Underwear Shaping Women: Then and Now

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Recommended: introduction to fashion history notes.

While we have been wearing undergarments for as long as we've had clothes to go on top of them, the forms that they have taken vary across time periods. Today, as in the early 19th century, undergarments have the essential purpose of shaping the female form for a better “look” in our clothing; however, there are many key differences. There are secondary purpose differences, differences in the way they support our breasts, vast changes in the department of “underpants”, and finally, differences in the way that we view the subject in general.
In the early 1800s, undergarments were worn to help keep the outer clothing clean in a time before the washing machine and regular bathing. The layer closest to the body would be a plain, white petticoat that could stand up to regular washings. (“Petticoat” 37) Washing by hand often involved boiling the garments as well as the application of harsh lye soaps, so the garments washed most regularly had to be plain and of a rather sturdy material. (Harrison 11) One only has to look to the nearest mall, to see that undergarments now are far from plain and are designed and worn for their sex appeal. Your typical American shopping center has a rather sizable lingerie store such as Victoria's Secret and/or Frederick's of Hollywood where one can see the frilly, lacy, colorful undergarments worn by a perfectly smooth woman without fat or blemishes on a poster. A quick internet search for either of these stores' ad campaigns will yield the same results. The subtext of these ads is that the consumer will look as sexy as the woman in the picture if they buy the undergarments. The claim to fame for both of these businesses are their high-quality, sexy, bras and panties.
The only form of upper-body suppor...

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...ce Library. Web. 20 Feb. 2014.
Gau, Colleen. "Brassiere." Encyclopedia of Clothing and Fashion. Ed. Valerie Steele. Vol. 1. Detroit: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2005. 188-192. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 21 Feb. 2014.
Harrison, Rosina. Rose: My Life in Service to Lady Astor. London: Penguin Books, 1975. Print.
Rogers, Abby, and Aimee Groth. "13 Brands That Use Sex to Sell Their Products." Business Insider. Business Insider, Inc., 2014. Web. 27 Feb. 2014. .
Sanborn, Vic. "Ladies Underdrawers in Regency Times." Jane Austen's World. WordPress, 6 Nov. 2010. Web. 27 Feb. 2014. .
Steele, Valerie, and Colleen Gau. "Corset." Encyclopedia of Clothing and Fashion. Ed. Valerie Steele. Vol. 1. Detroit: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2005. 290-292. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 20 Feb. 2014.

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