Beyond boxers or briefs: Undergarments vary much more than the current styles we find in the nearest haberdashery department or at Victoria's Secret. Mormons have the temple garment. Suffragettes invented bloomers, the next bold step after pantaloons. But throughout modern Western history, women tended to wear dress-like undergarments, (with or without accompanying drawers) though both 19th century men and women wore the union suit, an earlier type of long-johns.

Of course, there's always the earliest of them all, the loincloth, worn by the ancient Egyptians and Tarzan. Similar is the malo worn by some Pacific Islanders, the Japanese fundoshi (warning: excess of manflesh), and the more elaborate Indian dhoti, the male companion to the sari.

And we mustn't forget the bra! Though not a lower-body garment, it has had a long--if tumultuous--history worthy of quick mention.
posted on Jan 30, 2005 - View this thread