When I was about 12-13 years old, my mother made me an outfit that we referred to as a "sizzler." It was a very short* dress with matching panties sewn from the same fabric. When people see pictures of me wearing the thing, they say, "What the heck were you wearing?" I respond, "A sizzler" as if everyone should know what a sizzler was. Like, "Duh, a sizzler?" Yet, I still get the same blank looks. Jeesh, doesn't everyone know what a sizzler was? My cherished sizzler was made out of a slippery, yet sort of puffy jersey knit with colorful math symbols all over it - well, +'s and x's anyway. (*Please note the length of my mother's culottes and my sister's shorts. I wasn't the only one wearing short stuff in those days.)
While looking at vintage patterns the other day, I came across what I believe is the very pattern my mother used for this outfit... and lo and behold - it was infamously labeled, "the sizzler!" Sure, there were plenty of hotpants patterns in the early 70s, but this brazen little pattern sought to take things one step further and turn the hotpants into bikini bottoms! Imagine! And obviously, since so few people seem to know what a sizzler is, it didn't catch on... except for a few of us brazen tweens.
