A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF WOMEN’S FASHION FOR UNDERWEAR FROM ADAM TO THE PRESENT DAY
The history of underwear, as we know it, dates back to the mid-18th century. Before this period, it did not exist as such, if you do not take into account the fig leaf of Adam, which no one had ever seen, the strips of material called strathion, which young passionate Greek women tied to their “charms”, as well as the painful fashion of court life , with the help of which women from several eras tried to model their seductive figures.
One can, of course, say that the history of the shirt, which to some extent should also be classified as underwear, goes even deeper into the past, but in this article we are more interested in the emergence of the modern-style dessu.
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From 1810 to 1870, women dealt with such concepts as the corset, crinoline and bustle. One should not think that the fashion for these items of lingerie came into daily circulation without a struggle. Doctors of those years unanimously protested against the notorious “wasp waist”. This is evidenced by numerous documents from those years. But the contemporaries of the medical luminaries of those years, who shaped the fashion of that time, treated corsets, crinolines and bustles with delight and received true aesthetic pleasure from contemplating them.
Until about the 1930s, corded bodices dominated fashion. Women, however, like men of the Biedermeier era, were supposed to look like aspens — slender, fragile and very graceful.
In 1829, the so-called «mechanical» corsets. They were made from metal loops specially driven into the corset.
The squeak of fashion of that time, made of hard material — whalebone or hoops made of steel, crinoline (from the French crin = horsehair), women wore under outerwear. It served as the basis for supporting women’s dresses, which sometimes reached six meters wide.
As for the “bustle”, its advantages include the so-called. The “artificial butt,” thanks to which the magnificent silhouette of the ladies of the mid-late 19th century “slipped” back somewhat, seemed very erotic and appetizing to real men of those years.
FASHION FOR SEAMSTRESSES
We have not yet mentioned the role of the shirt in the fashion of that time. Alas, its role in the fashion of those years was not high — in comparison with lingerie, it always remained on the sidelines.
The last third of the 19th century brought new trends in women’s everyday clothing. In addition to the pomp that drove men crazy in those years, women’s underwear became more and more luxurious and more expensive. At the same time, any transformation in fashion in those years, even harmless embroidery, was accompanied by powerful protest in the press and resistance from part of the public.
However, beauty invariably won and awakened imagination. Lawn gradually came into fashion, it was also called “elegant Dutch linen,” various embroideries and laces, crochet, cutouts in the shape of a loving heart, all kinds of gathers and colored braid.
The profession of a seamstress came into being unexpectedly, but logically. It became a very respectable activity for ladies, and quickly gained respect among women who are not indifferent to fashion. It is interesting that the criterion for the skill of women engaged in embroidery was working with white threads.
So, by the beginning of the 20th century, thanks to underwear, women, and men too, looked tight and decorated. The strict bearing of the then elite was a commonplace in clothing and behavior that everyone tried to maintain.
The lady, who in those days could be called a model of fashion, wore a whole load of clothes that reached 2.5-3 kg. weight. To describe what women then put on themselves will require a lot of patience. Here are pants, a shirt, a corset, a “decency skirt,” an underskirt, a second underskirt, a side skirt, and even warm underwear in winter.
Note that by the end of the 19th century, stockings also appeared, which were first attached to a corset, and then to special belts for elastic bands, as we know them today.
All this variety of linen that made life difficult invariably led to a movement to reform clothing, which happened in 1896. Then, for the first time, a certain society was formed whose goal was “the struggle to simplify women’s clothing.” Moreover, it also strived for “
liberation from all pressure and constraint.”
But women’s underwear «didn’t give up.» The typical silhouette of a woman at the beginning of the 20th century was the following format: a woman with a sunken belly, but with an emphasized, “sharpened” butt. The woman’s breasts were then emphasized with a dummy or at least small silk linings.
Since 1910, the lower part of the body finally takes on obvious straight lines, and lingerie advertising of the time promotes women with excessively long bodies — without waist, hips and buttocks and other interesting parts of the body. Oddly enough, the secret of the newfangled silhouette again rested on the whalebone, the rods of which excessively lengthened the corset
BRA-DEMOCRATIZER
However, the growth of democracy education in society was doing its job — every now and then there were powerful outbursts of protest that demanded the creation of natural clothing for women that complies with the “laws of health.” The corset was a particular object of attack, but they could not find an adequate but simple replacement for it.
No, there were a lot of bras and bras on the market, but they were kept within the framework of an already established tradition: most of them had whalebone rods, rigid coil springs or lace-up inserts. The voices of women were also heard who generally rejected any option of artificial support for the natural state of the breasts and back muscles.
Let us note in this part of the article that almost until the middle of the 19th century, when making women’s corsets, corset makers sewed together parts of the material by hand. Then corsets began to be made using hand looms, and in 1850 the sewing machine was invented in Germany, after which the production of this inseparable part of the female image gradually became factory-based.
The first corset factories appeared in France, followed by the Germans. The center for the production of corsets was the land of Baden-Württemberg, where cotton weaving at that time was undergoing a serious crisis, and therefore received subsidies from the German state. There, in the south of Germany, in Rappenau, the famous “Felina” arose in 1885 — the first German factory entirely specialized in sewing corsets.
Wearing corsets became such a part of the daily habit and consciousness of European women of that time that even when the predecessors of the first bra were born — the French “Callimaste” corset models, which were already made from elastic bands — they were recommended to be worn … under a corset.
WAR AND BRAS
We can say that the success of the reform movement was facilitated by the First World War, which, in addition to “blood and sweat,” also called for the democratization of life and equal rights for men and women. The fashionable women’s silhouette of that time became boyish: the woman’s breasts and hips became almost flat and unnoticeable.
Shorter skirts and clothes made from materials that are easy to iron are appearing in ever greater numbers. Various youth, sports and tourism movements have actively contributed to the growth in demand for light, airy, erotic-looking fabrics. Therefore, it is not surprising that a set of underwear — a bra plus panties — emerged as a completely expected and typical item of women’s clothing in the 1920s. By the way, it was then that pastel colors were first used for women’s underwear, which would later become wildly popular.
Therefore, it was not surprising that the first bra simply had nothing to cover, essentially. Silicone breasts were not yet in fashion, but boyishness was in high demand. By the way, at that time the corset, although it had not yet been completely eliminated, was already partially replaced by a garter belt.
There were “rollbacks” to the past. For example, in 1920 America experienced this for itself when the “vamp” style became popular among women, emphasizing
femininity, not without the tired image of “parent, mother, homemaker,” etc. Here the woman’s figure again assumed the correct proportions, although it remained thin in the hip area. The main assets of a woman’s wardrobe are a bra that rounds out women’s shapes, an elastic belt for beautiful stockings and a corset that tightens a woman’s figure. Calf-length dresses, which became like a woman’s “second skin,” came into fashion.
In 1930 the corset, which seemed to be dying forever, unexpectedly survived the Renaissance. New technologies have opened up prospects for a new life for the corset. The newly appeared rubber, which could be made with long threads, made it possible not to lace up the corset, but fitted the body tightly. A garter belt, which before the invention of tights also served as a garter, also became an indispensable part of the wardrobe.
AFTER WORLD WAR II
The Second World War introduced a spirit of innovation into fashion trends in the design of women’s underwear. Underwear was made from anything, for example, from parachute fabric, there was little underwear and the famous German corset makers had to “run aground.”
And then Americans, nylon and the first shorts and T-shirts appeared in Europe, wide “new look” skirts appeared. They brought back fashion for the seemingly forgotten “wasp waist”
In 1960 The West German underwear industry was experiencing a real boom. 25,000 people worked in this industry, 2 thousand of them at the famous Felina factory. It was the German industry producing “intimate lingerie” that was the first in this area, which, due to the shortage and high cost of labor, moved its production abroad.
DOWN WITH BRAS
The 1960s brought with it a revolutionary material for the fashion industry — a wonderful fiber — lycra, as well as the first tights and miniskirt. These same years also saw large-scale student protests, essentially riots: against parents, against bourgeois society and its prohibitions. Bras became a “red rag” for young revolutionaries yearning for a new relationship — they were publicly burned in the squares and streets of Paris, like heretics of the 16th century. Following this, sales of this part of the women’s toilet, as a symbol of oppression and unfreedom of women, also fell.
Bra manufacturers did not give up and significantly simplified the design of their products. However, the era took its toll: instead of bras, girls began to wear T-shirts over their naked bodies, and the panties on their butts became smaller and smaller, turning into bikinis. It would seem like another ten years…
But everything returned to its place again. 1970s brought new trends in music, cinema, literature and fashion. Young people are again drawn to luxury, elegance, and high prices. This also affected what has always covered the
“invisible to the naked eye.”
Now it is believed that classics are back in fashion. The main features of today’s world of underwear include the so-called. «Push-up», in other words, are bras that emphasize and lift a woman’s breasts. Experts in the field of fashion currently see two obvious trends in women’s preferences: on the one hand, elegance and sexuality are always “afloat”, on the other, clear lines and boyish sportiness that impresses the eye. At the same time, it seems that women’s intimate lingerie, including bras, have long ceased to play a leading role in the formation of women’s silhouettes.
However, we must believe that nothing in this world appears or disappears just like that. Bras that constrain the body today seem to have gone out of fashion, but tomorrow their quality, which gives harmony to a woman’s beautiful body, will be in demand again and again, and then we will again see something on a woman’s chest that will make men’s hearts beat with admiration.