The History of Underclothes

by C. Willett

  So too, with contemporary illustrations; we reproduce them if informative, however ‘vulgar’ their original intent. Often enough it is only from such sources that knowledge can be obtained. From about the sixteenth century onwards a number of actual garments have survived with increasing frequency until in the nineteenth century there is almost a superfluity of women’s, though not of men’s, for examination.

  We have aimed at describing the more usual types worn; and though the book deals mainly with English underclothing we have had at times to use foreign sources of information when the two countries were probably wearing much the same kind of garment.

  Underclothing includes all such articles, worn by either sex, as were completely or mainly concealed from the spectator by the external costume.

  Some occupy an equivocal place, such as stockings; of which man’s has been a ‘surface’ garment while woman’s has emerged only in modern times. But inasmuch as stockings are generally well described in works on period costume we have decided to omit

  It is perhaps equally illogical to insert in this book the garments worn in bed (nightdress, nightshirt, etc.) but these, on the other hand, are generally omitted from the text-books and so may usefully be included here. Included too are the various mechanical devices, such as hoops and bustles, which, though not exactly ‘garments,’ belong to the subject of the book, as an essential ‘prop to our infirmity.’

  In the history of underclothes it has not seldom happened that a particular garment, long submerged, has eventually risen to the surface, becoming, in fact, an integral part of the visible costume. Woman’s stockings have been thus transformed in modern times, following the example of man’s waistcoat three centuries ago.

  Sometimes the reverse process has occurred; the early Saxon breeches were, later, entirely concealed by the tunic, and became drawers. Centuries later the garment rose again to the surface, in the form of pantaloons or breeches in the modern sense of that word.

  So, too, a traditional undergarment may be closely imitated by a surface garment; the female ‘chemise’ appearing as a ‘chemise dress,’ or the stays becoming a boned bodice laced up across the front.

  Such changes had, of course, a definite significance; an undergarment rising to the surface draws attention to that region; the motive may be erotic, or it may be merely an escape from bondage.

  This vacillating habit of the two layers of clothing has affected the names of garments: we see how the ‘pantaloons’ of the early nineteenth century became presently man’s ‘pants’—synonymous with ‘drawers’ in this country but with ‘trousers’ in the U.S.A.

  Woman has not hesitated to borrow man’s nomenclature for her own underwear; ‘chemise’ was the Norman word for his shirt, and the modern ‘panties’ is, of course, but a playful variant of his pantaloons.

  It is strange that by a series of complicated changes the name of an early Christian martyr—Saint Pantaleone—should have arrived at this latter end and that the girl of to-day should find a seat on the relics of a saint.

  For centuries woman has claimed for her own the name of ‘petticoat’ ; this ‘little coat’ was man’s property in the Middle Ages which, together with his chemise and drawers, has been taken from him.

  She has been prone to attach the name of some notable person to particular types of undergarment. The ‘Princess’ petticoat is a delicate compliment paid to Alexandra when she became Princess of Wales in ’63, and the name, if not the memory, still survives.

  In the history of woman’s underclothing all sorts of eminent names have been attached to one item or another for a brief spell; one only has become immortal, that of the American lady Amelia Jenks, who, by her marriage to Mr. Bloomer, has supplied a poetical name for a prosaic garment.

  It is characteristic of man’s conservative habits that he has clung to the ancient names of his underwear, while woman has exercised her imagination in devising new ones for hers, with a preference for diminutives—‘undies,’ ‘cami-bocks,’ ‘cami-knicks,’ ‘bras,’ ‘slips’; it scarcely needs a psychologist to point out that thereby her aim is to give them fresh erotic values, especially as they have become ‘fine by degrees and beautifully less.’

  FUNCTIONS OF UNDERCLOTHES

  1. TO PROTECT THE BODY FROM COLD

  Until modern times women have usually worn more underclothing than men, partly because their lives were less active and partly because their outer dress was often of flimsier materials. For warmth they have preferred to rely on additional outer garments. There was also the fact that the male leg has always been clothed whereas under the skirt and petticoats woman’s thighs were bare, until well into the nineteenth century.

  For the upper part of the body, while man has had no objection to adding to the appearance of bulk, woman has always been reluctant to do so; so that for the last six centuries the chief part of her underclothing has covered the lower half of her body; and though woollen textiles are warmer than linen or cotton, she has generally preferred to use this material for the lower rather than for the upper half.

  Man, on the other hand, in order to preserve the free use of his legs, has tended to reverse that arrangement.

  The amount of underclothing considered necessary for the purpose of warmth has varied but slightly with man but greatly with woman, though with both sexes there has been a considerable reduction since the first world war.

  2. TO SUPPORT THE SHAPE OF THE COSTUME

  Female costume has assumed far greater varieties of shape than that of the male, and has appeared with almost any outline—except that of a woman. This has been effected, mainly, by the underclothes, which have therefore been much more important than man’s. Those extraordinary shapes compelled speculation as to what lay beneath, and so gave an artificial air of mystery to the structure.

  3. FOR CLEANLINESS

  Underclothing protects the skin from the outer costume, but the reverse also holds good. Bodily cleanliness was scarcely thought important until less than two hundred years ago. The magnificent materials worn in Elizabethan times, for instance, had to be protected from the filthy skin beneath. Physical cleanliness, an innovation started by the Macaronis towards the close of the eighteenth century, became in Victorian times almost a symbol of class distinction and so led to frequent changes of underclothing.

  Up to the first world war, the notion that any part of the skin should be in contact with the dress or suit had become abhorrent among the leisured classes. It may be noted that this nicety has lapsed, with both sexes, during the last thirty years, so that in spite of the general habit of the daily bath the modern man and woman cannot claim to be as clean in their habits as were the Edwardians. To-day a considerable portion of a man’s skin is in direct contact with his trousers, and a girl will dance in a frock with hardly any underclothing beneath it; a practice which their grandparents would have thought very disgusting.

  4. EROTIC USE OF UNDERCLOTHES

  To reveal portions of underclothing is, in women, an obviously erotic gesture, symbolizing the act of undressing. Frequently, therefore, either the top of the chemise has been exposed or simulated, or the hem of the petticoat. Sometimes the bodice of the evening dress has been designed to look like corsets, as though to suggest that the wearer was incompletely clad—a device seen at the very acme of Victorian prudery about 1880.

  If the stockings were habitually concealed then occasional glimpses of ankle served the same purpose.

  Undergarments designed with erotic symbols (hearts, arrows, etc.), or, of bizarre colours, belong to the same category; so too the semitransparent nightdress, which, be it observed, the modern young woman, though normally using pyjamas, insists on having for her wedding trousseau. And though man has not required similar aids to his own physical attraction, it is significant that almost the only gay raiment he ventures to wear is peacock-coloured pyjamas and dressing-gown.

  The fact that (respectable) women began to wear ‘attractive’ nightwear only after the introduc
tion, in the early eighties of last century, of the practice of birth-control, has an obvious implication. In the days of unlimited birth-rate the feminine nightdress was markedly unappealing: perhaps a calculated discretion.

  Man has never used provocative underclothing; its plain prose has been in singular contrast to the poetical allurements worn by woman, and perhaps the feminine undergarment with the longest history of eroticism is the corset. Its main purpose, indeed, has been to diminish the size of her waist, and to emphasize the contours of the breasts, thus adding to her ‘sex attraction.’ In those periods when men, too, wore corsets we may suppose the shapely waist thus produced helped to emphasize the breadth of the male shoulder-line.

  During these six centuries women have almost continuously employed various kinds of ‘undergarments’ serving no other purpose than to accentuate, or even to create, those physical features which characterize their sex—mechanical devices such as the bustle (at least six centuries old), artificial breasts, hip hoops and pads, and in modern times the brassière.

  The eroticism associated with particular undergarments has varied very much in different epochs. For centuries the word ‘petticoats’ served poets as a symbol of feminine charm, becoming a refined synonym for the sex, while, paradoxically, to speak of woman as ‘a skirt’ was a vulgarism.

  The nineteenth century endowed the word ‘drawers’ with extraordinary qualities, and on the comic stage veiled allusions to the garment were greatly appreciated by (masculine) audiences. When in the nineties an actress with a bicycle sang a ditty about:

  Just a little bit of string—such a tiny little thing,

  Not as tightly tied as string should be;

  So in future when I ride, I shall wear things that divide,

  Or things that haven’t strings, you see!

  the verse was hailed as a daringly witty allusion to a closely guarded secret.

  We must infer that the fascination of any undergarment depends mainly on its concealment; its too liberal display, as in the notorious can-can, shocked the prudish nineties by shattering a cherished illusion. The term ‘shocking’ was then in constant use; it implied a peculiar sensitiveness to erotic symbols—or what seemed to be such—and was characteristic of a generation capable of detecting charm in calico.

  5. AS A METHOD OF CLASS DISTINCTION

  The sense in which this term is used by us requires some explanation. A large community tends to become separated into groups based in a measure on their economic status. The crudest form of distinction is by wealth, which, however, can be tempered by the cultivation of taste. Culture, indeed, has never been wholly dependent on wealth and is, in fact, rather the expression of a particular attitude of mind, which has its own values and, in spite of extravagancies of wealth or sex-display, sustains standards of beauty.

  These niceties may be incomprehensible to those who confuse culture with wealth, and destroy the one in trying to obliterate the other. They imply more than accidents of birth or accumulations of riches. By expressing a quality of taste they have served in the art of costume to control methods of sex attraction. It has been, in the main, the influence of culture which has condemned in fashions the grosser forms of eroticism as well as the more vulgar display of wealth. If the restraint exercised by class distinction were to be removed from costume, there would be little to prevent it from exhibiting sex appeal in the crudest forms.

  Men have used underclothes to emphasize class distinction even more than women, and have used the shirt for this purpose to a remarkable extent. Glimpses of it have been revealed ever since the days of the Tudors, either by slashings of the jerkin or by unbuttoning the top of the eighteenth-century waistcoat and subsequently by means of the V opening. In these ways the quality of the material, starched or frilled, was exposed to distinguish the ‘gentleman’ from the manual worker. The clean white shirt-cuffs were a visible proof that the wearer had no occasion to soil his hands. Even more conspicuous has been the shirt-front in his evening dress as a symbol of gentility, real or assumed.

  Woman has demonstrated class distinction chiefly by the size of the skirt, which has been supported either by abundance of petticoats or by mechanical aids such as hoops. But, unlike men, she has not displayed part of an undergarment to indicate social rank.

  MATERIALS

  Linen is the oldest, and from the days of Beau Brummel became almost a material of class distinction. The word itself became a Victorian synonym for the underwear of a ‘gentleman.’ Cotton, which was linen’s ‘social inferior,’ came into general use after the Restoration of 1660.

  We must suppose that woollen petticoats were at least as old as the Middle Ages. Men, however, do not seem to have worn woollen undergarments habitually until the close of the eighteenth century or even after. From the sixteenth century woollen waistcoats were occasionally worn for extra warmth by both sexes, and in the Middle Ages there are references to the use of leather for that purpose. It seems curious that such additional outer garments were preferred to the use of genuine ‘undergarments’ in the modern sense.

  Silk was rarely used, except by the leisured classes, until late in Victorian times, and artificial silk belongs, of course, to the present century. Both these materials have been used chiefly by women.

  CONSTRUCTION

  Until the middle of the last century underclothes were necessarily hand-made, and the absence of fit was noticeable until the introdution of man’s drawers, fitting the leg, at the close of the eighteenth century. The notion that a close-fitting garment next the skin gave greater warmth was a Victorian innovation, made possible by improved methods of weaving. However, belief in its efficacy has declined to-day, especially with women.

  METHODS OF FASTENING

  Strings and ribbons were the fastenings for underclothes until the middle of the seventeenth century, when they were replaced by buttons. The first type was the ‘high-top,’ shaped like an acorn and made of cotton or silk threads closely radiating from the centre. This type survived well into the nineteenth century.

  The ‘high-top’ was followed about the beginning of the eighteenth century by the ‘Dorset thread’ button. By contrast the new fashion was flat, an echo of the change in style of metal button at the same period from hemispherical or conical. The ‘Dorset thread’ button was made on a brass wire ring and lasted on till about 1830, with cotton threads radiating starwise from the centre.

  The next fashion was for small mother-o’-pearl buttons, of which the earliest examples known to us are those on George IV’s shirt, dated 1827, in the museum at York. The flat calico button did not become common until the 1840’s.

  These distinctions can be very helpful in dating early specimens of underclothes; but their evidence must be used with care. The buttons may always be replacements—either later or earlier in date than the garment. Again, in the days when undergarments, for example shirts or fine shifts, were inherited from an earlier generation, a later pattern of fastening may have been introduced. The only safe method is ‘to examine with a strong glass the thread with which the buttons are attached, to make certain that it appears contemporary with that used on the garment.’1

  Studs for fastening men’s shirts supplanted the button when starching was introduced, and the stud for closing the neckband in front began to appear in the middle of the last century. But it is remarkable how reluctantly the change was accepted, for shirts with a button at the back continued as late as 1860. To-day apparently studs are about to disappear; we are told that collar studs are almost unobtainable in the United States.

  Holes for cuff-links do not appear until the nineteenth century, the earliest example known to us being the shirt, dated 1824, in the museum at Hereford. It is probable that the similar holes in the women’s habit-shirts of the eighteenth century were not for links but for a ribbon fastening.

  The earliest snap-fasteners (late nineteenth century) were of the bird-cage type, with a dome slit by longitudinal perforations and a rigid ring as a socket
into which the dome was forced. About the turn of the last century a German firm invented a snap-fastener with a double S spring made from phosphor bronze wire.2 Slide fasteners (zip) were produced in the early part of this century in France. The present ‘zip,’ which probably originated in the U.S.A., did not become practical until after the first war, when I.C.I. took up its manufacture.

  Hooks and eyes have seldom been used on undergarments. A rare example can be found on the inner surface of the turned-back collar of Pieter Brueghel’s The Old Shepherd, c. 1567 (see figure 11, p. 36).3 The collar, with its ruffled border, would have stood up when fastened leaving the hooks and eyes concealed, as we see in the Sture shirts of 1567 (see pp. 261–2).

  One of the aims of this book is to emphasize the relationship which exists between underclothes and surface garments. It has become customary to regard these two branches of the art of costume as entirely distinct, both in function and meaning, and the distinction is accentuated by the habit of each having its own trade literature, its own department in a store, and its own group of manufacturers. Nor can we ignore that each is popularly associated with its own ‘moral significance.’ Such distinctions are, however, artificial and unreal. We have come to understand that the influences responsible for surface ‘fashions’ have, in the main, been responsible also for the changes beneath, though such changes may have taken longer to develop.

  Thus, for the last six centuries the two principal influences creating surface ‘fashions’ have been class distinction and sex attraction, the former mainly responsible for men’s fashion, the latter for women’s. We can trace the same causes, in similar proportions, affecting the underclothes. More ephemeral impulses ruffling the surface design have been much less prone to disturb the deeper layers, which respond only to profound social upheavals. We can almost measure the intensity of the storm by the depth to which its effect is carried. A revolution or a great war, such events as these, will derange costume to the very skin.