Patent Application
20170006925
The presently disclosed women's garment relates to a figure enhancing and bulge reducing garment comprising a one piece contour layer, which provides compression to enhance the figure and is sized to reduce the bulging of skin of a wearer beyond the edges of the garment and constructed to facilitate urination and bowel movements without removal thereof.
In today's market, there are a number of commercially available garments that apply compression and figure enhancement to certain body portions of the wearer to improve appearance. For example, the applied compression aids in shaping the body to appear thinner or to improve the overall figure of the wearer. However, compression garments on the market today are engineered for the tighter skin of younger women, which are cut in areas of the body in a way that allow for skin to protrude past and over the edge of the compression garment. Furthermore, the looser skin of older women tends exacerbate bulging of skin out and over the edges of these garments at the armpit, upper back and other areas of the body of the wearer.
Many women's figure enhancing undergarments typically require at least the upper portion to be removed from the wearer before being seated on a toilet. U.S. Pat. No. 5,790,984, teaches and discloses an outer garment with a closable opening for facilitating urination by the wearer. However, the closable opening at the crotch is zippered, which can be inconvenient. With other brands, the opening is a short slit in the crotch that does not allow for bowel movements and cannot accommodate a sanitary pad or liner.
Therefore, there is a need for a women's contouring type garment which covers the upper and lower torso of the wearer with and without sleeves to be worn without underwear or undergarments include a closeable trap door opening extending through the crotch area to facilitate urination and bowel movements.
Disclosed herein is a figure enhancing and bulge reducing shapewear garment, comprising: a one piece contour layer comprising a) sleeve portions selected from the group consisting of short sleeve, ¾ inch sleeve, cap sleeve and wide shoulder strap; b) thigh portions; c) armpit portions; d) bra cup portions; e) waist portion; f) neck portion; g) crotch opening and crotch flap; h) buttocks portion; and i) back portion, wherein the contour layer is stretchable to apply compression to enhance the figure and sized to reduce bulging of excess skin of a body of a wearer beyond the edges of the contour layer.
The following is a detailed description of certain specific embodiments of the garments disclosed herein. In this description reference is made to the drawings.
For the purposes of this specification and appended claims, unless otherwise indicated, all numbers expressing quantities, percentages or proportions, and other numerical values used in the specification and claims, are to be understood as being modified in all instances by the term “about.” Accordingly, unless indicated to the contrary, the numerical parameters set forth in the following specification and attached claims are approximations that can vary depending upon the desired properties sought to be obtained. It is noted that, as used in this specification and the appended claims, the singular forms “a,” “an,” and “the,” include plural references unless expressly and unequivocally limited to one referent. As used herein, the term “include” and its grammatical variants are intended to be non-limiting, such that recitation of items in a list is not to the exclusion of other like items that can be substituted or added to the listed items. As used herein, the term “comprising” means including elements or steps that are identified following that term, but any such elements or steps are not exhaustive, and an embodiment can include other elements or steps.
In one aspect, disclosed herein are figure enhancing and bulge reducing garments, comprising: a one piece contour layer comprising a) sleeve portions selected from the group consisting of short sleeve, ¾ inch sleeve, cap sleeve and wide shoulder strap; b) thigh portions; c) armpit portions; d) bra cup portions; e) waist portion; f) neck portion; g) crotch opening and crotch flap; h) buttocks portion; and i) back portion, wherein the contour layer is stretchable to apply compression to enhance the figure and sized to reduce bulging of excess skin of a body of a wearer beyond the edges of the contour layer.
The figure enhancing and bulge reducing garment slims, smoothes, and supports the wearer's front, upper armpit, upper back, upper arms, side, back torso, hip, upper thigh, buttocks and bust areas by providing compression 11. This slimming and smoothing compression technology is different from other shaping garments because it is engineered for the mature woman (>40 years old) that finds the typical compression garment geared for the younger woman (<40 years old) with tighter skin that are cut in a way that exposes skin at undesirable areas of the body for the mature woman. The typical compression garment for younger women is cut lower under the armpit and upper back, and often has minimal coverage of thigh, arms, etc. In the case of a mature woman with skin that is looser due to age, the compression garment for younger women results in bulging of skin and fat over the edges of the garment. Therefore, the disclosed garment is sized to cut higher under the armpit portions 17 and upper back portion 16 to reduce bulging out over the edge of the garment as observed with compression garments for younger women. Moreover, in contrast to compression garments for younger women the disclosed garment is not cut high around the hip and thigh areas. The disclosed garment is designed to completely cover the thigh portions 24 and hip area, which eliminates bulging at the thigh and hip areas as compared to compression garments for younger women which are cut high around the hip and thigh areas.
For the contour layer of
The disclosed garment also has a built in crotch flap 13 for urination and bowel movements via the closed crotch opening 12. Further convenience may be found with the hip attachment 14 for securing the crotch flap 13 from the backside during urination and bowel movements. Moreover, the crotch flap attachment 21 is accomplished via snaps, hooks, buttons, Velcro™ or similar means of attachment. The crotch flap attachments 21 are positioned to allow for the application of a sanitary napkin or other absorption means in the center of the inside portion 51 as depicted in
In some embodiments, the closed crotch opening 12 and crotch flap 13 comprise a) an opening, which extends along only a portion of the inseam 23 substantially centrally on either side of the crotch area, the opening thereby having a maximum length sufficient to permit the wearer to urinate and have bowel movements through the crotch opening; and b) a flap, which extends and is attached at a top portion to the buttocks and secured across the front of the wearer to the contour layer with at least one fastener across the lower abdomen of the wearer. The crotch flap backside 32 is secured to the back of the contour layer with a crotch flap seam 31 or similar means as depicted with
In some embodiments, the contour layer 10 is composed of 100% spandex. In some embodiments, the contour layer comprises 5-50% spandex and 50-95% polyester or cotton, which stretches 20-100%. In some embodiments, the contour layer comprises 5-50% spandex and 50-95% nylon, which stretches 30-100%. In some embodiments, the contour layer is made from a uniform fabric. In some embodiments, the contour layer is spandex, which stretches 30-100%, spandex and polyester or cotton knit, which stretches 40-100%, or spandex and nylon or cotton knit, which stretches 50-100%. In some embodiments, the contour layer is made from a uniform fabric. The fabric has a slick finish that won't cling to other fabrics and is soft against the wearer's skin. In some embodiments, the contour layer is further removed and worn by the wearer with an optional side zipper 22 of the garment as depicted in
The figure enhancing and bulge reducing garment as disclosed herein can be used with a variety of women's fashion, including different types of tops. In some embodiments, the sleeve portions are selected from the group consisting of a ¾ inch sleeve 42 or a short sleeve 42 (short sleeve illustrated as a dotted line of
The figure enhancing and bulge reducing garment includes a built in bra 18, which is a bra cup provided with wires, seams, glued elastic, or otherwise permanently affixed to the contour layer providing bust support with A-FFF cups at least, and can comfortably wear this garment without a bra. In some embodiments, the bra cup portions further include a shelf bra comprising wires, bra cup or seams to provide bust support.
Turning to the construction and stitching, in both
Turning to the seams 23, as illustrated with
The contour layer of
The presently disclosed garments are not to be limited in scope by the specific embodiments described herein, which are intended as single illustrations of individual aspects of the presently disclosed methods, and functionally equivalent methods and components are within the scope of the presently disclosed garments. Indeed, various modifications of the presently disclosed garments, in addition to those shown and described herein will become apparent to those skilled in the art from the foregoing description and accompanying drawings. Such modifications are intended to fall within the scope of the appended claims.
