century, the word lingerie was used to refer to undergarments, specifically loosely fitting items like chemises and drawers. All other undergarments—especially shaping undergarments like corsets, bras, and girdles—were referred to as corsetry.
While many people think of lingerie as only the sexy stuff—bedroom attire, so to speak—lingerie is a category of women’s fashion, not something limited to a specific activity. Lingerie includes all women’s underwear, sleepwear, loungewear, and shapewear. Recent trends like athleisure and lingerie-as-outerwear have blurred the lines between intimate apparel and “regular” fashion. Generally speaking, if it’s meant to be worn under your clothing, worn exclusively at home, or worn to bed, it’s probably lingerie. That means lingerie isn’t just bras and panties; it’s also slips, chemises, shapewear, pajamas, robes, stockings, tights, nightgowns, and teddies. Lingerie includes the expensive, special-occasion stuff and the everyday, basic stuff. It’s all lingerie.
Just like our outerwear, our underwear can be a form of self-expression. In the same way your jewelry, makeup, shoes, coat, and handbag reflect your personality and tastes, so too can your lingerie. No matter what you show to the rest of world, your lingerie can be the truest expression of who you are. It can be something worn just for you because you want to, and that can be incredibly empowering. It can even be life changing.
While many people equate lingerie with sex and sexuality, lingerie does not always have to be erotic wear. And while intimate apparel often serves a practical purpose, such as helping clothes fit better, it shouldn’t just be about changing or “fixing” the body. And lingerie should never be painful to wear or a source of shame.
Lingerie is about self-expression, identity, art, and joy. It’s about fun, playfulness, and experimentation. Feeling like a silver-screen siren? Swan about the house in a long satin robe. Looking for a quick boost of confidence? Wear your favorite black bra and panty set underneath your regular clothes. Ready to start a new exercise regimen? Splurge on that funky, brightly colored sports bra. Your lingerie wardrobe doesn’t have to be limited to what’s boring or “practical.” It can be whatever you want. That’s the beauty of lingerie.
BONUS TIP
The best lingerie sales happen in January and July.
WHAT IS A BRA?
A bra is a garment designed and developed specifically to support the breasts. A bra may extend as far as the lower torso (as in longline bras or bustiers). However, undergarments that sculpt and shape other parts of the body in addition to the bosom (such as shaping slips or bodysuits) are rarely called bras. A bra, by definition, focuses primarily on the bust.
A great, well-fitting bra can help you feel confident, empowered, and fearless. Finding the right bra can almost feel like stumbling across your very own version of Cinderella’s magic slippers, transforming your life (and your wardrobe!) from depressing to enchanting. A good bra can not only lift your bust, it can lift your spirits—alleviating back pain, evenly distributing the weight of your breasts, and even improving your posture.
Because most clothing is made with certain assumptions about where the largest area of your chest will be, a quality bra can also help your clothes fit better and feel more comfortable. Finally, bras can be fun! I know that might be hard to believe if you’ve had trouble shopping for a bra, but a new bra is a great way to both treat yourself and refresh your wardrobe.
A Brief History of Bras
Interestingly enough, no one’s really sure who made the first bra. In the United States, the story goes that Caresse Crosby (also known as Mary Phelps Jacob) invented the first brassiere around 1910 when she wanted an alternative to the traditional boned corset. Together with her maid, Crosby crafted a bra from two handkerchiefs and a bit of ribbon, filed a patent, and in February 1914, the bra was officially recognized and registered in the United States. Crosby’s invention was more like a bralette (a bra with little or no structure) than the kind of undergarments we call bras today. However, what made her bra special is that it was soft, flexible, lightweight, and comfortable—a dramatic change from centuries of rigid corsets. However, despite filing a patent and being credited with the invention, it’s almost certainly true that Caresse Crosby’s bra was not the first one ever.
The first bras of prehistory were likely made from strips of hide or fur to bind the breasts. Later, after its invention, cloth was also used. Four-thousand-year-old paintings and sculptures from Crete show female figures with their breasts lifted from beneath by a corset-like garment. Greek sculptures from the fourth century BCE, display women in breast bands consisting of a wide strip of cloth wound around the breasts to keep them in place. Paintings and mosaics from the time of the Roman Empire present women in two-piece undergarment sets that look strikingly like a modern-day bra and briefs. We’ve even found a bra dating from the late Middle Ages, roughly around the fifteenth century! Made of linen, featuring two distinct cups, and trimmed in delicate needlepoint lace, this garment is the earliest physical example of a bra found yet (although they were called breast bags at the time, a decidedly unglamorous name).
The modern bra, as a concept, has its origins in corsetry (so does shapewear, which you’ll learn more about in chapter 3). The idea of supporting and shaping the body beneath clothing came into vogue around the invention of tailoring, which roughly coincides with the beginnings of the Renaissance, around the fourteenth century. The figure-hugging, tightly laced dresses of the Middle Ages gradually gave way to the firmly boned bodices, known as stays, of the sixteenth century.
Stays gave the body a cone-like shape. Heavily boned, their purpose in addition to supporting and lifting the bust was to brace the body for the pounds and pounds of heavy skirts women were beginning to wear. Stays remained the bust-supporting undergarment de rigueur for women until the French Revolution.
The French were among the first to see corsetry as necessary for a woman’s figure, and their attitude regarding underpinnings spread to other European courts. However, after the French Revolution, both stays and the massive volumes of skirts they helped support were seen as suspiciously aristocratic. At the end of the eighteenth century, a more natural empire-waist silhouette emerged. These soft, fluid gowns called for a different type of undergarment, which led to the development of the first “proto-bras.” Called short stays, these abbreviated corsets ended above the waist and featured separate cups, resembling what we might call a bustier today.
However, this new trend didn’t last long, and thirty years into the nineteenth century, the corset made a comeback, this time emphasizing an hourglass figure instead of a conical one. The development of steel busks and metal eyelets allowed for a drawn-in waist and lifted bust. Yet the short stays of the early 1800s had left their mark, and in the late nineteenth century, a plethora of new “brassiere” designs emerged. While these early bras don’t have much in common appearance-wise with what we wear today, the concepts were there: bust support, separate cups for each breast, adjustable shoulder straps, and even hook-and-eye closures.
So what finally killed the corset? Well, sports played a part. Women began to participate in tennis, golf, basketball, swimming, and cycling—all activities for which the corset has obvious limitations. Yet it wasn’t the bicycle that wiped out the corset for good. Instead, we can pin its final demise on World War I.
In 1917, just three years after Caresse Crosby received her patent, the U.S. War Industries Board asked women to stop buying corsets so the steel “bones” could be freed up for the war. Their sacrifice made more than twenty-eight thousand tons of steel available—enough to build two battleships. Meanwhile, as women gave up their corsets, they also went to work in munitions factories, fire departments, and other occupations previously closed to them. As with athletics, the shortcomings (and potential dangers) of the corset, with its many bones and laces, became apparent.