Last week, I discussed the deep and philosophical history of men’s underwear and how men’s whitey-tighties went from simple loincloths to bigger and badder codpieces to the modern-day, deified boxers and briefs.
In the name of gender equality, now it’s your turn, ladies. I present to you the fascinating historical importance of women’s underwear.
And, pardon me, dear friends, if I mess up some finer points on the subject of women’s underwear. I, of course, have no reason to know too much about it.
The 16th century was obviously a time for weird lingerie. At the same time Henry VIII was sporting massive codpieces, women had the delightful underwear option of the farthingale, which was basically a frame made of whalebone that could fit around the upper body.
Why did they wear whale skeletons for underwear? To be honest … it’s beyond me. Silly British people.
The bra was invented, if slightly crudely, in 1913 by Mary Crosby, who tied two handkerchiefs around her chest. The design was revamped and modified over and over again until the British created the modern bra in 1964. The bra used to be marketed as the “wonderbra.”
Wonderbra. Obviously, Wonderwoman was plagiarizing.
Perhaps the most well-known women’s undergarment is the bikini. Bikinis have been popularized in the American culture through the 20th century as the provocative garment that women wear while lounging on the beach.
(By the way, men also have a version of the bikini called the bikini brief, which is basically just a very, very short brief. It has been considerably less popular … for obvious reasons.)
Although we would expect bikinis to be relatively modern inventions, they have roots dating all the way back to ancient Rome. An ancient mosaic found in Sicily featured 10 women dressed in two-piece bikini clothing, doing various athletic activities. The mosaic was creatively named the “Bikini Girls” by professional archaeologists.
Another discovery took place at Pompeii, which, as we all know, was the city buried under the explosion of a nearby volcano. (By the way, Pompeii, for disappearing in such a violent and rapid fashion, was featured in the Magic Tree House Series.)
During excavation, researchers located in one of the buried houses a statue of the goddess Venus (aka Aphrodite) wearing a bikini. Even back then, bikinis were obviously considered “godly” garments.
It is interesting to note, however, that the statue was discovered hidden in a cupboard, away from sight. Which begs the question, why put a statue of a semi-nude goddess of love in such a covert location?
Hmm. Silly Italian men.
Now, all we need is a statue of Zeus in a bikini brief.
And it only gets wackier from there.
The modern bikini was actually designed in 1946 by a car engineer, of all professions, named Louis Réard. At the same time he engineered cars, Réard simultaneously was running his mother’s lingerie boutique and worked with Jacques Heim to develop the tiny two-piece suit we know today.
Réard christened the new garment the “bikini,” in honor of the Bikini Atoll. The Bikini Atoll just happened to be one of several islands in the South Pacific where the United States was testing atomic bombs. Réard predicted that the bikini would cause a similar explosion of style and so named it after the islands.
In short, the bikini was named after an atomic-bomb site.
But that’s not all. Réard was trying to find a model who would wear the bikini, but because it was considered so scandalous at the time, no one would accept the job. The first person to wear the bikini ended up being Michele Bernardini, a nude dancer from the Casino de Paris in Paris.
How’s that for the bikini’s questionable origins? A car engineer, an atomic-bomb testing site, a nude dancer and voilà: You have the bikini.
In 1994, the Olympics made the bikini the official garment for beach volleyball players. Olympic officials later admitted to creating the new regulation in order to draw more attention to the Olympics with “sexy” clothing.
It worked.
In 2000, beach volleyball became the fifth most-watched game of the Olympics because of the sex appeal of bikinis. Soon afterward, Xbox released games featuring scantily clad volleyball players. The games won extremely high ratings.
We should note that men also have a small slice of the bikini monopoly that women possess. In the controversial film Borat, the actor Sacha Baron Cohen wore something called the “mankini,” which was basically an elastic strap draped over the shoulders and extending down to the man’s genitals.
The mankini gained some legitimate standing, too. The film Gnomeo and Juliet (a spinoff of Romeo and Juliet) later featured a gnome sporting a mankini in one of the scenes. How more legit can you get if it’s in Gnomeo and Juliet?
I cannot find the words to describe the hilarity. Please, do me a favor, and Google the term so you can witness the advent of the mankini yourself, firsthand.
Kevin Hwang is a junior at Athens High School taking classes at Ohio University and a columnist for The Post.
Email him at kh319910@ohiou.edu.
