Corset model goes "from bra cups to tea cups"
June 7, 2007 
A former corset model has been talking on the Channel 4's Paul O'Grady show about how she was unexpectedly put in the public eye when the now-defunct Spirella company, where she was employed as a machinist, asked her to model their wares.
Shirley Green, who is now 67-years-old, told her interviewer that she had been training at the Letchworth factory for a year as a seamstress when the firm found in her petite frame, the perfect model.
"There were some very lovely women working there so I was surprised and honoured they picked me," she said. "I think it was because they already had larger models, but were looking for someone smaller and I was the right size. I had a 32-inch bust back then so I must have been one of the original size zeros."
In 1955, she toured the country modelling corsets, which although an exciting time for her, did not leave her discontented to return to her job as a machinist, which she then did for 11 years, until the brand started to decline.
After a relatively brief stint working for Dorothy Perkins and modelling in local fashion shows, Ms Green went on to work for a hardware shop in Stortford.
"I went from bra cups to tea cups," she told Paul O'Grady.
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