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Celebrating our Beloved SkivviesWith National Underwear Day
From Marlon Brando rending his undershirt in Streetcar, to Madonna’s ‘bullet bra,’ underwear has come a long way from being coyly referred to as “unmentionables” in American culture. Since the unveiling of Calvin Klein’s giant underwear billboard ads in Times Square, the public’s perception of underwear has evolved from ‘necessary undergarment’ to a brazen gesture of style and freedom.
For those who wonder about underwear but were afraid to ask out loud, all, or almost all, was revealed on August 10, at the third-annual National Underwear Day, sponsored by Freshpair.com.
"National Underwear Day was created to bring attention to something almost everyone wears, but rarely gets the attention it deserves," says Freshpair Chief Operating Officer Michael Kleinmann.
National Underwear Day, according to Kleinmann is a way to celebrate the oft-unseen layer of clothing and revel in the freedom and style offered by today's brands. "Few ever talk about their purchases, let alone display them in public," he says. "No longer should underwear be merely the first thing you put on and the last thing you take off, but the most important thing you wear all day." For those who want didn’t make it to New York to be polled by Freshpair's undie-ambassadors, an online petition for official recognition of the day can be signed at www.freshpair.com. Little Known Facts: • In 1991, the average bra size in the United States was 34B; today it's 36C. • Married men change their underwear twice as often as single men. • Italians wear red, Argentineans wear pink, and Brazilians wear brand new underwear on New Years Eve • The loincloth is both the simplest and the most popular form of underwear. It was probably the first undergarment worn by human beings. • Bras did not exist until 1913 when Mary Phelps Jacob tied two handkerchiefs together with ribbon. In 1928, Maidenform introduced modern cup sizes. • In 1935, the first men’s briefs appeared. They had a Y-shaped front and overlapping fly on knitted drawers and came in both short and long styles. • Panty hose, which combined panties and hose into one garment, made their first appearance in 1959, invented by Glen Raven Mills of North Carolina. The company later introduced seamless panty hose in the 1965, spurred by the popularity of the miniskirt. • The thong first gained popularity in Brazil, in the 1980s as a swimsuit style. By the 1990s, thong underwear became popular and today it is one of the fastest selling styles. For more information: www.freshpair.com or www.nationalunderwearday.com . Freshpair, LLC • 611 Broadway • Suite
605 • New York, NY 10012 Edited by Erika Wright |
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They may
not talk about it much, at least in public, but it's obvious that Americans care
about their underwear. Be it boxers or briefs, g-strings or thongs, what lies
beneath helps account for over $13 billion annually spent on intimate apparel.
In this spirit – and in the spirit of
many underwear brand images today – National Underwear Day was launched. Founded
in August 2003, National Underwear Day is an event that evokes the care-free
attitude of Sixties ‘happenings,’ when free spirits took control of public
spaces as venues for their art, their message.
Male and female models who were clad in,
well, not as much as the rest of us, asked folks on the streets of New York what
they prefer when buying underwear and intimate apparel in such hotspots as Times
Square, Penn Station and Rockefeller Center.
The response was overwhelming.
Everywhere they went, the models were greeted with amused smiles, friendly
handshakes and more than a few lingering glances. Enthusiastic passers-by,
caught up in the grip of underwear frenzy, joined in with the models’
exhibitionism: men dropped their pants, women flashed their bras and – a group
of sanitation workers held up traffic on Broadway by exposing their boxers.
Underwear fever was in the air.
Freshpair has found that when it comes
to underwear, men still like to keep it brief. Thirty-two percent of those
polled by the company said they favor briefs, compared to 28 percent who wear
boxer briefs, and 25 percent who don boxers, while 8 percent who go with thongs
or other styles. And yes, that leaves 7 percent who, by choice, do without
underwear. Panties are preferred by 49 percent of the women polled, with thongs
a distant second at 28 percent. Another 13 percent go with boyshorts, while 4
percent wear other styles. Some 6 percent opt out of wearing anything down
under.