Boxers, briefs, trunks, tighty-whiteys.
Although some refer to underwear as “unmentionables,” men’s underwear actually has a fascinating
history that goes beyond its practical uses of protection, cleanliness, and modesty.
Alan Greenspan, the chair of the US Federal Reserve from 1987 to 2006, suggested in an
interview with National Public Radio, that the underwear industry is an indicator of
US economic health because the purchase of underwear is somehow….
discretionary (a VERY debatable term!).
The idea that you can track underwear sales to economic growth actually has a name, “The
Men’s Underwear Index,” or MUI.
Men’s underwear styles and sales are also an important cultural indicator—a way of
tracking how fashion, mores, and the idea of what it means to present oneself as masculine
have changed over time.
Today we're going “behind the belt” to investigate how the shape of men’s underwear
in Europe and America provides insight into both the economy as well as changing notions
of masculinity.
Before we get to the bottom of the topic at hand, a brief nod to the first known covering
of the male genitalia, the loincloth--a simple piece of cloth or leather wrapped around the
hips and groin.
Versions of the loincloth were developed in diverse cultures, ranging from ancient Europe,
Asia, Africa, and the Americas.
The primary function of these garments was to protect the genitals from the sun, the
elements, and impact.
Our study of underwear, as a more stylish garment that was (generally) worn underneath
other clothing, however, actually begins in 12th century Europe, when men shifted from
wearing breeches on the outside, to wearing them beneath long tunics.
As historian Shaun Cole reports, over the next couple hundred years, breeches became
shorter and tighter, and the waistline was lowered from above the stomach to the hips.
In Medieval Europe, wearing breeches was a signifier of morality.
Not only was it thought to be more hygienic to have a layer between the genitals and outer
clothes, but also disguising the shape of the genitals was believed to promote modesty
and chastity.
At the end of the 14th century, men’s undergarments appeared outside again as a way to assert
power.
Enter the codpiece.
Originally the codpiece was simply a flap that covered the relevant areas.
It would be attached to the hose and to a short jacket and allowed men to urinate without
removing their pants.
The codpiece could be lightly padded or made out of leather to offer protection.
Over time, codpieces became increasingly decorative and, well, increasingly increased.
Cole argues that the large codpiece was not meant to offer a sexual invitation to women.
Instead, it served as what he calls, “an aggressive and eye-catching warning to men.
Its importance was concerned with social, temporal and territorial power rather than
just sexual prowess.”
Codpieces eventually went out of fashion.
Historian Victoria Bartels explains that many costume historians believe that it went out
of style due to the more “feminine” look that came into vogue in the French and English
courts.
Whatever the reason, by the 17th century, men were replacing the hose that ran up to
the codpiece with an outer legging, which they wore over a set of “drawers,” or
linings tied below the knee and at the waist.
The ability to afford such garments was, again, a sign of the largeness of one’s purse.
18th and 19th century technological breakthroughs brought underwear to the masses.
In the late 18th century, a material that was less likely to shrink (made out of cotton
and wool) was manufactured.
This was ideal for constructing garments that needed to be washed (many, many times) in
hot water.
In the 19th century, the arrival of the sewing machine made it more efficient (and cheaper!)
to construct clothes.
Although manufactured underwear was still a “discretionary” purchase, the lowered
price point made it more accessible to the masses.
Presumably, in this era, the Men’s Underwear Index was on an uptick.
Despite the invention of a form of elastic that could be sewn into clothes, helping to
keep them where they belong, 19th century underwear was still bulky and uncomfortable.
In 1868, a patent was issued in America for a ladies’ undergarment that united an undershirt
to a pair of drawers called a “union suit,” which some referred to as “emancipation
union under flannel” although I think that would be a better tagline for the birthday
suit!
It allowed more freedom of movement than afforded by multi-piece undergarments.
The men’s version of the union suit became popular on the frontier.
They became a scratchy, and not particularly aesthetic, signifier attached to the myth
of a rugged American masculinity.
If notions of masculinity were tied to the myth of dominating the frontier, they were
also connected to athleticism.
At the end of the 19th century, bicycle “jockeys” delivered packages around cities paved with
bumpy, cobblestone streets.
In last couple of decades of the 19th century, a Chicago-based sporting goods store patented
an athletic supporter for these riders called (you guessed it) the “jock strap.”
Sears Roebuck mass marketed jockstraps in their catalogues.
By the start of the 20th century, jock straps were incorporated into team uniforms.
At the same time, the union suit was reinvented for athletes.
In 1914, BVD sold a sleeveless version of the suit with shorter legs and made out of
lightweight cotton.
According to legend, after the heavyweight boxer, Jack Dempsey, won the 1919 world title,
Everlast began to market a long and loose style of underwear called “boxer shorts.”
Even though briefs were introduced as useful to exercise at the start of the century in
France, they didn’t catch on in America until much later.
Although American manhood was often associated with domineering, pugilistic, and athletic
qualities, in the 1920s, some were incorporating more traits associated with ideas of the “feminine”
into men’s clothing.
According to fashion historian Daniel Delis Hill, a 1925 edition of Men’s Wear reads:
“…despite the alarm for many men that athletic underwear in pink, pale blue, peach,
blazer stripes, etc… has a feminine look about it, ‘such designs became widely available
from mass merchandisers like Sears and Montgomery Ward."
It’s interesting that pink, blue (and stripes?) were all lumped under the umbrella of feminine
attire.
Much as men’s underwear became more colorful, it also became softer, due to declining silk
prices and the mass-production of rayon in the 1920s.
Soon this decorative undie trend spread to appreciating the masculine form itself.
In the 1930s, a Wisconsin company called Coopers introduced the Jockey Y-cut brief.
According to an ad: “‘Jockeys’ are snug and brief, molded to your muscles…
Built-in masculine support made of lightweight, porous, absorbent knitted fabric with the
famous Y-front, no-gap front opening."
When a Chicago Marshall Field’s store displayed jockey-clad mannequins in their windows, it
caused a sensation.
30,000 pairs were sold within three months.
Coopers renamed their company “Jockey” and even hired a plane called the "Mascu-liner"
to deliver briefs across America.
Scholars Martin and Harold Koda offer an important insight: the 1935 launch of the jockey short
coincides with the era that American beaches began to allow men to go topless.
The “erotics of the male were undergoing change,” they write, which represents “a
sea-change in concepts of masculinity."
This exuberance about the male form was tempered somewhat by WWII.
Rubber was rationed and many manufacturers reverted to earlier ways of fastening underwear.
In the army, soldiers were issued olive drab cotton briefs and “long johns.”
And the infamous undies got their name from champion heavyweight boxer John L. Sullivan,
reinforcing the connection between idealized masculine athleticism and underoos.
Hill argues that WWII gas rationing caused the long john to also have a resurgence on
the home front.
But this tempering did not last for long.
After the war, the American economy was booming.
People had more money in their pockets and there was demand for novelty, even in men’s
underwear which is the thing underneath those fat-filled pockets.
This meant new fabrics, shapes, patterns.
Manufacturers such as Sears and Montgomery Ward began selling men’s underwear with
prints on it, which may denote a more playful attitude towards the male body.
During the 1950s and 1960s, men’s pants were being cut more tightly, including the
marketing of bikinis to American men by familiar companies, including Jockey.
In the 1970s, men’s underwear branched out to include more extreme forms culminating
in 1982 when Calvin Klein made some of these designs mainstream, as it launched a line
that included thongs, and g-strings.
Calvin Klein also placed visible branding on waistbands.
The desire to show off the brand of one’s underwear may be one factor contributing to
the trend of “sagging,” or exposing one’s underwear above low-hung jeans.
This trend, first made popular by 1990s hip-hop artists, was viewed as a general desire to
thwart authority and reject mainstream values.
It is an assertion of rebellion and, as such, is completely at one with the domineering,
pugilistic, and athletic vision of American masculinity behind earlier underwear trends.
There is also a strain of Puritanical “modesty” in American masculine culture.
Enter the enormously popular “boxer brief,” which appeared in the early 1990s.
The ‘boxer brief” is an updated version of the Victorian knit underwear.
It provides the support of a brief combined with the coverage of a boxer, without all
of that annoying bunching.
These essentially-conservative garments are available in a wide variety of colors and
materials.
As such, they offer a relatively safe space for personal expression.
But don’t be fooled.
These are a rather tight garment, designed to draw attention to conventional male anatomy.
Consider the boxer-briefs included in Duluth Trading Company's "Buck Naked" underwear brand,
a line which the company describes as "No pinch, No stink, No sweat” and markets as
being “like wearing nothing at all.”
Because what’s more modest than going commando?
These fashions suggest American men have become increasingly comfortable with the idea that
their bodies are sexually desirable.
And new shape-reducing options suggest that some associate thinness with allure.
So although the ties between men’s underwear designs and changing ideals of masculinity
have been as stubbornly stuck together as the worst wedgie for hundreds of years, by
the late 20th century the tides were changing to include more expressive and playful designs.
And today these discretionary unmentionables are bucking the norms even more than ever before.