Underwear through the ages

The Fashion and Textile Museum in London, England, is about to launch a new exhibition:




According to the Museum's press release:

From the first ever patented bra in 1915 to the most modern underwear developments of anti-cellulite knickers and a bust-firming bra – these are just some of the fascinating garments that will be on display.

For centuries women’s bodies have been shaped, enhanced and even controlled by underwear, a means to obtaining the desired fashionable figure. While bras are an everyday functional garment, unlike most other items of clothing they can take on an emotive, titillating or even scandalous nature.




The Undercover exhibition will trace the evolution of underwear, from health garment, shape definer to fashion ‘must have’. It will also explore a number of themes such as boudoir to everyday glamour, ‘Stars and their bras’ looking at celebrity branding, how research and innovation has changed the way we wear our underwear and how the changing face of underwear advertising and marketing has been interwoven with social, cultural and economic changes.




The exhibition presents a visual demonstration of how female underwear has evolved as women’s role in society changed and encompasses the changing trends from the ‘flatten it’ to the ‘push it up’ to the ‘let it all hang out’!

I must admit, it sounds fascinating - and I don't mean that in a prurient sense at all. Society's attitudes have changed radically over the years, from the days when underwear was literally the 'unmentionables' to modern celebrities wearing their underwear over their outer clothing! (Superman's an obvious and very early example, but Madonna's a more contemporary and realistic one.)

I'd like to see this exhibition, if only to see how social attitudes have evolved over the years. It'd be interesting to compare cultures, too. For example, when American women were copying Lana Turner's corset from the 1952 movie The Merry Widow (see the black-and-white picture above, center), what style(s) were French women emulating?

Peter