The "Intimate" History

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I'd love to become a band that tightens your bosom!
One of the earliest love messages (written in Egyptian hieroglyphs approximately in the 6th century A.D.)

It was exactly a hundred years ago that a Parisian doctor created a bra. This anniversary is a great chance to learn more about “intimate” history of underwear. Working on the invention of a bra, the doctor was guided by the reasons of hygiene and comfort. The least of her expectations was that the intimate garment would become an object of haute couture.

The birthday of a bra was celebrated 4 or 5 times during the last decades. Some experts state that it is 80 years old, others say – 90, there are those who try to prove that bras have a history of two centuries. The Germans do not feel like giving the palm of priority to the French, and the Italians look down on both, claiming that a Venetian dressmaker sewed the first bra in 1596.

These quarrels lack the subject without defining the object in aspect of its function. The French doctor was the first one who solved the hygienic problem, when others were just trying to hide the breast or to accent it, making it flatter or higher. That’s why we tend to consider the French to be the pioneers.

It turns out that underwear is but the mirror of the attitude to women or men in the society. A long time ago the fair sex had to do without bras. The Ancient Greeks went out having one breast covered with clothes, while the other was naked and in most cases it was the left one. Maybe it was due to the fact that the Greeks were first to notice that in 80% of women the left breast was bigger than the right one.

The Dark Ages put an end to this frivolity and only the beginning of the Renaissance allowed women to breathe deep at last. However, it does not mean that medicine of the Middle Ages took no interest in women’s underwear. On order of jealous knights who had to be far afield for months, doctors teamed up with smiths invented the construction of so-called "chastity belts".

Despite the great changes in the attitude to the adultery, the idea of chastity belts of loyalty happened to be up-to-date even in the 21st century. The detectors of seed were borrowed from forensic medicine and oriented to help modern Othellos to establish the fact of adultery. You can buy such a belt for domestic use. Ironically, the idea of men's analogue came in the 21st century. According to the brief description, it’s crafty sheeting with electronics and valves.

By the way, the leader in modernization of underwear is the Italian psychologist, Giuseppe Chirillo. He created panties, which control the loyalty with the help of installed microprocessor. Little did he think then that a dark-side "hacker" could crack the "belt" and cause the divorce between chaste partners.

Elena Zharina
Fashion Editor