Posted:
Ancient history
The loincloth is the simplest form of underwear; it was probably the first
undergarment worn by human beings. A loincloth may take three major
forms. The first, and simplest, is simply a long strip of material which is
passed between the legs and then around the waist. The ancient Hawaiian
malo was of this form, as are several styles of the Japanese fundoshi.
Another form is usually called a cache-sexe: a triangle of cloth is
provided with strings or loops, which are used to fasten the triangle
between the legs and over the genitals. The alternate form is more skirt-
like: a cloth is wrapped around the hips several times and then fastened
with a girdle.
In warmer climates, the loincloth may be the only clothing worn (making
it effectively not an undergarment), but in colder temperatures, the
loincloth often forms the basis of a person's clothing and is covered by
other garments. In most ancient civilizations, this was the only
undergarment available (King Tutankhamun was buried with 145 of
them). The loincloth continues to be worn by people around the world (it
is the traditional form of undergarment in many Asian societies, for
example).
Men are said to have worn loincloths in ancient Greece and Rome.
It is not clear whether or not Greek women wore undergarments. Roman
women sometimes wore wrapped breastcloths or brassieres made of soft
leather. They also seem to have worn loincloths and possibly something
like panties. Decorative frescoes survive showing semi-nude women
cavorting in breastwraps and loincloths.
Any cloth used may have been wool, linen, or linsey-woolsey blend. Only
the upper classes could have afforded imported silk.
Middle Ages and Renaissance
Male undergarments
In the Middle Ages, men's underwear became looser fitting. The loincloth
was replaced by loose, trouser-like clothing called braies, which the
wearer stepped into and then laced or tied around the waist and legs at
about mid-calf. Wealthier men often wore chausses as well, which only
covered the legs. By the Renaissance, the chausses became form-fitting
like modern Hose, and the braies became shorter to accommodate longer
styles of chausses. However, chausses and many braies designs were not
intended to be covered up by other clothing, so they are not actually
underwear in the strictest sense.
Braies were usually fitted with a flap in the front that buttoned or tied
closed. This codpiece allowed men to urinate without having to remove
the braies completely. Henry VIII of England began padding his own
codpiece, which caused a spiraling trend of larger and larger codpieces
that only ended by the end of the 16th century.
The modern men's shirt appeared during this era, but it was originally an
undergarment. Renaissance noblemen also adopted the doublet, a vest-
like garment tied together in the front and worn under other clothing.
Female undergarments
Medieval women usually wore a close-fitting garment called a chemise or
sometimes a shift or smock, sometimes coupled with braies-like leg
wrappings.
They may have worn petticoats over the shift and under the dress. Quilted
petticoats could be worn during the winter. Elaborately-quilted petticoats
might be displayed by a cut-away dress, in which case they became a
skirt rather than an undergarment.
During the 16th century, the farthingale was popular. This was a petticoat
stiffened with reed or willow rods so that it stood out from a woman's
body, like a cone extending from the waist.
Corsets also began to be worn about this time. At first they were called
pair of bodies, which may refer both to a stiffened bodice designed to be
seen, and a bodice stiffened with buckram, reeds, canes, whalebone, etc.,
worn underneath another, decorative, bodice. These were not the small-
waisted, curvy corsets familiar from the Victorian period, but straight-
lined corsets that flattened the bust.
There is a myth that Crusaders worried about the fidelity of their wives
and forced them to wear chastity belts. There is no reference, image, or
surviving belt to support this story.
Enlightenment and Industrial Age
The inventions of the spinning jenny machines and the cotton gin in the
second half of the 18th century made cotton fabrics widely available. This
allowed factories to mass-produce underwear, and for the first time,
people began buying undergarments in stores rather than making them
at home. The standard undergarment of the 19th century for men,
women, and children was the union suit, which provided coverage from
the wrists to the ankles (this "second skin" style is more commonly known
as long johns today). The union suits of the era were usually made of
knitted material and included a drop flap in the back to ease visits to the
toilet.
In the 18th century, women began wearing stays, a type of undergarment
that wraps around the torso from behind and ties closed in the front.
These stays were often stiffened in the 1750s and 1760s, when they
became known as the corset. Different colors became available (though
linings remained white). The corset remained popular with aristocratic
women well into the 19th century, when the design was modified to fit
much more tightly. A tiny waist came to be seen as a symbol of beauty,
and the corsets were laced with whalebone or steel to accomplish this.
This caused great pain to most women, and some even suffered damage
to internal organs and bones as a result. These later corsets did not wrap
around the breasts as their predecessors had. Breasts were thrust
outward by many corset designs, but were otherwise allowed to hang
loose.
The corset was usually worn over a thin shirt-like garment of cotton or
muslin called a shift. In the latter half of the 19th Century, long drawers
called pantalettes or pantaloons often accompanied the shift to keep the
legs out of sight as skirts styles got shorter.
The other major female undergarment of this period was the Crinoline
petticoat. This underskirt served a similar purpose to the farthingales of
the Renaissance, only the petticoat kept skirts full by means of stiff
fabrics and numerous layers rather than hoops. It also differed in that it
was fairly inexpensive, and therefore commoners and aristocrats alike
could afford to wear it (though wealthy women could usually afford
petticoats of finer material and of more elaborate design).
The bustle, a frame or pad worn over the buttocks to enhance their
shape, had been used off and on by women for two centuries, but it
reached the height of its popularity 1880, and went out of fashion for
good in the 1890s.
1900s
By the early 20th century, the mass-produced undergarment industry was
booming, and competition forced producers to come up with all sorts of
innovative and gimmicky designs to compete. The Hanes company
emerged from this boom and quickly established itself as a top
manufacturer of union suits. Textile technology continued to improve,
and the time to make a single union suit dropped from days to minutes.
Meanwhile, designers of women's undergarments relaxed the corset. The
invention of new, flexible but supportive materials allowed them to
remove the whalebone and steel while still providing support.
1910s
The increase in the number of underwear manufacturers necessitated the
birth of undergarment advertising. The first underwear print
advertisement in the United States ran in the Saturday Evening Post in
1911 and featured oil paintings by J.C. Leyendecker of the "Kenosha
Klosed Krotch". Early underwear advertisements placed emphasis on
durability and comfort; fashion was never a selling point.
By the end of the 1910s, Chalmers Knitting Company split the union suit
into upper and lower sections, effectively inventing the modern undershirt
and drawers. Women wore lacier versions of this basic duo known as the
camisole and drawers.
In 1913, a New York socialite named Mary Phelps Jacob changed women's
fashion forever when she cobbled the first brassiere together by tying two
handkerchiefs together with ribbon. Jacob's original intention was to
cover the whalebone sticking out of her corset, which was visible through
her sheer dress. Jacob began making brassieres for her family and
friends, and word of mouth soon spread about the garment. By 1914,
Jacob had a patent for her design and was marketing it throughout the
United States. Although women had worn brassiere-like garments years
past, Jacob's was the first to be successfully marketed and widely
adopted.
In 1912, the United States had its first professional underwear designer.
Lindsay "Layneau" Boudreaux, an immigrant from France established the
short lived panty company "Layneau". Though her company closed within
one year, it had a significant impact on many levels. Boudreaux showed
the world that an American woman could establish and run a company,
and she also caused a revolution in the underwear industry. Boudreaux is
possibly the reason why up-scale underware and panty stores exist today.
By the end of the decade, trouser-like "bloomers" (popularized by Amelia
Jenks Bloomer 1818-1894 but invented by Elizabeth Smith Miller) gained
popularity with the so-called Gibson girls who enjoyed more athletic
pursuits such as bicycling and tennis. This new female athleticism helped
push the corset out of style, as well. The other major factor in the corset's
demise was the fact that metal was in short supply in much of the world
during World War I. Steel-laced corsets were dropped in favor of the
brassiere.
Meanwhile, the soldiers of World War I were issued button-front shorts as
underwear. The buttons attached to a separate piece of cloth, or yoke,
sewn to the front of the garment, and tightness of fit was adjusted by
means of ties on the sides. This design proved so popular that it began to
supplant the union suit in popularity by the end of the war. Garments of
rayon also became widely available in the post-war period.
1920s
In the 1920s, manufacturers shifted emphasis from durability to comfort.
Union suit ads raved about "patented" new designs that reduced the
number of buttons and increased accessibility. Most of these
experimental designs had to do with new ways to hold closed the crotch
flap common on most union suits and drawers. A new woven cotton
fabric called nainsook gained popularity in the 1920s for its durability.
Retailers also began selling preshrunk undergarments.
Women's bloomers became much shorter and stockings covered the legs
instead. The shorter bloomers became looser and less supportive as the
boyish flapper look came into fashion. By the end of the decade, they
came to be known as step-ins, very much like modern panties but with
wider legs, worn for the increased flexibility they afforded.
As dancing became a favorite pastime of young flappers, the garter belt
was invented to keep stockings from falling. Nevertheless, the increased
sexuality of the flapper also made underwear sexier than ever before. It
was the flappers who ushered in the era of lingerie.
A Russian immigrant named Ida Rosenthal further developed the
brassiere in this decade when she introduced modern cup sizes in 1928
for her company, Maidenform.
1930s
Modern men's underwear was largely an invention of the 1930s. On
January 19, 1935 Coopers Inc. sold the world's first briefs in Chicago,
Illinois. The company placed a Y-shaped front and overlapping fly on
knitted drawers in both short and long styles. They dubbed the design
the "Jockey" since it offered a degree of support that had previously only
been available from the jockstrap (the company itself would later adopt
the name Jockey, as well). Jockey briefs proved so popular that over
30,000 pairs were sold within three months of their introduction.
Meanwhile, other companies began selling buttonless drawers fitted with
an elastic waistband, the first true boxer shorts (named for their
resemblance to the shorts worn by professional fighters). Scovil
Manufacturing also introduced the snap fastener at this time, which
became a popular addition to various kinds of undergarments.
Women of this decade brought the corset back, now called the girdle. The
garment lacked the whalebone and metal supports and usually came with
a brassiere (now usually called a bra) and often garters attached.
1940s
During World War II, elastic waistbands and metal snaps gave way once
again to button fasteners due to rubber and metal shortages.
Undergarments were harder to find, as well, since soldiers abroad had
priority to get them.
At war's end, Jockey and Hanes remained the industry leader in the United
States, but Cluett, Peabody and Company would make a name for itself
when it introduced a preshrinking process called Sanforization, which
came to be licensed by most major manufacturers.
Meanwhile, some women readopted the corset once again, now called the
waspie for the wasp-shaped waistline it gave the wearer. Many women
began wearing the strapless bra, as well, which gained popularity for its
ability to push the breasts up and enhance cleavage.
1950s and 1960s
In the 1950s, underwear manufacturers began marketing printed and
colored garments. What had once been a simple, white piece of clothing
not to be shown in public suddenly became a fashion statement. The
manufacturers also experimented with rayon and newer fabrics like
dacron and nylon. By 1960, men's underwear was regularly printed in
loud patterns or with images ranging from messages to cartoon
characters.
Women's undergarments began to emphasize the breasts instead of the
waist in the 1950s. The decade saw the introduction of the bullet bra,
which featured pointed cups. Fredericks of Hollywood's push-up bra
finally hit it big in this decade as well. Meanwhile, women's panties had
become even more colorful and decorative, and by the mid-Sixties were
also available in two smaller, more abbreviated styles called the hip-
hugger and the bikini (after the island of that name), frequently in sheer
nylon fabric.
Panty hose, also called "tights" in British English, which combined panties
and hose into one garment, made their first appearance in 1959, invented
by Glen Raven Mills of North Carolina. The company later introduced
seamless panty hose in 1965, spurred by the popularity of the miniskirt.
Present day
Woman in dessous
Underwear as fashion matured in the 1970s and 1980s, and underwear
advertisers forgot about comfort and durability, at least in advertising.
Sex became the main selling point, bringing to fruition a trend that had
been building since at least the flapper era (underwear is the last barrier
before nudity, and thus it acts as a sort of gatekeeper to sex).
Performers in the 1980s such as Madonna and Cyndi Lauper also got into
the act, often wearing undergarments on top of other clothes.
Later, in the 1990s, hip hop stars would popularize a similar style, known
as the sag, which allowed loosely fitting blue jeans or shorts to droop
low, exposing the underwear. In fact, in the case of Mark Wahlberg, it was
his success as underwear model for Calvin Klein (pioneering in sexy
exposure of male flesh) that allowed him a double launch to showbiz
fame as the first white hip hop star and as a respectable Hollywood hunk.
Although it was worn for decades by exotic dancers, the thong first
gained popularity in South America, particularly in Brazil, in the 1980s. It
was originally a style of swimsuit made so that the back of the suit is so
thin that it disappears between the buttocks. By the 1990s, the design
had made its way to most of the Western World, and thong underwear
became popular. Today, thong underwear is one of the fastest selling
styles available among women and is even gaining some popularity
among men.
In the 1990s, retailers started selling boxer briefs, which take the longer
shape of boxers but maintain the tightness of briefs. Though marketed as
a new design, these are actually quite similar to the bottom half of the
two-part union suits worn in the 1910s.
😃
i'll say it again didi..what do you know about chaddhis? 😉 😛 😳
The loincloth is the simplest form of underwear; it was probably the first
undergarment worn by human beings. A loincloth may take three major
forms. The first, and simplest, is simply a long strip of material which is
passed between the legs and then around the waist. The ancient Hawaiian
malo was of this form, as are several styles of the Japanese fundoshi.
Another form is usually called a cache-sexe: a triangle of cloth is
provided with strings or loops, which are used to fasten the triangle
between the legs and over the genitals. The alternate form is more skirt-
like: a cloth is wrapped around the hips several times and then fastened
with a girdle.
In warmer climates, the loincloth may be the only clothing worn (making
it effectively not an undergarment), but in colder temperatures, the
loincloth often forms the basis of a person's clothing and is covered by
other garments. In most ancient civilizations, this was the only
undergarment available (King Tutankhamun was buried with 145 of
them). The loincloth continues to be worn by people around the world (it
is the traditional form of undergarment in many Asian societies, for
example).
Men are said to have worn loincloths in ancient Greece and Rome.
It is not clear whether or not Greek women wore undergarments. Roman
women sometimes wore wrapped breastcloths or brassieres made of soft
leather. They also seem to have worn loincloths and possibly something
like panties. Decorative frescoes survive showing semi-nude women
cavorting in breastwraps and loincloths.
Any cloth used may have been wool, linen, or linsey-woolsey blend. Only
the upper classes could have afforded imported silk.
Middle Ages and Renaissance
Male undergarments
In the Middle Ages, men's underwear became looser fitting. The loincloth
was replaced by loose, trouser-like clothing called braies, which the
wearer stepped into and then laced or tied around the waist and legs at
about mid-calf. Wealthier men often wore chausses as well, which only
covered the legs. By the Renaissance, the chausses became form-fitting
like modern Hose, and the braies became shorter to accommodate longer
styles of chausses. However, chausses and many braies designs were not
intended to be covered up by other clothing, so they are not actually
underwear in the strictest sense.
Braies were usually fitted with a flap in the front that buttoned or tied
closed. This codpiece allowed men to urinate without having to remove
the braies completely. Henry VIII of England began padding his own
codpiece, which caused a spiraling trend of larger and larger codpieces
that only ended by the end of the 16th century.
The modern men's shirt appeared during this era, but it was originally an
undergarment. Renaissance noblemen also adopted the doublet, a vest-
like garment tied together in the front and worn under other clothing.
Female undergarments
Medieval women usually wore a close-fitting garment called a chemise or
sometimes a shift or smock, sometimes coupled with braies-like leg
wrappings.
They may have worn petticoats over the shift and under the dress. Quilted
petticoats could be worn during the winter. Elaborately-quilted petticoats
might be displayed by a cut-away dress, in which case they became a
skirt rather than an undergarment.
During the 16th century, the farthingale was popular. This was a petticoat
stiffened with reed or willow rods so that it stood out from a woman's
body, like a cone extending from the waist.
Corsets also began to be worn about this time. At first they were called
pair of bodies, which may refer both to a stiffened bodice designed to be
seen, and a bodice stiffened with buckram, reeds, canes, whalebone, etc.,
worn underneath another, decorative, bodice. These were not the small-
waisted, curvy corsets familiar from the Victorian period, but straight-
lined corsets that flattened the bust.
There is a myth that Crusaders worried about the fidelity of their wives
and forced them to wear chastity belts. There is no reference, image, or
surviving belt to support this story.
Enlightenment and Industrial Age
The inventions of the spinning jenny machines and the cotton gin in the
second half of the 18th century made cotton fabrics widely available. This
allowed factories to mass-produce underwear, and for the first time,
people began buying undergarments in stores rather than making them
at home. The standard undergarment of the 19th century for men,
women, and children was the union suit, which provided coverage from
the wrists to the ankles (this "second skin" style is more commonly known
as long johns today). The union suits of the era were usually made of
knitted material and included a drop flap in the back to ease visits to the
toilet.
In the 18th century, women began wearing stays, a type of undergarment
that wraps around the torso from behind and ties closed in the front.
These stays were often stiffened in the 1750s and 1760s, when they
became known as the corset. Different colors became available (though
linings remained white). The corset remained popular with aristocratic
women well into the 19th century, when the design was modified to fit
much more tightly. A tiny waist came to be seen as a symbol of beauty,
and the corsets were laced with whalebone or steel to accomplish this.
This caused great pain to most women, and some even suffered damage
to internal organs and bones as a result. These later corsets did not wrap
around the breasts as their predecessors had. Breasts were thrust
outward by many corset designs, but were otherwise allowed to hang
loose.
The corset was usually worn over a thin shirt-like garment of cotton or
muslin called a shift. In the latter half of the 19th Century, long drawers
called pantalettes or pantaloons often accompanied the shift to keep the
legs out of sight as skirts styles got shorter.
The other major female undergarment of this period was the Crinoline
petticoat. This underskirt served a similar purpose to the farthingales of
the Renaissance, only the petticoat kept skirts full by means of stiff
fabrics and numerous layers rather than hoops. It also differed in that it
was fairly inexpensive, and therefore commoners and aristocrats alike
could afford to wear it (though wealthy women could usually afford
petticoats of finer material and of more elaborate design).
The bustle, a frame or pad worn over the buttocks to enhance their
shape, had been used off and on by women for two centuries, but it
reached the height of its popularity 1880, and went out of fashion for
good in the 1890s.
1900s
By the early 20th century, the mass-produced undergarment industry was
booming, and competition forced producers to come up with all sorts of
innovative and gimmicky designs to compete. The Hanes company
emerged from this boom and quickly established itself as a top
manufacturer of union suits. Textile technology continued to improve,
and the time to make a single union suit dropped from days to minutes.
Meanwhile, designers of women's undergarments relaxed the corset. The
invention of new, flexible but supportive materials allowed them to
remove the whalebone and steel while still providing support.
1910s
The increase in the number of underwear manufacturers necessitated the
birth of undergarment advertising. The first underwear print
advertisement in the United States ran in the Saturday Evening Post in
1911 and featured oil paintings by J.C. Leyendecker of the "Kenosha
Klosed Krotch". Early underwear advertisements placed emphasis on
durability and comfort; fashion was never a selling point.
By the end of the 1910s, Chalmers Knitting Company split the union suit
into upper and lower sections, effectively inventing the modern undershirt
and drawers. Women wore lacier versions of this basic duo known as the
camisole and drawers.
In 1913, a New York socialite named Mary Phelps Jacob changed women's
fashion forever when she cobbled the first brassiere together by tying two
handkerchiefs together with ribbon. Jacob's original intention was to
cover the whalebone sticking out of her corset, which was visible through
her sheer dress. Jacob began making brassieres for her family and
friends, and word of mouth soon spread about the garment. By 1914,
Jacob had a patent for her design and was marketing it throughout the
United States. Although women had worn brassiere-like garments years
past, Jacob's was the first to be successfully marketed and widely
adopted.
In 1912, the United States had its first professional underwear designer.
Lindsay "Layneau" Boudreaux, an immigrant from France established the
short lived panty company "Layneau". Though her company closed within
one year, it had a significant impact on many levels. Boudreaux showed
the world that an American woman could establish and run a company,
and she also caused a revolution in the underwear industry. Boudreaux is
possibly the reason why up-scale underware and panty stores exist today.
By the end of the decade, trouser-like "bloomers" (popularized by Amelia
Jenks Bloomer 1818-1894 but invented by Elizabeth Smith Miller) gained
popularity with the so-called Gibson girls who enjoyed more athletic
pursuits such as bicycling and tennis. This new female athleticism helped
push the corset out of style, as well. The other major factor in the corset's
demise was the fact that metal was in short supply in much of the world
during World War I. Steel-laced corsets were dropped in favor of the
brassiere.
Meanwhile, the soldiers of World War I were issued button-front shorts as
underwear. The buttons attached to a separate piece of cloth, or yoke,
sewn to the front of the garment, and tightness of fit was adjusted by
means of ties on the sides. This design proved so popular that it began to
supplant the union suit in popularity by the end of the war. Garments of
rayon also became widely available in the post-war period.
1920s
In the 1920s, manufacturers shifted emphasis from durability to comfort.
Union suit ads raved about "patented" new designs that reduced the
number of buttons and increased accessibility. Most of these
experimental designs had to do with new ways to hold closed the crotch
flap common on most union suits and drawers. A new woven cotton
fabric called nainsook gained popularity in the 1920s for its durability.
Retailers also began selling preshrunk undergarments.
Women's bloomers became much shorter and stockings covered the legs
instead. The shorter bloomers became looser and less supportive as the
boyish flapper look came into fashion. By the end of the decade, they
came to be known as step-ins, very much like modern panties but with
wider legs, worn for the increased flexibility they afforded.
As dancing became a favorite pastime of young flappers, the garter belt
was invented to keep stockings from falling. Nevertheless, the increased
sexuality of the flapper also made underwear sexier than ever before. It
was the flappers who ushered in the era of lingerie.
A Russian immigrant named Ida Rosenthal further developed the
brassiere in this decade when she introduced modern cup sizes in 1928
for her company, Maidenform.
1930s
Modern men's underwear was largely an invention of the 1930s. On
January 19, 1935 Coopers Inc. sold the world's first briefs in Chicago,
Illinois. The company placed a Y-shaped front and overlapping fly on
knitted drawers in both short and long styles. They dubbed the design
the "Jockey" since it offered a degree of support that had previously only
been available from the jockstrap (the company itself would later adopt
the name Jockey, as well). Jockey briefs proved so popular that over
30,000 pairs were sold within three months of their introduction.
Meanwhile, other companies began selling buttonless drawers fitted with
an elastic waistband, the first true boxer shorts (named for their
resemblance to the shorts worn by professional fighters). Scovil
Manufacturing also introduced the snap fastener at this time, which
became a popular addition to various kinds of undergarments.
Women of this decade brought the corset back, now called the girdle. The
garment lacked the whalebone and metal supports and usually came with
a brassiere (now usually called a bra) and often garters attached.
1940s
During World War II, elastic waistbands and metal snaps gave way once
again to button fasteners due to rubber and metal shortages.
Undergarments were harder to find, as well, since soldiers abroad had
priority to get them.
At war's end, Jockey and Hanes remained the industry leader in the United
States, but Cluett, Peabody and Company would make a name for itself
when it introduced a preshrinking process called Sanforization, which
came to be licensed by most major manufacturers.
Meanwhile, some women readopted the corset once again, now called the
waspie for the wasp-shaped waistline it gave the wearer. Many women
began wearing the strapless bra, as well, which gained popularity for its
ability to push the breasts up and enhance cleavage.
1950s and 1960s
In the 1950s, underwear manufacturers began marketing printed and
colored garments. What had once been a simple, white piece of clothing
not to be shown in public suddenly became a fashion statement. The
manufacturers also experimented with rayon and newer fabrics like
dacron and nylon. By 1960, men's underwear was regularly printed in
loud patterns or with images ranging from messages to cartoon
characters.
Women's undergarments began to emphasize the breasts instead of the
waist in the 1950s. The decade saw the introduction of the bullet bra,
which featured pointed cups. Fredericks of Hollywood's push-up bra
finally hit it big in this decade as well. Meanwhile, women's panties had
become even more colorful and decorative, and by the mid-Sixties were
also available in two smaller, more abbreviated styles called the hip-
hugger and the bikini (after the island of that name), frequently in sheer
nylon fabric.
Panty hose, also called "tights" in British English, which combined panties
and hose into one garment, made their first appearance in 1959, invented
by Glen Raven Mills of North Carolina. The company later introduced
seamless panty hose in 1965, spurred by the popularity of the miniskirt.
Present day
Woman in dessous
Underwear as fashion matured in the 1970s and 1980s, and underwear
advertisers forgot about comfort and durability, at least in advertising.
Sex became the main selling point, bringing to fruition a trend that had
been building since at least the flapper era (underwear is the last barrier
before nudity, and thus it acts as a sort of gatekeeper to sex).
Performers in the 1980s such as Madonna and Cyndi Lauper also got into
the act, often wearing undergarments on top of other clothes.
Later, in the 1990s, hip hop stars would popularize a similar style, known
as the sag, which allowed loosely fitting blue jeans or shorts to droop
low, exposing the underwear. In fact, in the case of Mark Wahlberg, it was
his success as underwear model for Calvin Klein (pioneering in sexy
exposure of male flesh) that allowed him a double launch to showbiz
fame as the first white hip hop star and as a respectable Hollywood hunk.
Although it was worn for decades by exotic dancers, the thong first
gained popularity in South America, particularly in Brazil, in the 1980s. It
was originally a style of swimsuit made so that the back of the suit is so
thin that it disappears between the buttocks. By the 1990s, the design
had made its way to most of the Western World, and thong underwear
became popular. Today, thong underwear is one of the fastest selling
styles available among women and is even gaining some popularity
among men.
In the 1990s, retailers started selling boxer briefs, which take the longer
shape of boxers but maintain the tightness of briefs. Though marketed as
a new design, these are actually quite similar to the bottom half of the
two-part union suits worn in the 1910s.
😃
i'll say it again didi..what do you know about chaddhis? 😉 😛 😳
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