Jenice Armstrong: Fajas: Not your granny's girdle

EVER HEAR of fajas?

Neither had I.

But after a news release landed in my inbox late last week about a fajas boutique on El Bloque de Oro, a/k/a the Golden Block of North Philadelphia, my curiosity was piqued. Colombian women are legendary for their beauty, and if there was some sort of "secret" to it, as was hinted on the Internet, I wanted to know more. So on Saturday afternoon, I rang the buzzer of Intimate Expressions, at 4648 N.5th St., and walked into an exotic universe of women's girdles.

Once I got past the pretty things that squeeze your middle and the sexy Brazilian bra-and-panty sets up front, I wasn't sure if I'd died and awakened in elasticized heaven or hell. There was some of the usual shapewear I've seen at the mall, but Intimate Expressions specializes in the heavy-duty industrial-strength variety of girdle, the kind that starts at your knees and goes up over your chest and squeezes away every bit of unwanted jiggle. Wear this and nobody's going to be asking, "Want some milk with that shake?" To my novice eye, this was serious stuff, with the intimidating rows of hooks and eyes, zippers and straps to prove it.

When Patricia Areila started pulling out the fajas, which sell for about $150, I saw that there are varying degrees of squeezitude. She even sells tube-shaped models that tame arm flab.

I didn't try on any of the girdles. My rule is if I try on a dress and it needs something extra to make it work, I find another dress. In hindsight, I wish I had given the fajas a try, though, because I hear they aren't as uncomfortable as they look.

"We have a light, a moderate and a high compression, depending on your tolerance," said Juan Duque, U.S. president of Leonisa, a well-known, Colombia-based manufacturer of fajas that officially entered the U.S. market in 2009. "A lot of people start on light and then they move up to medium and then they move to one of our higher-compression garments."

"Women in Colombia are very into vanity. The standards are very high. It's part of the culture of the country for women," said Duque, now based in Atlanta. "Fajas in Colombia started in the early '90s. That's when they really became mainstream in Colombia."

Areila, who moved to the United States in 1997 to study English at Temple University, would stock up on lingerie when she was back home in her native Colombia because she couldn't find the kind of underwear in this country to which she was accustomed.

"I was buying Victoria's Secret, and the panties were so baggy and the quality wasn't good. Sizes for small ones, they are not good here," said Areila, 47, who is petite.

"I was gathering some friends and I showed them the merchandise, and they loved it. I thought, well, here is a market. I can make a business with this . . . to sell this merchandise to the Latin community," she said.

"I was selling door-to-door and business-to-business. I started with the fajas two years later, when my son was born. I was looking for a faja and I couldn't find a faja. On one of my trips back to Colombia . . . I found a factory where I found my fajas. I bought some samples. And I start showing that at the store.

"By that time, I already had opened a store. People loved it. Two years ago, I bought around $50,000 in girdles. Right now, I make my money just on girdles. The other things are just like complementary things for the store."

Those complementary things are midriff-squeezing body shirts, jewelry-trimmed Brazilian bra-and-panty sets that look more like swimwear, and butt-enhancing jeans. But as Areila pointed out, those aren't her big moneymakers. It's all about the fajas. Areila hopes to start a wholesale business, supplying them to plastic surgeons' offices to be used after liposuction and other procedures.

Here's her advice for faja customers who become uncomfortable in the garments: "Unzip. Don't take it off. Just unzip it. Rest a little while and zip it again. Because when someone is not really used to being tight, they want to take it off. If they do that, then they won't put it back. That's the best way to get used to it."

Send email to heyjen@phillynews.com. My blog: www.philly.com/HeyJen.