A lovely short film on the history of undergarments!
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| "now you are just supposed to be that shape. You are just supposed to kind of have that...." |
Published on Jan 31, 2014
As
recently as 70 years ago, foundation garments, as corsets were called,
were fundamental to the way that women dressed. Eleri Lynn, author of a
new book about the V&A's huge underwear collection, gives a brief
history of shapewear, starting with the hourglass and S-bend forms - and
steel and whalebone engineering - of Victorian and Edwardian corsets,
carries on through the breast-flattening bandeau bras worn by 1920s
flappers, the New Look underwear of Christian Dior, the conicle bullet
bras of the 1950s and concludes with the arrival of Lycra in the 1960s
and the renaissance of corsetry through the new popularity of
burlesque.As recently as 70 years ago, foundation garments, as corsets
were called, were fundamental to the way that women dressed. Eleri Lynn,
author of a new book about the V&A's huge underwear collection,
gives a brief history of shapewear, starting with the hourglass and
S-bend forms - and steel and whalebone engineering - of Victorian and
Edwardian corsets, carries on through the breast-flattening bandeau bras
worn by 1920s flappers, the New Look underwear of Christian Dior, the
conicle bullet bras of the 1950s and concludes with the arrival of Lycra
in the 1960s and the renaissance of corsetry through the new popularity
of burlesque.
