Venus in a Vest: Anna Noble

Here are some splendid photographs of Anna Noble in a vest taken as a part of a shoot that appeared in Mayfair magazine in 1975.

Close observation shows that her garment is actually a very pale shade of pink rather than the more classic white but that does in no way detract from its pleasing visual effect.

The remarkable thing about these pictures is that they show Anna with a totally untrimmed bush which, even for 1975, was somewhat unusual.  Obviously not shot at a bikini time of year her pubic hair runs right up to her belly button in an enticing trail.

Triple P prefers his women in vests to just wear a vest but in this case we really cannot object to a pair of black hold-up stockings as well.

We can't find any information on the lovely Miss Noble other than she started modelling for the Daily Mirror's equivalent of Page 3 in 1976.  She never appeared in The Sun and disappeared from he modelling scene at the end of the seventies.  

Anna in The Spy Who Loved Me title sequence

Mayfair ran a second pictorial of her in 1977 to tie in with her very brief appearance in the title sequence of the James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me.

Looking at this picture she has a fine coating of hairs down her thighs as well but as they are blonde they hardly show.  What delightfully furry girl she is!

Anna's bust is such, of course, that if you push her vest up to reveal it the garment has enough to rest on so it doesn't fall straight down again.

Venus in a white vest: Jane Birkin

Triple P's particular friend, S, from Vancouver sent him these fine studies of Jane Birkin in a white vest (or tank as we believe North Americans call the garment - as for them a vest is what we would call a waistcoat).  Miss Birkin, by this time, had shorn her long, sixties locks in favour of this cute gamine look.  You have to be really beautiful to get away with such short hair but, of course, she was.  Apart from these ones with a blue background we have found another two, obviously from a different shoot but the same period.

We were thinking that we would be hard pushed to think of any accompanying text to go with this excellent set of pictures, given that we don't know their origin (if anyone does we would be interested to know), other than to mention the fact that we like girls just dressed in vests (or singlets, as the sporty versions are known in the UK).  Scarlet Knight recently wrote about the journals she keeps and Triple P was reminded that he used to (still does) do something similar.  Not anything as organised or structured as a journal but just accounts of memorable meals, hotels, wines and women.  We suppose this started when we were at college and we used to write to our family, friends and girlfriends.  This continued into law school, with many of our friends having to put up with our stream of consciousness ramblings written on Weybridge station whilst waiting for our connecting train.  Later, we just wrote for our own sake (many of the pieces were too racy to be sent to anyone) as writing has to be practiced and we have always had jobs that involved a fair bit of writing including, over the last dozen years, writing articles for publication. In those days before blogging and, indeed, before personal computers, our scrawled thoughts and recollections just ended up in old file boxes.  File boxes, however, that we have now located in our mother's loft, which we are in the ongoing process of clearing out.   However, on reading about Scarlett's journals we remembered the fact that we first saw our first naked girl in a vest (if that isn't a contradictory term) in real life in the eighties. We also remembered we wrote about it and wondered whether it was in one of the boxes.  Unfortunately, nothing was ordered, pages from different accounts were scattered at random, and it took some time to go through what we estimate was over 1500 sides of notes.  Inevitably, the note we were looking for was near the bottom of the pile but there it was.  Undated, unfortunately but we know that it was December 1987.  Nevertheless, we have a pretty good account of our first girl in a vest although, in truth we remember the incident quite well anyway.  So, with apologies to those who just want to look at the pictures of the lovely Jane, here are some recollections from over twenty years ago...

Triple P's appreciation for girls dressed just in a vests (white ones, ideally, but we also like those grey, sporty ones) began with our then girlfriend S.  S was a work colleague, which is always tricky, and so our relationship had proceeded rather cautiously.  Certainly Triple P was hoping for an escalation from our then "friends outside work" status to something more but S was more tentative.  At this point Triple P was going to the gym a lot and doing a lot of running (we ran our first marathon, in London in 3 hours 45 minutes, the following spring) and S, who had joined the same gym (work offered a big discount) decided that she would like to take up running too.  She invited us to her flat in trendy Richmond (Mick Jagger was one of its notable inhabitants at the time) one Saturday to take her running in Richmond Park.  We hadn't been invited there before, although we often met up at the weekends to visit galleries or go to the cinema.  S liked foreign films, especially if they had lots of sex in them, so we saw a fair amount of arty foreign films at the National Film Theatre and such like.   The previous night we had been to see Jean-Jacques Beineix's Betty Blue (1986) at a cinema in the Haymarket.  Although we knew it had a racy reputation we were, nonetheless, surprised by its opening scene of (very convincing) simulated sex.  We could sense S's excitement but sadly, we didn't have the chance to discuss it afterwards, as we usually did, because we could only get into a late showing and needed to get our respective trains home.  Anyway, after a rather longer than usual kiss on the concourse at Waterloo station we parted for our different platforms, with her reminding me to turn up the following day for our run.

Her flat was on the top floor of an old house.  It was built into the roof so that apart from  a dormer window in her bedroom the other windows were all in the roof giving light but no view.  It gave it a strange feeling: not claustrophobic, as the main room was large, but you felt cut-off from the world.  When it was dark, with the lights off, and all you could see was the night sky it was like being in a Laura Ashley decorated space capsule.  It was all a bit 2001: A Space Odyssey. When we arrived at her flat that winter Saturday morning we were somewhat surprised to see her dressed in tight running shorts and a baggy Miami Dolphins tee shirt (she had lived in Florida).  Now, up until this point we had only seen her in work clothes (which seemed to be identical to her weekend clothes).  Longish full skirts, high collared blouses (more Laura Ashley) and cashmere cardigans.  We were aware that she had an impressive bust but weren't prepared for the exceptionally long legs she was displaying.  Now S wasn't exactly built like a runner (she was built more like a nineteen fifties Playmate) so we weren't expecting much from her running and therefore started her off very slowly.  However,  it soon became apparent that whilst she ran slowly she had excellent stamina and didn't want to stop.  

We suppose we had covered about five or six miles by the time we had returned to her flat.  Now, getting up to Richmond Park from where she lived involved a quite steep hill and by the time we got back home she was complaining that her legs were stiffening up.  She disappeared into the bathroom for a shower and reappeared wearing a white towelling bathrobe. Triple P took a shower too and expected her to be dressed when we emerged, as he had changed back into his normal clothes.  She was still in her bathrobe, however, and suggested that a massage might ease her legs.  Triple P agreed, in the most-off handed way he could manage, but his palms were already tingling with anticipation.  S put some music on her stereo; Rachmaninov's 2nd symphony which she thought was the most romantic symphony ever written (rightly).  She pulled the (Laura Ashley, inevitably) duvet off her bed and then took off her bathrobe.  Underneath she was wearing a white cotton vest.  It was much larger than the one Miss Birkin is wearing in these pictures. It covered her bottom  but, enticingly, had large arm-holes so that delicious slices of the sides of her breasts were revealed as she moved about.  S had the biggest breasts of any girl we had met.  She was a 40DD at this point (although she lost some weight and some bust size as she did more running).  She was.however, very conscious of them so tried to disguise them as much as possible.  She found them quite inconvenient and used to drive her Peugeot GTI with her seat belt draped across her chest but not plugged in properly, much to Triple P's concern, as she found it very uncomfortable. 

She lay on her back on the bed and asked Triple P to get to work.  Triple P knows a come on when he sees one but, nevertheless, she had been so firm in not taking our friendship to the next level that we proceeded with extreme caution as we placed our hands on her leg, just above the knee, and firmly pushed up.  S started  chatting about Betty Blue, the film we had seen the night before but not, as we might have expected from someone who read English at University, about the tragic storyline of un amour fou but rather her recollection of the sex scenes which she seemed to recall in remarkable clarity.   Triple P was simultaneously trying to discuss the film intelligently and working his fingers into her thigh muscles whilst fearing that she would ask him to stop at any second.  It came into Triple P's head that as long as we were talking to her then the massage would continue.  Triple P is quite good at massage as he had had a previous girlfriend , briefly, named T who had been a physiotherapist and she taught him a lot about it.  As our hands slid further up her pale thighs we expected her to push our hand away but, in fact, S responded by slightly parting her legs enabling our hands to massage her inner thighs.  Her upper legs were sparsely covered with very pale golden hairs which caught the light from the winter sunshine flooding through her dormer window.  We knew that she wasn't a natural blonde but as she opened her thighs we were surprised to discover, as her vest rode up slightly that she was a red-head down below.  She was a nice, dark ginger colour; like the ginger marmalade Triple P used to enjoy for breakfast.  Triple P has always had a thing about red-heads (of whatever shade) and we remember wondering at the time why on earth a glorious, natural red-head would dye her hair blonde.  She must have sensed that her bush was exposed but she did nothing to pull down the hem of her vest or otherwise cover herself.  At this point, as our fingers probed her long sartorius muscle (the longest muscle in the human body, of course), our thumb inadvertently brushed against her soft fluff.  

Suddenly, she rolled onto her stomach and Triple P thought that he had gone too far and was about to be kicked out of her bedroom.  But no, she lifted her hips slightly and pulled her vest up to reveal her bottom.  S had a wonderful posterior; fully rounded with that nice sharp curve between gluteus maximus and upper thigh insertion (Triple P studied anatomy as part of his art course at school) with two cute dimples above it.  Now, of course, on what was supposedly a leg massage there is no reason to reveal your bottom but we couldn't resist such a pert invitation and was soon gently kneading her rear,  The more we massaged her the more she spread her thighs until we could not only see her lightly fleeced pussy but we could quite distinctively smell it too.  We gently pushed her cheeks apart to the extent that we could see her rosy anus but still the expected protestations failed to materialise. We remember wondering what to do next and in the end just risked planting a kiss on her pliant bottom.  She didn't seem to mind so we followed up with another and another until she rolled onto her back and offered us her ginger pussy... 

We were, we have to say, somewhat surprised at the sudden passion shown by S, as she had been so diffident about any sort of romantic relationship previously, but it was later explained by her as a combination of having been nervous about moving on after a nasty break-up with her previous boyfriend and her concern about carrying on with someone she sat opposite at work all day.  Oddly, we found out when we admitted it to them some weeks later, our work colleagues had assumed that we had been carrying on for months anyway!  

When we eventually emerged from bed some three hours later we were both ravenously hungry, having run six miles and not had any lunch.  She made me put her bathrobe on (fortunately it was on the large side) and she put back on her white cotton vest.   Triple P had removed this earlier, sliding his hands up her body to push it over her head and revealing her, frankly, rather awe inspiring breasts.

She went to make some sandwiches.  We stood in her tiny kitchen as she bustled about and became fascinated by her vest.    If she bent down or stretched up to reach something from a cupboard there was always an enjoyable flash.  Psychologically, it turned out, she felt comfortable in the vest as it covered up her top half but revealed her legs, of which she was (justifiably) proud.  Apart from their size there was nothing odd about her breasts: they were the same size, they had matching nipples, they didn't droop.  There was, in short, nothing wrong with them in any of the areas that can make some women self-conscious.  They were, in fact, really rather perfect with large rosy areolae and flat, button-like nipples that she liked having licked into perky prominence.  But when she pottered about her flat (or, later on, Triple P's flat), she preferred to keep them covered and she kept them covered in an assortment of vests or singlets.  Triple P, therefore, not only appreciated the peek-a-boo aspects of the garment but it became very closely associated in his mind with sex with S as is Rachmaninov's 2nd Symphony, come to that (as we did). 

When we commented on how much we liked the look she promptly went out and bought some more little vests, including some of the short versions like Miss Birkin is modelling here.  S was quite happy to reveal her ginger pussy and voluptuous bottom to us but liked to keep her bust covered, unless we were actually engaged in what she referred to as "having a pash".

Since the days of S we have enjoyed a number of young ladies who look good in just a vest; S from Vancouver and B from Germany being foremost amongst them.  It takes a certain insouciance to carry off the look well, as Miss Birkin perfectly demonstrates here.  I'm sure there will be more Venuses in vests to come we just need to seek some out...

Venus in a Vest 1: Elizabeth Banks

When asked, as he once was, what article of clothing he finds sexiest on a woman, Agent Triple P has only one answer: a white cotton vest (closely followed by a grey cotton vest).  Whilst we appreciate the decorative effect of a finely wrought piece or two of La Perla or the clingy effectiveness of a Herge Leger bandage dress it is the simple vest which we enjoy the most as we find they can emphasise beautifully the female form.

Now we may need a word or two of clarification for our North American readers here.  In that part of the world a "vest" is what we would in Britain call a "waistcoat"  which is something a gentleman wears under his jacket but on top of his shirt.  In North America a "vest" in the British sense is more usually referred to as a "tank".  In the UK a "tank top" is a sleeveless sweater named (as is the US garment) after the padded, sleeveless jackets worn by the crews of His Majesty's Land Ships in the world's first tanks in World War 1.

Whatever you call it, Agent Triple P thinks that it is a garment which carries an unusually high erotic charge.  However, to impart this charge there are a number of key requirements.  Firstly, and most importantly, it must be worn with nothing underneath. Secondly, it needs to be either fairly tight or very loose; so it either clings closely to the nipples, like Ms Banks' example here, or it must be loose enough that glimpses of the side of the breasts can be seen through the armholes.  Thirdly, ideally, it shouldn't be worn with anything else.  Now Ms Banks is a Hollywood actress and so is rather more modest than, say, her European equivalent might be.  Nevertheless, her brief black knickers work quite well in these shots.

Now Agent Triple P's first experience of a young lady dressed this way was many years ago in Rome.  Triple P had been, for the first time, to a nightclub.  He was taken there by his aristocratic Italian friend M (actually all of Triple P's friends in Italy were aristocratic).  Now we admit we don't know much about nightclubs but this seemed a rather good establishment.  It was called Gilda (after the Rita Hayworth film) and is on 97 Via Mario de' Fiori off Via Frattini; not far from the Spanish steps.

Gilda had only been open a year or so but then, as now, it was the nightclub to be seen in in Rome.  It is certainly the only place that Triple P has been that had a selective door policy.  Oddly, we got in with no problem, largely because both M and Triple P worked at a very well known and venerable City institution which seemed more admired in Italy than in London.  Triple P's friend M made great play of this and it genuinely seemed to impress them!

We had a very good dinner in the upstairs restaurant and then went downstairs to the main floor.  By this time (midnight on a Friday night) the place was starting to fill up.  M and Agent Triple P soon had a group of around four or five nice young Italian girls at our table.  Most of them spoke very little English but they seemed very intrigued by Triple P.  We wouldn't have thought English people were that exotic but there you are.  All these girls, and indeed most of the women there, were wearing little black cocktail dresses.  Triple P, much to M's annoyance, as he was an inveterate ladies man, was doing rather well with three of these girls but M kept hinting (rather unsportingly, in retrospect) that Triple P shouldn't go near them (it was the height os the AIDS scare). 

Triple P, on one of those rare occasions brought on by a surfeit of Champagne, ended up on the dance floor with one P who wasn't part of the original group but had edged her way in latterly.  We were most impressed with P as she was tall (5'6" at least) whereas the other girls were all around the 5' to 5'2" mark (Roman girls are very petite compared with, say, Milanese girls).  She was also blonde and, most strikingly, was wearing a clingy, scarlet dress which was very short indeed (she had world class legs).  Nothing M could say was going to persuade Triple P to leave this young lady alone.   He could have told us that she had Bubonic Plague and it wouldn't have made any difference.  It was just one of those occasions when you just know that you are going to end up in bed by the end of the night.

In fact we were wrong, at least initially.  Whilst we did end up in P's rather rambling old apartment not far from Piazza Navona it was not, of course, the night but rather early in the morning.  Certainly 3.00am or later.  Triple P had P been together for a couple of hours but we had barely said a word to each other; given the noise in the nightclub.  One might have expected some sort of small talk inside but, no, we had literally only just got through the door to her apartment when P started to unbutton Triple P's New & Lingwood shirt. We didn't end up in bed as we never got further than the rug in the living room.  Triple P had had quite a lot to drink so we don't remember much about the activities except the next day we both had carpet burns on our knees which usually indicates a certain amount of dragging about.

Anyway, the point of this rather rambling reminiscence is that we awoke the following morning at around eleven thirty in P's bed but with no sign of P.  We were feeling not bad, considering, (we find that Champagne doesn't impart a hangover) but felt that we needed to locate P so that we could quickly establish the exact nature of our relationship the morning after (always a tricky thing in such encounters). 

We found P in the bathroom standing at the washbasin dressed in a white cotton vest and nothing else.  She was leaning forward towards the mirror which meant that the hem of the vest was just not quite showing her bottom.   Agreeably, she stayed dressed like this for the rest of the day which we spent in her apartment before gingerly venturing out to dinner in Trastevere that evening.  After this first memorable encounter with a young lady so dressed we have since become something of a connoisseur on the ideal hem length of said garment.  We have decided that it needs to just cover the posterior and the groin.  But only just; so that if the lady stretches up to reach anything or bends down for anything a delightful flash is given.  Anyway we will see more girls in vests in due course...

A quick word about the young lady decorating this post.  She is Elizabeth Banks, an American actress.  Born in Massachusetts in 1974 she got her first acting job in 1998 and has appeared in a number of films and TV series including all three Spiderman films, Seabiscuit, Catch Me if you Can and the TV series 30 Rock.  She is quite a busy actress averaging around four films a year.  We haven't seen any of her productions, other than Spiderman, and don't remember her in that but latterly her roles have been getting bigger.  Anyway, we think she looks lovely in her white vest and that is really the point (points?) of this post!