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March 2025 Vol. 62 No. 7

This volume examines the competing demands of comfort with the need for protection and cleanliness in undergarments. This tour through drawers begins with the first sighting of underwear in a Sumerian bas-relief c. 3000 BCE, moves on to consider the mass production made possible in the 1800s due to the Industrial Revolution, and then examines how celebrities wear underwear as outerwear on red carpets in Cannes and Los Angeles. Eight topical chapters take readers on a breezy jaunt through the meanings of underwear (elaborating on the codpiece and corset) and look at immodesty, fabrics, medical matters, and economic and religious concerns, concluding with the underwear drawer, which seems redundant given that "drawers" is a synonym for underwear. The first chapter is a tour de force whose organization is more like a stream of consciousness. Readers learn trivia and tidbits gathered from various cultures and periods, but the book is not strictly chronologically organized, which is baffling. While the breadth of information shared in The Virtues of Underwear is astonishing and will interest fashion and material culture historians, its lack of organization within each chapter disconcerts this reviewer, and the sparse index is unhelpful.

--R. Tolley, East Tennessee State University

Summing Up: Recommended. With reservations. General readers.