There are a lot of things that Ozempic & Co. have killed business for. Weight Watchers. Diets from cabbage soup to the boiled egg. Fat-but-jolly female film stars. The latest victim is the Lycra Company, which has filed for bankruptcy after sinking into a whopping $1.2 billion (£897 billion) of debt. That’s a lot of leotards!

Invented in 1958 by the gloriously named Joseph Shivers, a chemist working for DuPont, Lycra is an elastic fibre intended as a replacement for rubber – which can get rather clammy – in clothing. But it didn’t come into its own until the go-getting 1980s, when the craze for ‘aerobics’ – ‘Feel the burn!’ – led by a ‘resting’ Jane Fonda, inspired a million women to don Lycra and leg warmers and make fools of themselves to her hectoring ‘work-out’ videos.

This was the era of the films Fame and Flashdance and the whole dancewear-as-streetwear trend. On lithe youngsters, Lycra looked lovely, and the streamlined workwear aspect spoke of a busy and vital life, a vision of femininity which was equally at home prancing around in front of mirrors or holding one’s own in a steelworks. On older and broader broads – many of whom continue to choose ‘leggings’ to this day – it could be a trifle unforgiving. They could even make one look a bit like a........

© The Spectator