15. Underwear

Well what can I say. Sometimes I learn something and I don’t think it’s particularly prolific. For example, today I learned how to make a pair of underwear. This is in case I ever need to make a super hero costume and I want to make a pair of undies to go over my tights. Or if I decide to stop being lazy and make myself a swimsuit instead of being forced to buy an ugly tropical print one at JC Penny. 

But yeah… underwear. Not exactly inspiring. But you know what? If I learn something stupid, let’s go all the way with it! Panty research- full steam ahead!

First of all, here’s a link to the YouTube video making the underwear. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JisxjcQRUYE&playnext=1&list=PL988C32DAE4C64D06&feature=results_main .It’s not a particularly stunning product, but it gets the job done. I think it would come out better if you doubled up the fabric so you wouldn’t have to worry about finishing the edges. I would especially do a double layer for a swim suit.

And there’s always the entomology of a word. One of the earliest words for underwear was pantaloons, which we derive the word pants from. So you used to put on a pair of pants first, then a pair of trousers. I can only assume that this is where the word panties came from. It’s strange, because pantaloons were long, ankle length men’s undergarments. Pretty much the opposite of what they are today.

An interesting thing I found is that until the westernization of Japan (around the 1950’s) women didn’t wear underwear. If a woman were wearing a kimono, they would have just worn another wrap called a koshimaki underneath it. Probably more to protect the clothes from sweat rather than hide anything away. Men wore fundoshi, or loincloths. You can still see these in use during sumo wrestling matches, festivals, and probably some old samurai flicks. I do think it’s a little funny. Some of Japan’s greatest warriors might have been wearing thongs as they went into battle. Overall it’s an interesting juxtaposition as to what was going on in other parts of the world. I would much have rather worn a flowing and easy to move in kimono rather than be subjected to three layers of underwear and corsets of Victorian England.

I also wanted to check something that had been bugging me. In the picture Brave, we see the heroine struggling with a corset. Isn’t this the best metaphor for female enslavement to a male dominated culture? Well, the writers didn’t do their research very well. Before the 1800’s, corsets basically had the exact same function as bras. Support, and if they were longer, helping with posture. They even had an empire style corset, which only went s little below the breasts. Meredith probably wouldn’t have used a corset at all, instead wearing a Kirtle, a long shift with sleeves. It wasn’t until the Victorian era that corsets became torture devices to squish women’s innards. Man, the Victorians just ruined underwear for the rest of us, didn’t they? And how could the writers of a multibillion dollar empire mess up one simple fact that took two minutes on Google to correct?

So even on a lazy day where all I do is look up videos on YouTube and surf the web for wiki articles on knickers, I feel like I can be well educated. I mean, now that I know that there’s good information about ancient clothing on the internet, I can make my writing more historically accurate. I won’t fall into the same trap as the Brave writers. Or if I write about ancient japan, I will definitely keep in mind that the culture was way more… let’s say free than I would have thought. Expanding for a page even the humblest of garments can be a wonderful learning experience.