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很棒的整理,有興趣的請自行google翻譯囉...原文出自http://www.lingerie-buyer.co.uk/Default.aspx
The Idiosyncrasies of Underwear
28 August 2012
A light-hearted look at some the developments of the lingerie industry through the ages.
By Gillian Proctor, De Montfort University
Part one – 1,600BC to 18th Century
For centuries the human figure has been crammed, squeezed, manipulated and reshaped in order to achieve, at any one time, the desirable outerwear silhouette demanded by fashion and culture.
In most instances, the greatest responsibility for this has fallen on the corset, but, as with all aspects of styling and development, where fashion dictates, underwear must follow. In effect, we are talking structural underpinning for the outerwear silhouette - not surprising, then, that the term ‘foundationwear’ has been so aptly applied.
Researching the development of this aspect of fashion clothing, it soon becomes clear that underwear is no less subject to innovation and fabric technology as the wider fashion world, not to mention the idiosyncrasies of the simply bizarre through the centuries.
It will come as no surprise to discover that ancient women were no more in favour of bouncing, jiggling and potentially sagging breasts than the contemporary woman, and consequently they took measures to avoid it.
The Snake Goddess from Crete, which dates to around 1,600 BC is often associated with the famous Cretan female bare-breasted warriors. Infamous for their heavy maquillage and fussy flounced garments, their décolletages were supported by an underbust corset. As precursors of fashion style, if the trendsetting women of Crete varied the drape of their loincloth, the Phoenician and Egyptian women followed suit.
In 1,000 BC, Greek women wore the apodesme, a strip of (often) red fabric rolled under the breasts which aimed not to make breasts prominent but to offer support and prevent bouncing when walking. Later Greek developments led to similar bras with various names such as mastodon and strophian.
Meanwhile, Roman women bound their breasts with a bandage like garment or fascia to restrict growth, while those more generously endowed adopted the mamillare, a cross-over system of ribbons along the lines of the original Playtex ‘Cross your heart’ bras.
With Olympics in mind, Sicilian mosaics reveal bikini like two-piece garments consisting of a brief loincloth and a bandeau style bra top, potentially made from soft leather and worn during active sport.
Moving on to the early medieval period and the favoured silhouette featured small, high breasts and a full rounded stomach, not dissimilar to a pregnancy silhouette. Fashion desired an elongated silhouette, echoed in long pointed shoes and sleeves as the tips of feet or fingers were considered sexually stimulating. The torso was contained within a cotte, or bliaunt, which was a forerunner of the corset.
Decorative iron corsets were brought to Britain by the Crusaders from the Middle East and were worn initially to correct poor posture, referred to by Catherine de Medici as ‘those torturous devices of steel’. They continued to be manufactured and worn as late as the Victorian era but by then had generally become representative of the ‘corrective dress’ of the S&M followers (Christian Grey take note).
The Elizabethan silhouette was noted for an elongated and exaggerated pointed corset worn with a circular wooden, wheel-like device called a farthingale, which focused the attention on the hips, creating a seductive swaying motion when walking. Children had to wear the same styles as adult women.
This obsession with volume in dress was echoed in the menswear of the period. The voluminous sleeves and breeches were counterbalanced with the male focus of sexual styling, the codpiece. This was a wooden pouch padded with horsehair and worn in a not dissimilar way to a cricket box. The codpiece was even incorporated into armour.
Jean Paul Gaultier and Vivienne Westwood both incorporated the codpiece into their collections in the 1990s.
Post the English civil war, the Restoration period saw the reinstatement of sexually directed fashionable dress, which made particularly the female attributes more available.
Corsets were widely worn by all classes, and busks were worn to separate the breasts. These were also given by lovers as a promise of love, often with inscribed love notes, and worn close to the heart. For women of society, busks could be embossed and carved in silver and ivory, while for the lower social classes, turkey cartilages were commonplace.
The most infamous pair of stays or corset was the Hussy. This claimed to ‘contain the strong, sustain the weak and bring back those who have strayed’. It was worn with a series of petticoats called teasers, tumblers, and tempters, which summarised the open and relaxed attitudes to fashionable dress.
The promotion and care of the breast at this time was so extreme, that French Queen Marie Antoinette was said to have bathed hers in milk to maintain their softness. Sevres produced porcelain breast bowls complete with nipples for her for that express purpose.
The early 18th century extremity of dress, wigs, face patches etc was summarised in the ultimate silhouette statement of dress, the mantua. The mantua, built around a flattened wooden set of panniers, could be as wide as four feet. Some corsets had to have hip panels built in to support the weight of the skirts.
As with all extremes of silhouette, its life was short-lived, resulting initially in smaller side panniers and ultimately moving the focus to the derriere, creating the bustle and leading to the question asked by women worldwide: ‘Does my bum look big in this?’
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