood or Corpus Christi in Pacific Palisades. I always wore a small gold cross around my neck. She must have noticed.
“I’m a Congregationalist,” I said proudly.
“How can that be?” She looked straight into my eyes now. “Poles are either Catholics, or Jews—and there are few of those left.”
I didn’t know how to reply except to say there were also a number of Congregationalists from Poland. Honestly, I hadn’t a clue what I was talking about. I had a limited knowledge of history, and as for the religions of Poland, I knew nothing. In fact, regarding Poland I knew very little at all, apart from the taste of Polish sausage, the colorful costumes of the peasant dolls my mother collected, and the bouncy sound of polkas my mother played on our phonograph so she could dance the half jump steps around the living room. I knew my parents lost most of their family to the Holocaust, but the details were never discussed in our home. Even in history class I can’t remember learning about the Holocaust. Not in the Sixties. Not in Brentwood.
The First Lady of Underfashions is a nonfiction saga-like memoir written by Christina Erteszek and includes excerpts from her parents' unpublished memoirs. It is a complex, layered, and nuanced story that bridges the violence of war, the innovation of thought, the singularity of religion, the quest for identity, and the intrigues and intricacies of family life. Jan and Olga escape from World War II Europe and arrive in the US with just a few dollars. They turn their paltry savings into a multi-million-dollar fashion business. Olga becomes a leading patent holder of female lingerie, a trendsetter in the industry, and is widely known for her innovative business tactics. But as this husband-and-wife team think of retiring, they decide to merge with another fashion company, which proves to be a fatal move when a loophole in the agreement allows for a hostile takeover. This is also a story of a daughter's need to find herself. Along her path to self-discovery, she discovers her parents have many secrets, some of which will never be revealed.
Share this now on instagram and Facebook