Undressed at the V&A

The Undressed exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum is worth a visit but beware that it promises more than it delivers. Described as “a brief history of underwear”, it lives up to that description as the presentation is much smaller than I was expecting following the blockbuster Bowie and McQueen shows at the venue in south Kensington.

The exhibition, on two levels of the museum, concentrates on women’s undergarments. What is inescapable is that women over the past 300 years or so have put themselves through a lot more discomfort than men, as witnessed by items like this hooped petticoat and a wide selection of corsets.

It seems extraordinary that sporting corsets for “cycling, tennis and golfing” should have been developed.

As always at the V&A, I marvelled at the fact that everyday items from long ago had survived in such good condition. One of the most charming was this dressing gown that has vertical slits over the front to permit easy access to the breasts for feeding.

A large part of the upper floor of the exhibition is devoted to versions of “women’s underwear as outerwear” but I found the selection rather uninspiring. A lot looked like fairly regular eveningwear.

The men’s coverage is disappointingly sparse. It is fascinating to see the oldest male garment, this undershirt from the late 18th century.

I also liked these red cotton flannel pants from about 100 years later.

A modern version of those long pants was exhibited courtesy of Wolsey. I was not aware that the term “long johns” is thought to be derived from the US champion boxer John L Sullivan.

Inevitably Y-fronts got a look in, courtesy of this charming mini-mannequin that once stood on the counter of an outfitter in The Hague. It’s a pity we don’t see visual merchandising like this too often today.

I was surprised that there was no mention of the boxer short revival of the early 1980s, nor anything about the extraordinary success of the Calvin Klein version of the Y-front that was started by Bruce Weber’s famous photo of model Tom Hintnaus in 1982. That homo-erotic approach still is effective in men’s underwear today.

Undressed: A Brief History of Underwear is at the V&A until Sunday, 12 March 2017.

< Older Blog Posts | Newer Blog Posts >