Traffic Jammies

Watch out for the lingerie lane on national underwear day

Flynn O'Hara Murphy

"Hello Ladies." The mustachioed fireman pauses to survey the room filled with lingerie-clad women, "I heard things might get a little incendiary in here." Three women modeling the latest fashions in exotic undergarments smile in his direction. There is another pause, but this time the oh-so-familiar bass-guitar twangs that typically mark the opening soundtrack to a skin flick fail to kick in. Then again, this isn't a skin flick. It's national underwear day--a decidedly non-Hallmark holiday--and the gals at Bucktown's G Boutique are celebrating the only way they know how. That is with a jaw-dropping, traffic-stopping, undies-wearing stroll down Damen Avenue. The fireman silently follows a WGN camera crew outside to watch these women strut their stuff.

Overcast skies and the distant rumble of morning thunder deterred any amateur underwear celebrants from joining the open invitation to the outdoor underwear festivities. But six gorgeous women, each with a connection to the G Boutique or its owner Cheryl Sloane, remain fearless in the face of a storm--weather or not. Undaunted, these true ambassadors of ass know the celebration that is national underwear day must go on. "I would only do something this early in the morning for Cheryl," notes a smiling Michelle "Toots" L'Amour, a burlesque choreographer. Michelle has brought along two more women from her traveling burlesque troupe, the Lavender Girls.

Public reaction is instantaneously and overwhelmingly positive. Traffic suddenly slows to a standstill as these babes stand on the edge of the sidewalk waving. Cars filled with men and women honk and wave in a collective show of support. The camera crew urges one of the women to try hailing a cab. But grabbing a taxi evolves into a much more difficult task as a police squad car, moving forward at an almost imperceptible rate, blocks traffic in both lanes. The fear of public indecency charges is quickly put to rest as it becomes clear that the two male officers in the vehicle are actually doing their part to celebrate national underwear day--albeit as interested spectators, not participants.

As with any public display of the female form, an added note of creepiness is in the air. The bubbling effusiveness of the brave women is brought to a pensive, nail-biting silence as a rusty pickup truck moves slowly by. The driver, a large man wearing a stained, sleeveless shirt and bearing a thick dirty beard stares unmercifully at the underwear heroines and leaves them silent for a few seconds. Thankfully these seemingly unavoidable and uncontrollable moments are few and far between this morning.

Still smiling and waving, the underwear walk continues. Off the air, WGN host Ana Blazal adds, "You know, if anyone complains, this is what women do. We celebrate ourselves in the most polite way possible." This is the spirit of national underwear day.