A Study on the Changes of the Ancient Underclothes

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This is a study on the changes of the ancient underclothes. Underclothing includes all such articles, worn by either sex, as were completely or mainly concealed from the spectator by the external costume. Functions of underclothes are follow ; to protect the body from cold, to support the shape of the costume, to cleanliness, to erotic use of underclothes and as a method of class distinction. Linen is the oldest as materials and cotton came into general use after the Restoration of 1660. We must suppose that woolen petticoat was at least as old as the Middle Ages and silk was rarely used until late in Victorian times. Until the middle of the last century underclothes were necessarily hand-made, and the absence of fit was noticeable until the introduction of man\`s drawers, fitting the leg, at the close of the eighteen century. Strings and ribbons were the fastenings for underclothes until the middle of the seventeenth century, when they were replaced by buttons. One outstanding example of the first type of figures is a Babylonian girl of about 3000 BC from Sumeria who wears that today would immediately be described as briefs. Female statues show no trace of anything being worn under the chiton, but there is literary evidenced that the Greeks. A band of linen of kid was bound round the waist and lower torso to shape and control it. It was known as the Zone or girdle. The apodesmos, meaning a band, breast band, occurs in a fragment of Aristophanes. A Roman mosaic shows female athletes wearing a bikini-briefs and bra in the fourth century AD. A similar band, called the mastodeton, or breast band, was also worn round the bust, apparently to flatten or minimise it, as in the 1920s, and not, to stress its curves. In Rome, too, women sometimes wore bands of material round the hips and bust-a cestus or girdle is referred to by the poet Martial and seems to have been similar to the zone, but wider, and the strophium, or breast band, is mentioned by Cicero.