We Brits have always been somewhat obsessed with our under-garments right from the times long ago when we used them to provide extra cover for our bodies and ensure that they suppressed every single hint of sexuality. Now as it has evolved over the centuries to the present day where each piece seems to have greatly decreased in size and increased in price and taken on a different role, it is more important to us than ever before. Today underwear is designed to be an integral part of our fashion statement that we structure to make ourselves feel attractive, and often is actually no longer hidden under our clothes.
The journey from there to here is a totally fascinating, and somewhat controversial one that is the subject of a brand new Exhibition mounted by London’s Victoria & Albert Museum called Undressed : A Brief History of Underwear that opens 0n 16th April. On display are over 200 pieces of womens and mens underwear dating from the 18th Century to the present day. The Museum already has one of the finest costume collections in the world, but it was interesting to note that even they had to purchase some 60 new pieces (including a 2015 butt lifter and some mens briefs designed to enhance the crotch!) specifically for the Exhibition.
Depending on your tastes (!)highlights include long cotton drawers worn by Queen Victoria’s mother; an 1842 man’s waist belt used on the wearer’s wedding day; a 1960s Mary Quant body; gender neutral briefs by Acne Studios; a sheer dress by Liza Bruce famously worn by Kate Moss in 1993; and flesh-colored leggings decorated with a mirrored glass fig leaf designed in 1989 by Vivienne Westwood. The exhibition has in fact been sponsored by Agent Provocateur the lingerie company that Westwood’s son Joe Corré co-founded in 1994 with his then wife Serene Rees .
There are some great pieces of menswear too that include 1970’s red string briefs by Brynje of Norway; a display figure for Y fronts from the 1950’s; David Beckham pants for H & M in its sexy packaging ; and a display of briefs by aussieBum from 2015 designed to show off your package.
The show includes garments that show how designers have also challenged conventional ideas about private and public, sex and nudity and now also gender fluidity. Whilst they can claim some of the credit for changing trends and fashions it is often the innovative wearers who are responsible for what actually becomes very popular. As in 1934 when Clark Gable bare chested appeared in the movie ‘It Happened One Night’ he caused sales of undershirts to drop 40%.
They did an upturn in 1951 when Marlon Brando single-handedly turned men’s undershirts into outwear after appearing in one in the movie A Streetcar Named Desire.
Then in the 1990s, hip-hop artists made it fashionable for men to wear their pants below their waists and showing their boxers or briefs. Evidently this style, called “sagging,” was said to have actually originated in prison when jail inmates had their belts removed because they might be used as a possible weapon.
So whether you are a brief or boxers man (or woman) or have always had a hankering for a corset, or just simply want to know how we have ‘lifted and separated’ our private parts over the years, then Undressed is a real must for you.
The Exhibition runs Saturday 16 April 2016 – Sunday 12 March 2017 : that may seem like a long time BUT it is still advisable to book as all V & A Shows are wildly popular http://www.vam.ac.uk/
P.S. If you have a hankering for a pair of those 1970 string Y fronts you can still buy them from Amazon ….. although sadly not in red.
