Getting its name directly from the French word for undergarment is Womens Lingerie which related to female lightweight underwear The direct French meaning comes from two words linge and faire le linge which directly in French means do the laundry but fortunately in English language it means or used for basically the meaning woman’s underwear or nightclothes in 1922 it was first used to refer to only the bra and underwear. Erotic clothing and visually appealing are the more suggested informal usage of the word. At first as Womens Lingerie was specifically designed to be worn by worn so was made by women but with the ever-changing world of fashion more and more men designers have been designing them and not only that but been accepted by women as most women claim they wear it for their men in their lives so they should know what they like.
Developed during the late nineteenth century to be visually appealing underwear for private moments between lovers (whether married or not or even in the now growing “sex industry”. Freeing women from the restrictive and strangling corsets worn at that time the pioneer in the development of lingerie was Lady Duff Gordon. From late eighteenth century to the early 19th century women wore strange, old, large and bulky underwear that came with the invention of crinoline (described as a stiff coarse fabric made from linen or cotton and horsehair made popular and at various timed even considered fashion, made for underskirts or dress linings which was stiffened and structured as a petticoat that they designed to hold out the woman’s dress or skirt, hiding the woman’s body shape
So within the late nineteenth century, women started wearing underwear for three primary reasons and not the bulky strange crinoline fashioned underwear:
- Using corsets and girdles to be later known as brassieres
for the purpose to change their outward shape. - for a claimed more hygienic reason
- and for the more ladylike and “modern” modesty look
Underwear became more form-fitting and smaller as the 20th century progressed. The glamorizing of the new sexy appealing underwear called lingerie started in the 1960’s by the lingerie manufacturers and in turn when in the 21st century they starting adding designs that doubled as outerwear the lingerie industry not just expanded but exploded. The French than later referred to it as something akin to inner wear as outerwear but in French ‘dessous-dessus,’
