Hosiery history links

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Lingerie History--new sites found

spending some time this morning on a project that craves completion--a dictionary of lingerie-related terms including pictures and historical information. An appreciation of clothing design, marketing, fashion and organization bursts from this project. Designing the presentation and editing all the information collected (mostly off the internet, but not completely) is a job. Anyone who has done a little research and writing can relate. The creative process has been interesting and fun. I'm looking forward to the "finished" hardcopy.

Here's what I found today:

• Love to Know's Lingerie Community is a wiki group ranging wide, but necessarily deep, across the underwear landscape. The history section is scanty & questionable--as always, cross check your sources. It does feature a "panty gallery" presenting some of the variety offered to men and women.
• Serge Lingerie "Explore Your Lingerie World! If you are looking for information on everything related to lingerie fashion browse Serge Lingerie your guide to a bright and brilliant array of lingerie styles, designs, textures, and colors. We combined the convenience of the Internet with an ever-changing world of lingerie and created your ultimate information resource of women's lingerie online."

Site includes a glossary of terms, pictorial dictionary, European size charts and historical overview. Nice presentation focused on the modern bra.

A celebration of the 100th anniversary of the bra from Lycra.com (with a partnership with Maidenform) with a very nice graphical timeline.

John Walsh put together the nicely written survey, A Social History of the Bra, in Aug 2007 for the 100th anniversary of the garment.

The "Petite Coquette" blog

The "Petite Coquette" thread: The "Luxe Lingerie Blog"

"All infos about lingerie on line: sites, shops, collections, but also news around new collections, sales and curiosities. All you need to know about the "dessous chics"..."

a fun, sexy, glamorous site for sexy glamorous lingerie with brands and shopping guides. Fun for browsing and shopping. Showcasing lingerie art photography.

For historical content, the retail site Knickers At Mio Detsino, presents a brief overview. But the promised links and pictures are not included; creating curiosity about where they lifted it from.

Panty Fun

Lingerie Party Fun with posts like "5 Items You can Turn Into Underwear", "25 Wild Things You can Make out of a Bra" and "Literacy Uncovered - The Lingerie Story". The latter is a story about how books were printed on rag paper--and the seduction (?) of underwear books. Its a fun look at underwear.

"TFI:True Femmes Invisible
Women whose bodies vanish while their garments remain visible" presents a collection of film and tv moments featuring invisible women with visible clothing (usually underwear).

From Sista SoFine's blog about fashion & lingerie comes a post touting Fluorescent underwear of chantilly lace that glows under a black light--just the thing for 70's sexy fun. Check out Deborah Marquit's shop for color selections.

Vintage Fashion Ads Slideshow

Vintage ADS FASHION Products

Style Lexicon

Writing about the history of women's intimate clothing gives me an excuse to pay attention when good taste and manners say not to. So, I act like I do this for research reasons. The truth is that it is an interesting topic.

A topic that covers a lot of territory. There are styles and fabrics and manufactures and retailers and gender issues and sexuality and sociology and design and more.

I have written in this column about the evolution of the panty and the bra. Then I find out that what I've written is at best incomplete. So often information is not available. It is a search to find apparel history in bookstores. The internet is a useful tool, but original research and sources that have not been recycled or massaged for marketing purposes is scarce.

Because of its name the Maidenform company captures my imagination. They were part of the founding of the commercial bra market & made several innovations that brought the bra to mainstream America. For a look at company history as compiled by the company.

One of their greatest achievements is the "I Dreamed..." ad campaign. I am building a collection of these ads as my next project in my history research. Many can be found on ebay and other collector sites for about $10 each +shipping. Here is the list of "I Dreamed..." ads.

For those who are a little confused about styles and what name signifies what garment here is a link to the Maidenform lexicon.

Fashion Flashbacks is a site claiming to be a student resource for ads across the century related to intimate fashion. however, the bra ad gallery is just a little bit of text and not useful at all.

Amazon.com is a uder interactive bookseller

Two book sellers (Amazon and Barnes & Noble) are fighting it out on the web for best site. I know they are not the only sites, but they are comprehensive. And, since I'm not writing reviews of book sellers I don't have anything to say about other sites right now.

Anyway, I get lots of B&N gift cards. Its all good--I build my collections with other people's money. Is there any better way?

But, Amazon.com is way more cool and shopper interactive. They recommend books and other items based on your browsing history--sometimes this is not so good--but also have lists of related titles by shoppers--which is a good feature. Browsing through titles that are not clearly presented is frustrating and tiring. With listmania other people link titles together and give a clearer idea of what books are really about. Keywords turn up titles from children's books to romance novels to how-tos to all kinds of themes when all I want are histories.

So I bought a couple cheaper priced volumes today. I'm trying to save up to buy more expensive books--anyone that wants to contribute please feel free.