History of Underwear: from shirts and stays to bras and briefs

Greg Jenner is joined in western Europe by historian Dr Serena Dyer and comedian and actor Vic Michaelis to learn all about the hidden history of underwear. For as long as people have been wearing clothes, they have been wearing garments under them – Romans at Hadrian’s Wall were sent underpants, and even Ötzi the Iceman was discovered wearing a form of undergarment. But what were people wearing before the invention of underwires and elastic, so essential to our modern conceptions of underwear? This episode traces the history of our underthings in western Europe and the USA from the medieval period, through the Tudor, Regency and Victorian eras, and into the modern day. Moving around the body, it takes in the linen shifts and shirts that were the universal undergarment for much of history, the development of drawers and stockings, and the shockingly recent invention of knickers and briefs. It also tackles stays and corsets, asking whether they were really as painful as film and TV depictions suggest, and looking at the reliability of on-screen underwear in programmes like ‘Bridgerton’. If you’re a fan of fashion trends of the past, evolving views on beauty and the body, and debunking historical myths, you’ll love our episode on the history of underwear. If you want more historical fashion and beauty trends, check out our episodes on the History of High Heels, Renaissance Beauty and haircare entrepreneur Madam CJ Walker. You’re Dead To Me is the comedy podcast that takes history seriously. Every episode, Greg Jenner brings together the best names in history and comedy to learn and laugh about the past. Hosted by: Greg Jenner Research by: Lily Tidman Written by: Dr Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow, Dr Emma Nagouse, and Greg Jenner Produced by: Dr Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow and Greg Jenner Audio Producer: Steve Hankey Production Coordinator: Gill Huggett Senior Producer: Dr Emma Nagouse Executive Editor: Philip Sellars

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Greg Jenner?

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• 1:38Greg Jenner?

  Hello and welcome to You're Dead to Me with a Radio 4 comedy podcast that takes history seriously. My name's Greg Jenner, I'm a public historian, author and broadcaster, and today we are tightening our corsets, tying on our codpieces and trying not to trip over our crinolins as we learn all about the history of underwear. And to help us sort through the historical laundry pile, we have two very special guests. In history corner, she's a historian, broadcaster and curator. She's associate professor of fashion history at De Montfort University. She's an expert on the history of fashion, making and shopping, and you may have read one of her wonderful books, including Material Lives: Women, Makers and Consumer Culture in the 18th Century. It's Dr Serena Dyer, welcome Serena.

• 2:16Speaker 04

  Thank you for having me.

• 2:17Greg Jenner?

  Pleasure to have you in. And in comedy corner, there are comedian, actor and improviser. You'll have seen them on any number of amazing dropout TV shows, including Make Some Noise, Gamechanger, or the hilarious improvised interview show Very Important People. Maybe you saw them acting in Upload or in the movie Dead, or giving a star turn in the fantastic Cold War spy drama Ponies, which I love. It's the very important Vic McAlister, welcome Vic.

• 2:40Speaker 05

  Now, this is embarrassing because I'm also a historian.

• 2:43Greg Jenner?

  Are you?

• 2:44Speaker 05

  Of underwear.

• 2:45Greg Jenner?

  Oh, what a chance.

• 2:47Speaker 05

  I know, it's crazy. My step-grandparents, this is real, used to give me a $50 gift card to Victoria's Secret for every holiday.

• 2:54Greg Jenner?

  That's...

• 2:55Speaker 05

  That's an underwear store, I don't know if that's an underwear store here.

• 2:57Speaker 04

  It is, yes.

• 2:58Greg Jenner?

  That feels quite...

• 2:59Speaker 05

  It was a little weird.

• 3:00Greg Jenner?

  Yeah.

• 3:01Speaker 05

  But I feel like I did my research, I did my time, so I'm going to also call myself an underwear historian. Sort of mid-2000s would be my, my time period.

• 3:09Speaker 04

  I'm really looking forward to your insights. I feel like this is an oral history research moment as well.

• 3:14Speaker 05

  I really can't wait. I did two years of college and then sort of they asked me to leave. So you've, you've got to be a little, so of this table, we sort of have, you have two degrees, right?

• 3:22Greg Jenner?

  Yeah.

• 3:23Speaker 05

  And you have three degrees. And so we got five, we're a five-degree table here. I really feel like we can sort of figure this out.

• 3:30Greg Jenner?

  Okay, this is your first time on the podcast, welcome, thank you.

• 3:33Speaker 05

  I'm thrilled to be here, thank you for having me.

• 3:35Greg Jenner?

  Delighted to have you in. I have to ask, do you like history in general?

• 3:38Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 3:39Greg Jenner?

  Okay, strong.

• 3:42Speaker 05

  I grew up with a single dad, so like I watched so many Ken Burns, like Revolutionary War documentaries.

• 3:48Greg Jenner?

  Long-form documentary.

• 3:49Speaker 05

  My dad is obsessed with war.

• 3:52Greg Jenner?

  Today, we're talking more about social history.

• 3:54Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 3:54Greg Jenner?

  Ordinary history, normal, not, not wars.

• 3:57Speaker 05

  Not war. Well, we'll see, we don't know that yet.

• 3:59Speaker 04

  You don't know that yet, Greg.

• 4:01Greg Jenner?

  Okay, all right, I'm being told off already, okay. And you worked in the fashion industry?

• 4:06Speaker 05

  Oh, kind of.

• 4:09Speaker 05

  I really wanted to be a model when I was like a teenager and all my friends were doing it and I was working with an agency and I booked absolutely nothing. I booked, all my friends are booking these high-fashion campaigns. I was booking commercials, do you guys have Monistat over here? Is that a brand name that means anything? I don't know if this is a word that is going to get cut immediately, but it's a yeast infection medication.

• 4:31Speaker 05

  I was uncomfortable friend number two. So that's sort of different than what my dream was.

• 4:40Greg Jenner?

  So, what do you know?

• 4:45Greg Jenner?

  Let's crack on with the first segment of the podcast, this is the So What Do You Know?

• 4:49Speaker 05

  Oh, let's crack.

• 4:50Greg Jenner?

  This is where I have a go at guessing what you, our lovely listener or viewer, hello, might know about today's subject. And you probably know all about the history of undercrackers, or at least you are wearing them, hopefully. I mean, it is very hot today.

• 5:01Speaker 05

  Did you just say undercracker?

• 5:02Greg Jenner?

  Yeah, undercrackers. That's a, it's a, it's a British phrase.

• 5:05Speaker 05

  Is it?

• 5:06Greg Jenner?

  Yeah, yes.

• 5:06Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 5:07Greg Jenner?

  Very important. But what about the pants of the past, underpants of the past for our North American guest?

• 5:14Speaker 05

  No undercrackers, it is no.

• 5:15Greg Jenner?

  Maybe you're thinking of Keira Knightley fainting in her tight corset in Pirates of the Caribbean, or maybe the dubious bloomers in Bridgerton, perhaps a Victorian gent in his woolly long johns. Of course, millennials may go straight to Bridget Jones in her giant pants, or maybe the Little Mermaid in her shell bra. But how accurate are these on-screen depictions? Were corsets really such a health hazard, as they're often talked about? And have people always worn underpants? Let's find out. Right, Vic, easy one to start off with, how would you define...

• 5:44Speaker 05

  Are we going head-to-head in a competition about what we know about this?

• 5:47Greg Jenner?

  That's right, that's how it works.

• 5:48Speaker 05

  I love this, perfect.

• 5:51Greg Jenner?

  How would you define underwear?

• 5:53Speaker 05

  Things that we wear under our clothes.

• 5:56Greg Jenner?

  Fashion historian Serena.

• 5:57Speaker 04

  That's very accurate.

• 5:59Greg Jenner?

  Hooray!

• 6:00Speaker 05

  I'll take it!

• 6:01Greg Jenner?

  You're up and running.

• 6:03Speaker 04

  But underwear is actually a really recent term and something that changes in its meaning quite a lot, because that is exactly its meaning, is what you wear underneath your outer clothes.

• 6:13Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 6:13Speaker 04

  But what people have worn under their outer clothes has evolved a lot as fashions have evolved. So what we might now think of as something that covers the entire body, like a, like a dress, was historically underwear. So basically, we're, we're going to cover how this works in Western Europe and the US from mainly the 16th century to today. And we're going to think about how underwear changed across that period and how this definition of what's on top versus what's underneath has gone.

• 6:45Greg Jenner?

  And today, we're going to move around the body to explore the history of different undergarments in terms of where they go on our limbs and bodies. So we'll start with the most common historical base layer. Vic, with your expert fashion background, not to rub it in. If you were going to design a universal piece of underwear suitable for everyone, what would it look like?

• 7:04Speaker 05

  One-piece swimsuit.

• 7:05Greg Jenner?

  One-piece swimsuit.

• 7:06Speaker 05

  Speedo brand.

• 7:06Greg Jenner?

  Okay, how one-piece are we talking, what's it covering?

• 7:09Speaker 05

  It is covering everything.

• 7:10Greg Jenner?

  Everything.

• 7:11Speaker 05

  Like, do you know the Mormons, are you familiar?

• 7:12Greg Jenner?

  Yes.

• 7:13Speaker 05

  Like, sorry, the Latter Day Saints. I feel like they've sort of have it figured out, where it's like, we're just sort of putting on a piece and then we don't worry about it.

• 7:20Greg Jenner?

  Okay.

• 7:21Speaker 05

  I'm assuming that's how it works.

• 7:22Greg Jenner?

  So you're thinking almost kind of wet suit?

• 7:24Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 7:24Greg Jenner?

  Okay, Serena, for most of our periods we're talking about, the past 500 or 400 years or so, you know, 500 was forward to the 19th century, the most basic form of underwear is, is even more simple than that?

• 7:36Speaker 04

  Absolutely. So from, throughout the medieval period, so possibly even as far back as the 10th century, all the way through to the 19th century, there is a relatively consistent piece of basic underwear that both men and women wore. So this is a very simple T-shaped garment made from linen that has evolving terminology through time.

• 7:56Speaker 05

  T-shaped?

• 7:57Speaker 04

  T-shaped. So you've got arms and then a body.

• 7:59Speaker 05

  Ah, blown-up T-shirts.

• 8:01Speaker 04

  Yes, yeah, very glamorous. So for women, it evolves from being called a smock to a shift to a chemise. For men, it's reasonably consistently called a shirt. And they are, they're more or less the same garments. They're generally made at home by women. And we even have evidence that Henry VIII's wives made his shirts. And that's sort of an important kind of social, cultural ritual for a woman to be making the household linens for her family.

• 8:32Speaker 05

  And Henry VIII is one whose wives kept like...

• 8:34Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 8:35Speaker 05

  Right, okay, so that is interesting. So maybe they didn't, they weren't making his shirts as well as he was...

• 8:40Speaker 04

  I mean, maybe, I mean, that would put me off personally if my shirts weren't good enough.

• 8:44Greg Jenner?

  Jane Seymour, Jane So More.

• 8:45Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 8:46Speaker 05

  Whoa, come on, do two more.

• 8:48Greg Jenner?

  No, come on, that took me long enough to think of that one.

• 8:51Speaker 04

  And, and this was kind of replaced by mass production in the 19th century, and that's sort of when we get this, this shift away from the shift. And the point of the shift or shirt, chemise, whatever, is really to protect you from your clothes and your clothes from you. It's this sort of protective interlayer.

• 9:08Greg Jenner?

  Do you have this problem of your clothes need to be protected from you?

• 9:11Speaker 04

  Constantly.

• 9:13Speaker 05

  I'm destroying outfits. I feel like as in I do improv largely and I do feel like if there is an undergirdment that went down to the knees that helped protect the knees of my pants, I mind the knees of my pants are constantly ripping. I'm crawling around all over the place.

• 9:27Greg Jenner?

  Okay.

• 9:28Speaker 05

  I'm sliding. I don't know what it is. My clothes desperately need protection from me.

• 9:34Greg Jenner?

  That's interesting. I I'm the when I eat spaghetti bolognese, I have to wear an apron. It's, you know, I'm forty three years old, but that's that's that's necessary now.

• 9:43Speaker 05

  Huh. I feel like we can fix that.

• 9:44Greg Jenner?

  My wife's been trying for a while.

• 9:47Speaker 05

  Okay, sure.

• 9:48Greg Jenner?

  I'm just a messy pasta eater.

• 9:49Speaker 05

  Yeah, okay, great. I love that.

• 9:50Greg Jenner?

  Yeah, you know, so I wear outerwear, not underwear for my spaghetti dinners.

• 9:54Speaker 05

  But then does your shirt become underwear?

• 9:55Greg Jenner?

  Well, I guess it does.

• 9:57Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 9:58Greg Jenner?

  Can you talk us through what that means historically?

• 10:00Speaker 04

  Yeah, absolutely. So the core thing here is hygiene. So you are living in a society where you're not generally washing your outer layers. They're made from things like wool and silk that you're going to sort of give a bit of a brush down, but you're not gonna stick in a washing machine.

• 10:17Speaker 05

  A brush down?

• 10:18Speaker 04

  A brush down.

• 10:19Speaker 05

  What does that mean?

• 10:20Speaker 04

  It's like you get a quite a strong bristled brush and you brush the the merd.

• 10:24Speaker 05

  Like a horse.

• 10:25Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 10:26Speaker 05

  I love that. Is that like when people put Levi jeans in the freezer? Have you heard this?

• 10:29Speaker 04

  I mean, I guess so, yeah.

• 10:30Speaker 05

  Okay, huh. You learn something new every day, especially on a history podcast.

• 10:34Speaker 04

  And the whole point really of the linen is that it is very, very good at wicking up sweat. So it kind of acts like bodily washing hygiene as well. So it's taking all the sweat off of your body so then you can just really intensely launder that layer. It's stopping your stays, your corset, whatever, from rubbing your skin. And it's also stopping all of those oils and and the sweat and the perspiration going into the garment. So it's sort of this this shielding garment. And from the sort of the fourteenth century, you really we develop a culture where changing your linens regularly is really important.

• 11:14Speaker 05

  Plagues.

• 11:15Speaker 04

  I mean, yeah.

• 11:16Speaker 05

  Plague, Greg.

• 11:17Greg Jenner?

  Sure. I mean, plague, definitely. Unfortunately, you couldn't really cure plague by changing your pants, but you know, it's worth a try.

• 11:23Speaker 05

  I think, yeah, if people were trying it more, maybe we'd have less plague.

• 11:26Greg Jenner?

  Maybe.

• 11:27Speaker 05

  And I think we need to consider that.

• 11:28Greg Jenner?

  Can't argue with the logic. So how often are they changing them?

• 11:30Speaker 04

  Most people are changing them every day. Even your poorest person is going to have sort of two, three, maybe even more than that. They're going to be sort of working through them because it's a really important part of how you're presenting your morality to the world. You want to look like you can keep your linens white and clean.

• 11:49Speaker 05

  So people are seeing them.

• 11:51Speaker 04

  Well, you can see the very edges of them.

• 11:53Speaker 05

  Right.

• 11:54Speaker 04

  Um.

• 11:55Speaker 05

  Dainty.

• 11:56Speaker 04

  It's.

• 11:57Speaker 05

  Sexy.

• 11:58Speaker 04

  Yeah, yes, absolutely. Little cheeky bit of cuff, little cheeky bit of the edge of your your shift. Very sexy.

• 12:04Speaker 05

  There we go.

• 12:05Speaker 04

  So laundry, really, really important. And a lot of the time that's done with at home with things like lye. But we also get the growth of professionalized laundry services, like the laundrette of medieval, early modern Britain.

• 12:22Speaker 05

  Would those have been businesses that would have been primarily run by women at those times too?

• 12:26Speaker 04

  Yes, yeah, absolutely. So it's a really good form of employment for women. And some of those laundresses, probably because they're in that kind of situation, were treated suspiciously sometimes, that they were doing it on the cheap, that they weren't boiling it properly, and they were using things like urine to do the cleaning. Now, urea in urine does have cleaning properties. It is a genuinely useful thing to use. But people were worried that it was just sort of being slapped on and called in that.

• 12:54Speaker 05

  So they were fine with there being a little bit, but they were just like, you're using too much urine.

• 12:57Greg Jenner?

  Serena, what is lye? What was lye?

• 13:01Speaker 04

  Lye is essentially the historical equivalent of laundry detergent. It's soap. It's what they use to clean these pieces of underwear.

• 13:09Greg Jenner?

  Lovely. Okay, so Serena, you said early modern men wore their sort of showing, you know, snowy white shirts as underwear.

• 13:16Speaker 04

  Mm hmm.

• 13:17Greg Jenner?

  Which sort of defeats the point because if they're clean and bright and white, do you want to show them? Should they not be outerwear? Doesn't it feel paradoxical?

• 13:24Speaker 04

  Yeah, well, throughout the early modern period, so really all the way through to the beginning of the nineteenth century, you're getting little little hints of how clean a man's shirt is. So you'll get a little bit of the top of the collar, you'll get a little bit of ruffle around the cuffs.

• 13:38Speaker 05

  Literal peacocking.

• 13:40Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 13:41Speaker 05

  It's like we got our little feathers out of being like, but then how do you could trick people? You could just clean the collar.

• 13:46Speaker 04

  We are, we are going there. Yes.

• 13:48Speaker 05

  Travesty, scandal.

• 13:52Speaker 04

  Well, before the nineteenth century, being in your shirt sleeves would be a little bit shocking, a little bit scandalous. It's a very intimate thing to do, to be just in your bare shirt sleeves. Yeah, the way that it is presented in a lot of period drama would be quite shocking.

• 14:07Speaker 05

  Sure, sure. Would have been absolutely scandalous.

• 14:09Greg Jenner?

  So Mr. Darcy, when he takes his dip in the water, Colin Firth, the classic iconic, him exiting the water, sort of dripping wet, that he's in his lingerie.

• 14:17Speaker 04

  Yeah. And I think that that's part of why people do get excited about that scene is that there's this kind of unspoken thing where we know that that's a bit naughty, that's a little bit scandalous.

• 14:30Speaker 05

  That's funny that that's your Mr. Darcy that you go to.

• 14:32Greg Jenner?

  Yeah, well, I'm old.

• 14:33Speaker 05

  No, nobody said that. Literally, nobody said that. You said that.

• 14:37Greg Jenner?

  I did.

• 14:38Speaker 05

  I was thinking of, what's his name? The guy from Succession?

• 14:40Speaker 04

  Matthew McConaughey.

• 14:41Greg Jenner?

  Yeah, no, no, not.

• 14:42Speaker 05

  Matthew McConaughey.

• 14:43Greg Jenner?

  I'd love to see Matt McConaughey doing.

• 14:46Speaker 05

  Take on the roll. Let's see a green light. Let's go. Yeah.

• 14:49Greg Jenner?

  Incredible.

• 14:50Speaker 05

  Miss Bennett.

• 14:51Greg Jenner?

  Matthew McFadden, sorry. Yeah, yeah. Yes, my go to is Colin Firth. Sorry.

• 14:54Speaker 04

  No, that's okay. I'm with Greg.

• 14:56Speaker 05

  I love that.

• 14:57Greg Jenner?

  Yeah. Okay, when did it stop being a little bit slutty for men to show off their uncovered, you know, their shirt?

• 15:03Speaker 04

  Yeah, well, even in the kind of mid nineteenth century, shirt fronts were still hidden by your waistcoat, by your kind of neckerchief. Everything is kind of covered up when you're properly dressed. But from the kind of the latter half of the nineteenth century, we start to see a little bit more of the front of the shirt kind of coming to the fore and being revealed. So you're still not showing too much of it, but you're giving a little bit more of a hint. And then showing too much shirt was still sort of seen as more of a lower class, working class thing to do.

• 15:37Speaker 05

  Whoa.

• 15:38Speaker 04

  Because you're laboring, so you are going to take your coat off if you are doing physical labor. So there is a kind of a class element to it as well.

• 15:46Speaker 05

  It was literally rich people being like, oh, you're hot when you're working? Cute. That's so crazy.

• 15:52Speaker 04

  And then it's really from the kind of beginning of the twentieth century, nineteen twenties, nineteen thirties, that mass produce shirts begin to become more popular. And by the nineteen forties, they're not really considered underwear anymore.

• 16:08Greg Jenner?

  Okay.

• 16:09Speaker 04

  But it has shifted what is underwear. So instead of the shirt being the underwear, there's now a new garment that goes under the shirt and that becomes the underwear. And that is your vest or your T-shirt. And the origins of the T-shirt are in sort of late nineteenth century naval uniforms because sailors needed that extra undershirt and then they sort of need permission to take the different layers off while doing different types of work. So.

• 16:35Greg Jenner?

  So I'm wearing underwear right now?

• 16:37Speaker 04

  You are. It's very shocking, Greg.

• 16:38Greg Jenner?

  I'm so sorry.

• 16:39Speaker 05

  This is crazy.

• 16:40Greg Jenner?

  Very inappropriate of me.

• 16:41Speaker 05

  I was gonna say something when I walked in, but it's your show. And I was like, I want to be polite.

• 16:43Greg Jenner?

  I'm so sorry.

• 16:45Speaker 05

  Thank you for apologizing.

• 16:46Greg Jenner?

  Yeah, you know, I'm trying to atone for my sins. Serena, when did women's shifts serve the same function as men's shirts? So you said the shift went through evolutions as well?

• 16:58Speaker 04

  Yes, but they're really minor evolutions. So it essentially stays a T-shaped garment throughout most of the period we're looking at. Towards the end, it kind of its sleeves get a bit shorter and shorter and shorter as women are wearing shorter and shorter sleeves on their gowns.

• 17:11Speaker 05

  Free the shoulder.

• 17:12Speaker 04

  Free the shoulder, absolutely. But they kind of fundamentally change very little over time and they're still performing the same kind of function.

• 17:20Greg Jenner?

  How long was a shift back in the six, ankle length, knee, thigh?

• 17:24Speaker 04

  They're.

• 17:25Greg Jenner?

  Above thigh?

• 17:26Speaker 04

  Between knee and ankle, really. Like, they're quite long.

• 17:31Speaker 05

  And a shift being like a slip.

• 17:33Speaker 04

  Essentially, yeah.

• 17:34Speaker 05

  Okay, great.

• 17:35Speaker 04

  A slip with sleeves. Sure.

• 17:36Greg Jenner?

  Vic, if a seventeenth century woman, so we're in the sixteen hundreds here, more plague, I'm afraid, if she felt that her dress was a bit bit too low cut and she was revealing a little bit too much, what could she do to make it more modest?

• 17:48Speaker 05

  What would she do? I guess maybe like roll up a little, like a little, maybe a little puff, a little puff in a sleeve. I'm not explaining this well for an audio medium. I'll tell you that much. It's sort of like a little like, just pop pop a collar a little bit, unbutton one button.

• 18:04Greg Jenner?

  Oh, I think you're, I think you're there.

• 18:05Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah. If I just keep answering, will I get it eventually?

• 18:08Greg Jenner?

  Eventually, yeah.

• 18:10Speaker 05

  It's trip and fall and her skirt rips and then you see a little bit of the slip. Nope.

• 18:17Speaker 04

  I think we're getting further away now.

• 18:18Greg Jenner?

  You're going more erotic.

• 18:19Speaker 05

  Go to the hospital, gets the plague, has to be stripped off. And then all of a sudden, she's just in in the, what's it called, a slip? No, I said that.

• 18:27Greg Jenner?

  The shift, the slip, yeah.

• 18:28Speaker 05

  She's just in her shift. The doctors are like, you're going to die. And she goes, okay.

• 18:33Greg Jenner?

  More modest and you're going more and more risque with every answer.

• 18:35Speaker 05

  And so this is sort of audio dyslexia I have, I think. So this is, what would you do to be more modest?

• 18:40Greg Jenner?

  Yeah.

• 18:41Speaker 05

  Puffer jacket?

• 18:42Greg Jenner?

  Puffer, just the full puffer jacket.

• 18:44Speaker 05

  And they go, it's not snowing out, Isabel. And she goes, I am frigid.

• 18:49Speaker 04

  I'd love to see Elizabeth I in a puffer jacket.

• 18:51Greg Jenner?

  Yeah, okay. You've given us nineteen answers.

• 18:54Speaker 05

  Sort of in either direction.

• 18:56Speaker 04

  And none of them.

• 18:59Speaker 05

  She gets the plague, she dies, she's in a coffin, she's completely covered.

• 19:01Greg Jenner?

  There's nothing more modest than dying of plague. Serena, give us the actual answer.

• 19:06Speaker 04

  So most shifts and smocks have a kind of low square neckline. Not all of them, some of them are high-necked, but most of them. So women are using other kind of linen garments to fill in that space. So in some periods, things like partlets and chemisets are really popular, that are more sort of fitted bits that might have little frilly neck or like a-

• 19:27Speaker 05

  I know exactly what you're talking about. I feel like that's big and like, they love those pieces and like, have you seen Gilded Age? I feel like shows like that, they like, they love the pieces that are like decorative around the neck.

• 19:37Speaker 04

  Yes, yeah, and they're filling in that space. And of course, it's not just about modesty, it's also about sun protection. This is an era before SPF, so it's actually giving you a little bit of protection on a hot day as much as it is about modesty.

• 19:49Greg Jenner?

  And what are they called? What's the French word for them then? This sort of neck covering?

• 19:53Speaker 04

  Well, so as well as the chemisets and partlets, you also just have essentially big squares or triangles of fabric.

• 19:59Speaker 05

  I love that. Now we're speaking my language.

• 20:03Speaker 04

  Which you wrap around, sometimes in a kind of tucking it in flat way, but sometimes in a more bouffant way.

• 20:09Greg Jenner?

  Bouffant?

• 20:10Speaker 05

  Bouffant, oui.

• 20:13Speaker 04

  So they kind of become known as a feshu later on as well. They're more routinely in Britain, just known as a neckcloth or even a handkerchief, even though it's not for your hands, it's for your neck, which is, becomes very confusing. But the terminology is quite flexible because it is essentially a handkerchief in that it is a square of fabric.

• 20:33Greg Jenner?

  And are we still calling this underwear? Because this is fully visible. This is on top of your chiffre or chemise, so it's, it's sort of, it's outerwear, it's eye line height?

• 20:43Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's on that line. I think that it's, you're tucking it in a little bit, so a little bit of it's underwear.

• 20:48Greg Jenner?

  Okay.

• 20:49Speaker 04

  But also with things like the partlet, part of the point is that it looks like an extension of your underwear. It's meant to look like the top part of your shift.

• 20:58Speaker 05

  I see.

• 20:59Greg Jenner?

  I feel like your, I was going to say your uniform in very important people, you've got the shirt with a little bit of frill, a little bit of, little bit of sort of lacy dangle there.

• 21:07Speaker 05

  It's called a pussy bow, is like the, sort of like the style of it.

• 21:11Greg Jenner?

  Yeah.

• 21:12Speaker 05

  But yeah, it's a, so we've sort of done that for the last few seasons.

• 21:15Greg Jenner?

  So you're harking back to days of yore.

• 21:18Speaker 05

  There we go, yes. And we've done that on purpose, we did the research and we sort of said, we're not going to wash this shirt, so we need something to distract.

• 21:27Greg Jenner?

  Okay, Vic, staying with underlayers of course, but we're now going to head south on the body.

• 21:31Speaker 05

  Perfect.

• 21:32Greg Jenner?

  I'm going to ask you this in the least inappropriate way possible. Please describe for me historical knickers. What comes to mind?

• 21:39Speaker 05

  Rega!

• 21:40Greg Jenner?

  Sorry, that's what it says in my script. What image comes to mind?

• 21:43Speaker 05

  Okay. Dubloon is not the right word because I think that's money. That's pirate money, right?

• 21:48Greg Jenner?

  Dubloons? Yes, that is pirate money.

• 21:51Speaker 05

  What word am I thinking of?

• 21:52Greg Jenner?

  Bloomers?

• 21:53Speaker 05

  Bloomers. Dubloomers. You're bloomers. It's sort of like, you know, I'm thinking it's like you got some sort of a waistband and then some sort of thing that's like, that's like getting your leg and they're sort of like voluminous and they're just sort of big and they're sort of, they could be a parachute in a pinch and sort of an Amelia Bedelia type situation. You know what I'm talking about?

• 22:15Greg Jenner?

  So you think quite a lot of fabric, quite long?

• 22:18Speaker 05

  Uh, I'd say down to the knee is what I'm thinking.

• 22:20Greg Jenner?

  Down to the knee.

• 22:21Speaker 05

  Like mid thigh.

• 22:22Greg Jenner?

  Okay.

• 22:23Speaker 05

  I'm trying to find the answer in your eyes here.

• 22:25Speaker 04

  Bloomers technically are outerwear.

• 22:28Speaker 05

  No, what? No, what? I'd be on the train.

• 22:34Speaker 04

  So bloomers are something that was popularized by Amelia Bloomer in the middle of the 19th century as this kind of rational garment for women to not have to wear skirts, to wear sort of a two-legged thing. And it's kind of become conjoined in the public imagination with drawers, which is what women were actually wearing as underwear.

• 22:53Greg Jenner?

  Right.

• 22:54Speaker 04

  Because it is a bi-legged garment for women. And drawers were-

• 22:59Speaker 05

  For the bi-legged women on the girl.

• 23:03Speaker 04

  And drawers were sporadically worn from the 17th century or even earlier, but they weren't really common for women to wear until we get to the 19th century where they really kick off. But they're still not really knickers because there is no crotch. There is nothing going on in the key area. They're essentially the inverse of what you'd think of as modern knickers.

• 23:26Speaker 05

  So it's just a tunnel from another regions to ground?

• 23:29Speaker 04

  It is two tunnels for each leg.

• 23:34Speaker 05

  It's just a tube station. That is crazy.

• 23:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 23:39Greg Jenner?

  Your London Underground, yeah.

• 23:40Speaker 05

  The London Underground. Whoa.

• 23:43Speaker 04

  It's stopping your thighs from rubbing together.

• 23:44Greg Jenner?

  Right.

• 23:45Speaker 04

  So they're essentially like modern chub rub shorts.

• 23:47Speaker 05

  Right.

• 23:48Speaker 04

  But you don't want anything in between because if you're thinking of the kinds of dresses that most women are wearing at this time, that's a lot of fabric and it is much easier to just squat and go.

• 24:00Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 24:03Speaker 04

  So it is not really until the very end of the 19th century, beginning of the 20th century, as fashions are beginning to evolve away from that kind of big skirt silhouette, that we do end up starting to get crotches in women's underwear.

• 24:17Speaker 05

  Right. It just feels like practically crotches would be so useful for so many different things.

• 24:25Speaker 05

  It feels crazy. Like what do you, what did people do with, I'm assuming that periods weren't new as of, you know, the last hundred years here or whatever. So like, what, what do you do? Do you just disappear?

• 24:39Speaker 04

  No. So some listeners may recall their parents or their grandparents wearing a kind of girdle type belt-

• 24:48Speaker 05

  No!

• 24:49Speaker 04

  -from which you would hang a little pad. And there is evidence, particularly from the 19th and 20th century, of these pads being made at home.

• 24:58Speaker 05

  Hammock in the tube.

• 24:59Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 25:00Speaker 05

  Hammock in the tube station. Oh my god.

• 25:02Speaker 04

  Some of them are knitted.

• 25:03Speaker 05

  Knitted?

• 25:05Speaker 04

  And that, that's kind of the more recent way.

• 25:09Speaker 05

  So like in Christmas, like people get scarves, they're getting those like little hammocks from people where they're just like, oh, I just, you know, I was just knitting something, I thought you might want this.

• 25:16Speaker 04

  And then we have evidence earlier of women just using essentially scraps of linen, either in the same way you're kind of tying it around yourself or sometimes kind of rolled up into a tampon type thing and put where it needs to go.

• 25:29Speaker 05

  Oh.

• 25:30Speaker 04

  And we've got evidence of that archaeologically-

• 25:32Greg Jenner?

  Right.

• 25:33Speaker 04

  -as well of sort of discard piles of these rolled up bits of linen that have got menstrual blood on them.

• 25:39Speaker 05

  Time is a circle.

• 25:40Greg Jenner?

  I mean, you're a fashion historian and I suppose you examine clothes, you examine all sorts of clothes. And do you see the sort of physical evidence of this in, in fabric and clothing? Do you ever see stains of perhaps sweat, blood, that sort of thing? Can you tell if this has been used? You know, is that visible?

• 25:55Speaker 04

  Yes. Sweat stains are on pretty much every single historical garment I've ever looked at.

• 26:01Greg Jenner?

  Right.

• 26:02Speaker 04

  Which I used to find disgusting and now find wonderful because it's like, there's a little bit of that person that's still like biologically there in that garment.

• 26:08Speaker 05

  It's like amber, like it's to your Jurassic Park.

• 26:09Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 26:10Greg Jenner?

  We could create an entire theme park filled with 18th century people.

• 26:13Speaker 05

  Yeah. They're going to be mad, I feel like, about what's happening.

• 26:17Greg Jenner?

  Welcome to Jane Austen Park.

• 26:19Speaker 04

  I would go, sign me up, yeah. But most of the time with menstrual blood, we don't really see a huge amount of that evidence. Maybe partly because it's been laundered away, maybe partly because this is just linen that does disintegrate over the time. If you've got a bloodstained bit of linen, you're not going to want to hand it down to your grandchildren.

• 26:39Greg Jenner?

  Right.

• 26:40Speaker 04

  So what would you do with it? So we get very little of that kind of evidence in the archive. And we also don't really see any evidence of bleeding on the inside of shifts and smocks or petticoats or anything. So it's possible that people did do free bleeding in the past, but we don't necessarily have very much secure, solid evidence of that.

• 27:04Greg Jenner?

  Fascinating.

• 27:04Speaker 05

  Whoa.

• 27:05Greg Jenner?

  So the humble gusset, the crotch, dates to the same time as radio and film cameras.

• 27:10Speaker 05

  That's crazy.

• 27:11Greg Jenner?

  Isn't that really weird when you think about it that way?

• 27:13Speaker 05

  Yeah. I mean, that does feel wild. Like that it is such a modern thing, the things we take for granted.

• 27:20Greg Jenner?

  Yeah. And what about the gents? What about, you know, what would I be wearing in the late 19th century? Are we talking crotchless drawers?

• 27:26Speaker 05

  Please say bloomers, please say bloomers.

• 27:28Greg Jenner?

  Am I wearing big frilly knickers?

• 27:30Speaker 04

  Sadly not.

• 27:31Greg Jenner?

  Oh, what a shame.

• 27:32Speaker 04

  So men more consistently do have a kind of a crotched undergarment. It wasn't that we didn't-

• 27:37Speaker 05

  Was it light blue shorts?

• 27:38Speaker 04

  Yes, yeah. It wasn't that we didn't like have the technology to make crotches, it's just that they weren't needed. But for men, we do have examples of that that go back to some of the earliest archaeological textiles that we have evidence of. So we know that there was underwear sent to Roman soldiers at Hadrian's Wall. We know that people like Otzi the Iceman, so one of the most ancient clothed people that's ever been discovered-

• 28:06Greg Jenner?

  From the Stone Age, yeah.

• 28:07Speaker 04

  -had like braised kind of linen underwear type garment on. And we also know that King Tutankhamun's tomb contained 145 spare pairs of linen-

• 28:21Speaker 05

  Just in case he woke up.

• 28:23Greg Jenner?

  It's so many, Vic.

• 28:25Speaker 05

  I am so upset. I am like, I just can't believe that somebody was like, David needs a crotch. But Linda, what would she do with it? What would she even do with it? She wouldn't even know what to do with it. That's so crazy. Leave it. She can have a hammock, it's fine.

• 28:40Greg Jenner?

  So ancient undercrackers, your favorite phrase, Vic.

• 28:43Speaker 05

  I do like undercrackers, I'm bringing that home.

• 28:45Greg Jenner?

  They did exist. But what about in our period, sort of, you know, post 1500s? Did they wear socks? Did they wear stockings? Did they wear underpants? Is it all one thing? Like, do we get any kind of leg covering for men?

• 28:56Speaker 04

  Yes. So it, you don't have to wear anything, but there is a, it is possible, it is a choice that you can wear under breeches essentially. So that's just like a linen layer between you and your breeches. But that's not necessary at all. Breeches or, you know, the other sort of knee-length type trousery garments that men are, men are wearing, stop at the knee. So the bit beneath the knee needs stockings. So the calf becomes a very sexy area for men.

• 29:29Greg Jenner?

  I've always said it.

• 29:31Speaker 05

  Yeah, I walked in, you said, hi, my name is Greg. The calf is a very sexy area for men.

• 29:37Speaker 04

  So we get some stockings that are padded around the calf so that you get a little bit of definition and muscle tone in that area.

• 29:44Speaker 05

  They're padding their calves.

• 29:46Greg Jenner?

  Oh, yeah, they're padding everything.

• 29:48Speaker 05

  That's crazy. I love that.

• 29:51Greg Jenner?

  Yeah.

• 29:51Speaker 04

  But you also don't have to. If you've just got your long shirt, you can just kind of bunch it up in an appropriate manner and get a little bit of extra emphasis, if you might want to.

• 30:02Greg Jenner?

  See, so the old tuck and plump.

• 30:04Speaker 05

  I'm obsessed with this. I love this. Men should be doing this more often. It should be a thing that we're sort of making it more. I guess that is kind of happening with looks maxing now.

• 30:13Greg Jenner?

  I was gonna say, crotch maxing.

• 30:14Speaker 05

  It's kind of bringing it back. Yeah, there we go. Okay, calf maxing.

• 30:17Greg Jenner?

  Calf maxing, crotch maxing, yeah. All right, so we've we've met the tuck and plump, the old shirt that's, you know, is a long shirt and you you roll it under and up. Well, not up, not up.

• 30:26Speaker 04

  No, not up, Greg.

• 30:28Greg Jenner?

  Just under, just under. Sorry, going too far there. But there was another way that a 16th century gentleman could make his nether regions more voluminous. What do you think Henry VIII was doing to?

• 30:41Speaker 05

  Vegetables.

• 30:41Greg Jenner?

  Oh, you think he's just stuffing courgettes down there, like in Spinal Tap?

• 30:45Speaker 05

  Aubergine. I want to say that, like, I'm thinking of, like, you know, a field hockey cup or something like that, like, we're doing that.

• 30:54Greg Jenner?

  You are spot on, I think.

• 30:55Speaker 05

  Come on, huge.

• 30:56Greg Jenner?

  We wouldn't call it a cup necessarily. We'd call it a codpiece. Is that right?

• 30:59Speaker 04

  We would, yeah. And this comes from an archaic word for scrotum. Cod meant scrotum. And this started as a very practical thing. It's essentially a triangle of fabric that you put over the area that you would occasionally need some access to. And you can just untie it when you need to go and tie it back up when when you're done. So kind of like a modern fly. But it evolved through the 16th century and became a site of showing off your your wealth, your virility. And the the kind of sports cup bit is very relevant because in armour, you're also getting a codpiece. You need something to cover up and protect.

• 31:41Speaker 05

  The turtle shell for your bits and pieces.

• 31:43Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 31:44Speaker 05

  I love that.

• 31:45Speaker 04

  And that kind of, because obviously armour is made from metal, that's kind of a very solid thing. And that aesthetic kind of carries over into what men are wearing every day as well. So.

• 31:57Speaker 05

  If I could make one note for people back, like, if I could get a message back to them, if I could get one message back in time, I would send it to the people doing the codpieces and I'd say, let's decorate them.

• 32:07Speaker 04

  They can be quite.

• 32:08Speaker 05

  Because you know what I'm saying? I'm like, let's do, like, we have the little, like, let's do some decoration. Let's hand paint some flowers. I don't know, something lovely.

• 32:17Speaker 04

  I mean, you do get very ornamental embroidered decorated codpieces.

• 32:22Speaker 05

  Come on. Do you have any?

• 32:24Speaker 04

  I mean, not personally.

• 32:25Speaker 05

  Okay, great.

• 32:27Greg Jenner?

  Can I have one? No. I mean, you may not be familiar. I think every sort of child in in England grows up studying the kind of Holbein paintings of Henry VIII, where he stands bestrident with a rather large codpiece. And I think it's a very clear image of what his masculinity is saying. Is it functional at all? Or is this purely ostentatious showing off, I'm the big, I'm the big dude?

• 32:50Speaker 04

  I mean, it's not functional in that you're not putting, how to say, but it is covering up that area. Like I said, like, it is kind of the the equivalent of a fly or.

• 33:01Speaker 05

  The spaghetti is not in the bowl.

• 33:02Speaker 04

  Yeah, exactly. Yes.

• 33:04Speaker 05

  Right, okay.

• 33:06Speaker 04

  But you can unfasten it so that you can get access, right?

• 33:11Greg Jenner?

  Was there a pocket? Could you keep stuff in there?

• 33:13Speaker 04

  You could, yeah.

• 33:14Greg Jenner?

  Could you?

• 33:14Speaker 04

  Absolutely, yeah.

• 33:14Greg Jenner?

  Oh, that's great.

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• 35:38Greg Jenner?

  So, Vic, in the 19th century, there was a new.

• 35:40Speaker 05

  Oh, good, another question.

• 35:41Greg Jenner?

  Yeah, sorry, I've got loads more for you. There was a new innovation in unisex underwear. Historians of fashion would call it the Union Suit.

• 35:48Speaker 05

  Yes. The Union Suit?

• 35:50Greg Jenner?

  And it's my absolute favorite.

• 35:52Speaker 05

  I love that.

• 35:53Greg Jenner?

  And I'll let Serena tell you why it's my favorite.

• 35:55Speaker 04

  So this is essentially exactly as you described, full body underwear suit.

• 36:01Speaker 05

  Come on.

• 36:02Speaker 04

  That buttons up down the front and has a wonderful little flap, again, for access purposes, at the back this time.

• 36:10Speaker 05

  So you don't even ever have to take it off if you don't want.

• 36:12Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 36:14Speaker 05

  I love this. Okay, yeah, yeah, now we're cooking.

• 36:17Greg Jenner?

  So it's a bum flap?

• 36:18Speaker 04

  A bum flap.

• 36:19Greg Jenner?

  For when you need a number two?

• 36:20Speaker 05

  Yes, yep.

• 36:21Greg Jenner?

  You know, because it's cold, it's windy, you don't want to strip off all your underwear.

• 36:24Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 36:24Greg Jenner?

  So you just lower the flap?

• 36:26Speaker 05

  You might have a swim meet later that day. You gotta keep it all on. I am obsessed with this.

• 36:31Speaker 04

  I feel like modern jumpsuits need this.

• 36:34Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 36:35Greg Jenner?

  It's a onesie for a number twosie.

• 36:36Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 36:37Speaker 05

  There we go. Come on, you're on fire. Look at this.

• 36:41Speaker 04

  And these these became nichey popular, shall we say, in the late 19th, early 20th century. A similar thing is kind of happening for women's wear, where the smock, by this point known as a chemise, has kind of merged with the drawers and become a single combinations, they're called, single one-piece garment. But it's not quite as full on as the Union Suit that we're talking about.

• 37:05Speaker 05

  Sure, sure, sure, sure.

• 37:06Speaker 04

  In about 1910, the closed crotch canotia variant appears and was patented.

• 37:14Greg Jenner?

  And those are spelled with K, so it's a KKK.

• 37:17Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's very unfortunate, yeah. And they had buttons all the way around so that you could access everything.

• 37:25Speaker 05

  Whoa.

• 37:27Speaker 04

  There were some slightly more erotic adverts for these.

• 37:32Speaker 05

  Like in newspapers and stuff like that?

• 37:35Speaker 05

  Are they looking for models?

• 37:38Speaker 04

  The career that you never knew you wanted.

• 37:39Speaker 05

  Could be me. Could be me.

• 37:43Speaker 04

  So we get erotic adverts, right, sort of 1915-ish we're looking at here, one by Leyen Dekker, which was potentially based on his lover, Charles Beach. And this kind of started the trend of using sexy men to sell men's underwear. And two-piece underwear was also still the most commonly widespread worn thing. So you're still wearing essentially long johns and a t-shirt.

• 38:09Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 38:09Speaker 04

  But this was the kind of niche, sexy, different, alternative approach.

• 38:13Greg Jenner?

  Okay, so the sexy closed crotch, you sort of mentioned there, that's a sort of good takeaway back into men's briefs, because I think the briefs are, they're quite a modern invention, which is quite surprising. Do you know which group of men was first to embrace them?

• 38:27Speaker 05

  Briefs? Hmm. Hold on, it was gonna be, okay, picture this.

• 38:34Speaker 05

  You're going on a run.

• 38:35Greg Jenner?

  Okay.

• 38:36Speaker 05

  You're running a marathon.

• 38:37Greg Jenner?

  Sure.

• 38:38Speaker 05

  And so you're going, I need something tight. I need something secure. And so it's going to be marathon runners in Greece.

• 38:45Greg Jenner?

  Good guess. It's a good guess. You said Greece at the end.

• 38:48Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 38:48Greg Jenner?

  Ancient Greece?

• 38:49Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 38:49Greg Jenner?

  Wow.

• 38:50Speaker 05

  We're going back in time. They're hopping back. And then we sort of, because time is a circle. So they got created here and then they were sort of like, they were doing that in Greece, actually. So that's my guess.

• 38:58Greg Jenner?

  So the Roman word for underpants was supplicaculum. Did the Greeks wear underpants and did they come back as briefs in the 20th century?

• 39:04Speaker 04

  I mean, the Greeks did wear underpants, but I don't, I don't think that the connection was there in the 1950s. I wouldn't want to stake my reputation on it.

• 39:13Speaker 05

  There we go. So we just, unconclusive data is what I'm hearing.

• 39:16Greg Jenner?

  You're claiming that as a win.

• 39:17Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 39:19Greg Jenner?

  Who were the first community to embrace the brief? Was it marathon runners?

• 39:22Speaker 04

  It was not.

• 39:23Speaker 05

  Was it women?

• 39:24Speaker 04

  No.

• 39:24Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 39:26Speaker 04

  It was queer men.

• 39:27Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah, sure.

• 39:28Speaker 04

  So they became a really significant part of gay male culture in the kind of mid 20th century. So it's the kind of 1950s, 1960s that we're seeing the growth of, of these kind of tighter, more colourful pairs of, of underpants for men. In the early 1950s, a photographer named Bill Green developed a kind of cut down version of underwear for his models to wear and began to sell them. And then there were catalogues that featured photographs of men in this underwear, models and actors. Each of the garments was named after holiday destinations that were known for their connections to queer gay culture.

• 40:12Speaker 05

  That is incredible. That rocks. That's so cool.

• 40:15Speaker 04

  So you get the can, the capri, things like this. And we even know that Sean Connery modelled for them.

• 40:23Speaker 05

  Is that true? Do we have the ability to supercut seven pictures of him?

• 40:28Greg Jenner?

  Smash cut into Sean Connery. I guess that's why they called it thunderball.

• 40:31Speaker 05

  I love that. Happy Pride Month. Here we go. Look at this.

• 40:35Greg Jenner?

  Okay, let's move up the chest on the old body because we've done, we've gone south, we've been up to the neck. Let's go to the chest.

• 40:41Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 40:42Greg Jenner?

  Let's talk about corsets. What do you know about corsets? Have you ever worn one for a role?

• 40:47Speaker 05

  Yeah, I, I played a character in a maze, in a haunted maze at a place called Canada's Wonderland in Toronto. Shout out to Vaughan, Ontario. This is going to be for two people. But we, there was like Halloween horror nights there and I worked in a Jack the Ripper maze.

• 41:06Greg Jenner?

  Wow.

• 41:07Speaker 05

  And I played a lady of the evening and we, my outfit included a corset.

• 41:13Greg Jenner?

  Okay. And how did you feel wearing it?

• 41:16Speaker 05

  Fine.

• 41:16Greg Jenner?

  Great.

• 41:17Speaker 05

  Completely fine. Because it was, I think, just sort of fabric that was made to look like a corset. And I think it was probably just printed on a dress.

• 41:24Greg Jenner?

  Okay.

• 41:25Speaker 05

  You know what I mean?

• 41:26Speaker 04

  I was going to say my work here is done, but that doesn't sound like it.

• 41:29Greg Jenner?

  Your work here is not done.

• 41:30Speaker 05

  No, no, I haven't worn an official one, though I heard something and I don't know if it's true. Should I hold it until, to see if the information comes out or can I ask?

• 41:39Speaker 04

  You can ask.

• 41:39Greg Jenner?

  You can ask.

• 41:40Speaker 05

  I heard that it's a myth that corsets were like crazy tight.

• 41:43Speaker 04

  This is true.

• 41:44Speaker 05

  Okay, yeah. TikTok is right sometimes.

• 41:49Greg Jenner?

  Only sometimes, though.

• 41:50Speaker 05

  And very rarely.

• 41:51Speaker 04

  I mean, there's probably as much on TikTok pushing that they were.

• 41:54Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 41:55Speaker 04

  So, yeah, women throughout the period that we've been talking about wore a form of corset. So it starts as bodies, it evolves into stays, it's eventually a corset. They're all a sort of an evolution of the same thing, which is a garment for the top half of your body, which is stiffened with something like baleen, which is whalebone, which is not bone. It's this sort of protinous substance that's in the mouths of whales. And it's far more like fingernail and it's actually really quite bendy and supple and will shape to your body. So there's a kind of a terminological issue there in that, because we keep saying whalebone and people are like, there's bones in corsets?

• 42:36Greg Jenner?

  Yeah.

• 42:37Speaker 04

  No, that's just this like flexy.

• 42:39Greg Jenner?

  So it's not like going to the Natural History Museum and seeing a giant whale over your head and thinking, women are wearing that?

• 42:43Speaker 04

  Yes, no.

• 42:44Speaker 05

  Yeah, but whale fingernails just doesn't have the same ring to it.

• 42:47Speaker 04

  It doesn't, no. I tend to stick with baleen, which is the more, the scientific, technical term. And they were generally waist length. They can have straps, they don't have to. The kind of silhouette that they're creating evolves over this period as well. So it's just sort of this garment which is making your body match whatever is meant to be the physical sort of beauty ideal of that time. They're worn by all social classes. There's even a charity sort of set up in the 18th century to help poorer women get access to stays, the equivalent at the time.

• 43:22Speaker 05

  Whoa.

• 43:24Speaker 04

  And they're not really about restricting your body. They're not really about pulling you in. They are just about creating the right silhouette. And it isn't really until the 19th century that tight lacing and a lot of the ideas that we now have about corsets being bad for women emerge. And they're mainly because doctors are trying to find something to blame for the medical issues that women are having. And it's much easier to blame the women than to actually understand the medical side of it.

• 43:55Speaker 05

  Sure, sure.

• 43:56Speaker 04

  There's other cultural stuff going on about why we've received that kind of vision of them. And some women sure did tight lace, but it's very, very niche. And it's, you know, still a practice that goes on today. It is still a thing that people do, but it is definitely not something that was being done throughout society.

• 44:13Greg Jenner?

  So you could wear it in pregnancy, you could wear it breastfeeding, you could wear it through, as a manual labour in the fields. You could wear it as a maidservant and as a governess or as a, as a duchess.

• 44:23Speaker 04

  Yeah, absolutely. There's even a corset that becomes really popular towards the end of the 19th century called the pretty housemaid corset.

• 44:30Speaker 05

  Whoa, the pretty housemaid corset.

• 44:33Speaker 04

  Which is really, it's really flexible. It's got a little bit of boning, but quite a lot of cording. So it really is made for women doing physical labour so that they can fully bend and move. Although because it does, you can't bend in the same way as you can when you're not wearing one. So it does actually end up meaning that your posture is a lot better while you're doing, you know, you actually do have to bend your knees, you can't bend your back, all of the kind of manual labour training that we might have today.

• 44:58Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 44:58Speaker 04

  You don't need it if you're wearing a corset.

• 44:59Speaker 05

  Literally a built in back brace.

• 45:00Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 45:00Speaker 05

  That's crazy. And so this would have been under the clothes or this would have been over the clothes at this point?

• 45:06Speaker 04

  So on top of your shift, but underneath the rest of your clothes.

• 45:11Speaker 05

  I feel like when we see corsets now in modern day, like we're really showing off some pretty like elaborate corsets in media.

• 45:17Greg Jenner?

  Yeah.

• 45:18Speaker 04

  Yes, yeah. And, and many of them were, like a lot of 19th century corsets in particular are beautifully designed. But that's more because they're a luxury item than necessarily because you're expecting other people to see them. But most people do just wear a sort of an everyday, very practically made corset.

• 45:37Greg Jenner?

  Some of these corsets were designed to make women have a certain silhouette.

• 45:40Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 45:40Greg Jenner?

  And that silhouette could sometimes be inspired by birds. Vic, what is the, what would you say is the sexiest bird?

• 45:47Speaker 04

  Pigeon.

• 45:48Greg Jenner?

  It is the pigeon.

• 45:50Speaker 05

  Wait, there was a right answer on that?

• 45:52Greg Jenner?

  Yeah, yeah. I'm not saying, I'm not, for the record, I'm not saying pigeons are sexy. I don't find them.

• 45:56Speaker 05

  I am.

• 45:57Greg Jenner?

  Okay, Vic is saying that, but I'm not. I'm saying the correct answer is pigeons. That was the, that was the trend inspiration.

• 46:03Speaker 05

  For them, well, it makes perfect sense. They're beautiful and they're social. And I'm like, there's something about their confidence that is sexy. You know what I mean? I'm like, they'll come up to you, they'll be like, do you have a snack? And you'll be like, no. And they'll be like, okay, let me know if you change your mind. And they'll walk away and it's fine. That kind of confidence, you get by that kind of confidence.

• 46:20Greg Jenner?

  You've taught me around pigeons are sexy. Okay.

• 46:22Speaker 05

  Pigeons are sexy.

• 46:23Speaker 04

  Well, if you want to embody that sexiness yourself, what you need to do is wear the kinds of stays that are worn in the 1780s. So you are very gently reducing the waist, but very, very gently. But you're overemphasising the bust area. So the, the neck, neckerchiefs, neck cloths that we were talking about earlier, that you'd have in that sort of bouffant fashion that would be starched, would make the top half seem a little bit more exaggerated, more emphasised, like a, like a pigeon. And you'd also be wearing padding behind, which was often called a rump or a bum, which would give you the sort of, the bottom half of the pigeon shape at the back. So you end up in this sort of pigeon-esque shape.

• 47:08Speaker 05

  Who was the first man that went, I want my wife to look like a sexy, sexy bird?

• 47:13Speaker 04

  Sadly not recorded.

• 47:14Greg Jenner?

  So it's the powder pigeon. Is that the, the powder pigeon is the, the thing you want to emulate, apparently?

• 47:19Speaker 05

  Wow.

• 47:20Greg Jenner?

  Presumably no wings as well. People aren't going full like, you know, wings and little pigeon feet.

• 47:25Speaker 04

  No, I think that's not something that we have any evidence of.

• 47:28Greg Jenner?

  Sorry, going too far.

• 47:31Greg Jenner?

  Okay, so Victorians being a bit weird and horny, that's, that's sort of classic Victorians. But this is sort of the 1780s, Regency era.

• 47:37Speaker 04

  Yes, very poetic. They're like, you're a bird, I'm a bird. Well, technically before the Regency era, because the Regency era kind of ends up doing the opposite and you go very.

• 47:46Greg Jenner?

  I was going to say, Regency sort of empire line, isn't it very slim? I think it might be time for us to try some historical underwear. Are you game?

• 47:53Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 47:54Greg Jenner?

  I'm quite excited about this.

• 47:55Speaker 05

  I'm so excited.

• 47:57Greg Jenner?

  I'm intrigued.

• 47:58Speaker 05

  Oh, codpiece, codpiece, codpiece.

• 48:00Greg Jenner?

  So producers Emma and Emmy are going to come and dress us, which is not normally in your job description.

• 48:08Greg Jenner?

  PhD level historians.

• 48:11Speaker 04

  So if we go in chronological order with the two corsets that we have here. So Vic is wearing some stays that are from the latter half of the 18th century.

• 48:23Speaker 04

  So these are front lacing stays. One of the most practical, useful things about these is that you can wear them throughout pregnancy. So if you wanted to do that, you'd probably have two laces. So you could have one up the top, which holds the bust in place. And then a separate lace that can be tied a bit looser around the belly. And you can just let it out as the belly grows. So this is kind of creating a very conical effect. We're just beginning to see that kind of curve over the bust, which is the movement towards the powder pigeon look. Whereas.

• 48:59Greg Jenner?

  Emmy is still yanking on mine.

• 49:02Speaker 04

  So this is an 1860s corset. So this is post that transition from it being stays into a corset. So really what makes it a corset is you've got things like that it's front openings. You've got the corset busk, which means that you can get in and out of it much easier than Vic could. You don't have to start the lacing from scratch. You can just pop into it. But it also means that you actually can get a bit more reduction, a bit more tight lacing. So if you'd like to give us a 12, Greg.

• 49:32Greg Jenner?

  A 12.

• 49:34Speaker 04

  So technically you're not laced right.

• 49:39Greg Jenner?

  Oh, no.

• 49:39Speaker 04

  So technically.

• 49:41Speaker 05

  You do look beautiful now.

• 49:42Speaker 04

  You pull the laces from there. So that emphasizes that you can pull it in at the waist point rather than at the bottom as well.

• 49:51Greg Jenner?

  Great. Well, we're now wearing our corsets. How do you feel, Vic?

• 49:54Speaker 05

  I have this tied, truly the loosest amount tied you can have, and I feel like my posture is better.

• 50:00Greg Jenner?

  Yes, mine's quite tight, but my posture is better. Serena, did corsets just keep getting shorter and that's how we get bras? Because we haven't talked about bras yet, but they obviously are, I suppose, a 20th century invention.

• 50:13Speaker 04

  Sort of. So we have evidence for a bra-like garment that's much older. So there was an archaeological find at Lengberg.

• 50:24Greg Jenner?

  In a castle, right?

• 50:24Speaker 04

  In a castle. It's sort of, it's bra-like in the sense that it has cups and the cups are actually made in a very, very similar way to a modern sports bras. Cups would be kind of pattern cut and designed. And we think that they're mainly about compression. So it's basically a linen garment, but that fits to the body that is full length. It's got a skirt on it or it once had a skirt on it. It is now just some scraps with cups that are a sort of compression of the bust. Because in 15th century Austria, the beauty ideal was to be flat chested. So this was sort of part of, part of how you could achieve that if you were not naturally. And then we have other moments where the emphasis is on the bust and not the waist.

• 51:09Speaker 05

  Can I give you my pitch for what happened?

• 51:10Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 51:11Speaker 05

  Okay, an inventor so far ahead of her time, her time. It was a woman inventor and she was like, I have this great idea. It's just going to be a bra. It's a sports bra. People are going to love it. And everybody's like, that's the stupidest idea we've ever heard, Becky. She threw them all away.

• 51:27Speaker 04

  Yeah, that would explain it.

• 51:28Speaker 05

  That's it.

• 51:28Greg Jenner?

  That's it. Centuries later, rediscovered, yeah.

• 51:33Speaker 04

  So we get the kind of revival of a bra-like corset at the beginning of the 19th century. So this is the Jane Austen era where your waistline is up here. So why on earth would you need to compress your waist? Nobody can see your waist. It's under the skirt.

• 51:46Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 51:47Speaker 04

  So it's all about the bosom and you have a kind of lift and separate cup-like corset that's briefly in style. But then that goes away again and we move back to what Greg is wonderfully showing us.

• 51:59Greg Jenner?

  Struggling to breathe slightly, but yes.

• 52:01Speaker 05

  Your t-shirt doing the job it was meant to do, being underwear.

• 52:05Speaker 04

  You're not disproving the myths.

• 52:07Greg Jenner?

  That's true. My t-shirt is finally living its dream.

• 52:09Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 52:09Greg Jenner?

  Yeah. Okay, so the bra, I guess by the mid 20th century is the kind of the one-piece bra that we know?

• 52:16Speaker 04

  Yes, so it sort of evolves across the first half of the 20th century. There are various supposed origin stories for the bra, none of which I fully buy. A lot of them are a marketing spiel. But we do get quite a significant change in how women are clothing their bodies in this period. We're going from garments that need a corset to be kind of built onto and to kind of create that understructure to more flowing, loose, not quite as hugging garments. So you don't need that. So instead of the corset disappearing, it's more that it splits in half. You get a bra for the bust and a girdle for the waist and below.

• 52:59Speaker 04

  And I would suggest that that's never really gone away. You know, we still have the Bridget Jones pants. We still have control knickers and that's all just an evolution from the corset, really.

• 53:09Greg Jenner?

  Do you know how the sports bra was invented? The, the modern one, not your fantastic inventor, not Becky, yeah.

• 53:14Speaker 05

  No, I don't.

• 53:16Greg Jenner?

  It's, it's, I mean, it's quite a fun story.

• 53:18Speaker 04

  Yes, so the sports bra was developed in the 1970s and it's essentially.

• 53:23Speaker 05

  That late?

• 53:24Speaker 04

  That late.

• 53:24Speaker 05

  That's crazy.

• 53:26Speaker 04

  Well, as women were increasingly participating in sport through the 20th century.

• 53:31Greg Jenner?

  Allowed to, I suppose, as well, isn't it?

• 53:32Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 53:33Speaker 04

  Especially the more rigorous, bouncy kinds of sports that require this kind of thing.

• 53:38Speaker 05

  A woman had never played a sport until 1970. That's a fact. You can look that up. I did my PhD in it.

• 53:46Speaker 04

  So when they decided that women were allowed to bounce around and play sports, a prototype was made from two jock straps, which could be strapped around each breast.

• 53:57Greg Jenner?

  Vic, you're.

• 53:58Speaker 05

  My codpiece.

• 53:58Greg Jenner?

  Yes, I was going to say.

• 53:59Speaker 05

  What I've been begging for.

• 54:00Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 54:01Greg Jenner?

  And Serena, you also brought in a hoop for us. This was also a way of changing the silhouette of how, how a woman's shape looked. And Vic is modeling them beautifully.

• 54:09Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 54:11Greg Jenner?

  What do we call these, panniers?

• 54:13Speaker 04

  So these are panniers. So we've, we've talked a lot about how women are compressing.

• 54:19Speaker 05

  It did fall through, but it does have a pocket-like quality to it.

• 54:22Speaker 04

  So we've talked a lot about how women are compressing the top, or not necessarily compressing, but shaping the top half of their body to a kind of a structured silhouette. The bottom half tends to get structured to go outwards. And it's been argued that this is actually quite a feminist thing. Women are taking up space. And most of the time in history, when there has been a move towards women wearing more emphasized bottom halves, there has been a backlash from men who don't like that the women are taking up space.

• 54:51Speaker 04

  Well, if you're wearing the kind of skirt that is big enough to need a bigger doorway to go through, then you're wealthy enough to have a house that's got massive doorways in it.

• 54:58Speaker 05

  Double door.

• 54:58Greg Jenner?

  Yeah.

• 54:59Speaker 05

  There you go. Your husband's locking it, throwing away the key. Where is it? I don't know. You can't come to bed. That's tough.

• 55:05Speaker 04

  But you get an evolution of these kinds of garments through time. So in the 16th century, we have farthingales. So there's French farthingales and Spanish farthingales. So one is a kind of inverted cone shape. And then the other one is more of a drum shape. And then in the 18th century, which is the period that your panniers are from Vic, and panniers being the French for baskets.

• 55:30Greg Jenner?

  I was going to say, we're used to having panniers on a, on a bike, right?

• 55:33Speaker 04

  Yes, yeah.

• 55:34Speaker 05

  I was not going to say, I've never heard that word before, but I love it. Pannia.

• 55:38Speaker 04

  And you could put separate pockets inside the panniers as well. And we even have stories of women carrying entire chickens in their pockets. Like, this is very practical.

• 55:48Speaker 05

  I love that. Look at this. It would be perfect. You pop the chicken in there and the little head just pops right out there. Little pig, maybe? Chicken in one, pig in the other? And a green cables.

• 56:01Greg Jenner?

  There we go. So that's the history of underwear.

• 56:03Speaker 05

  Oh, that's crazy. I loved that.

• 56:05Greg Jenner?

  Do you have a favorite piece of underwear that we talked about?

• 56:07Speaker 05

  Codpiece, hands down, not even close.

• 56:11Greg Jenner?

  The nuance window.

• 56:16Greg Jenner?

  Amazing. Well, it's time now for the nuance window. This is where Vic and I sit quietly and stitch Henry VIII shirts for two minutes, while Serena tells us something we need to know about the history of underwear. My stopwatch is ready. Take it away, Dr. Dyer.

• 56:29Speaker 04

  So clothing is a fundamentally embodied thing. It shapes how we move, how we interact with other people, our environment and our relationship with our own bodies. But if we only think about the clothing of the past as observers, so by looking at paintings, by reading accounts, even when we're examining historic garments that have survived from the past, it's actually really difficult to access any of that bodily experience. And there's also a huge amount of survival bias at play in museum collections. So we have proportionally fewer examples of working women's corsets because they have literally been worn to rags. And so we risk making a lot of assumptions about the people inside those garments

• 57:14Speaker 04

  and aren't as equipped to be critical historians of the often quite biased texts that have survived, which talk about often other people wearing those clothes rather than yourself.

• 57:28Speaker 04

  But reconstructing historical garments, and perhaps most importantly, underwear, can get us closer to understanding what it was like to wear a corset while going about your daily tasks or going to the loo in split drawers. So we can understand why people made these choices. And sewing these recreated garments teaches us about changing approaches to the labor of garment production, how the various materials and tools worked. And while wearing them can show us how people moved, what their posture was like, how resourceful, practical and clever so many of these garments are. So it showed me, for example, that there is a very different kind of comfort

• 58:10Speaker 04

  to be found in wearing garments which form the fashionable silhouette around your physical body, as opposed to the predominant culture today of altering the body itself to fit the beauty zeitgeist through diets or procedures. So while we can never gain a holistic experience of what it was like to live in the bodies of the past, these experiments with clothes mean that we can better understand how ideas of comfort, freedom of movement and occasionally restriction were experienced.

• 58:41Greg Jenner?

  Amazing. Thank you so much. Thoughts, Vic?

• 58:45Speaker 05

  I love that. Yeah. I mean, like, that makes so much sense. I think so much about like the way body standards change today. And I love that point of sort of being like clothes to fit you rather than you fitting into clothing. That really, I, I think so much about, I think that, you know, a lot of people that think about fashion think a lot about that. So that is just, yeah, that was such a cool point.

• 59:04Greg Jenner?

  Yeah, it's lovely.

• 59:12Greg Jenner?

  Amazing. Well, we've learned a lot, but it's time now for the Swoddy Know Now. This is our quickfire quiz for our comedian.

• 59:18Speaker 05

  No, I forgot to take notes. No, no, no.

• 59:20Greg Jenner?

  You have taken...

• 59:21Speaker 05

  I literally started by writing Vic's notes, all cameras speeding. That is literally my only note.

• 59:27Greg Jenner?

  Your only note is the cameras on.

• 59:28Speaker 05

  Well, let me try write some. Okay.

• 59:30Greg Jenner?

  Codpiece.

• 59:31Speaker 05

  Codpiece. Piece. Undercrackers. Reg in underwear, dashing in corset.

• 59:42Greg Jenner?

  Thank you. Very charming. I was going to ask, how are you feeling? I suspect flustered?

• 59:46Speaker 05

  Panicked.

• 59:48Greg Jenner?

  These are all things we've talked about. Good luck, Vic. We've got 10 questions. Question one, what was the name of the most basic unisex undergarment worn for much of history?

• 59:56Speaker 05

  It was a SIF?

• 59:58Greg Jenner?

  Shift.

• 59:59Speaker 05

  Shift.

• 59:59Greg Jenner?

  I'll accept it. I'll accept shift. Very good. Question two, what practical purpose did a shirt or shift serve people?

• 1:00:05Speaker 05

  Underwear.

• 1:00:05Greg Jenner?

  Yeah. And what else did it protect you from?

• 1:00:07Speaker 05

  The sun.

• 1:00:08Greg Jenner?

  Yeah, absolutely. And from yourself and from stains.

• 1:00:10Speaker 05

  And from yourself and from stains and from snakes.

• 1:00:12Greg Jenner?

  Very good. Question three, what bleaching agent were people...

• 1:00:14Speaker 05

  Urine.

• 1:00:16Greg Jenner?

  Correct. Question four, what was unusual about women's drawers for much of the 19th century?

• 1:00:23Speaker 05

  Tunnel shaped. Two tunnels, two tube stations, no crotch.

• 1:00:28Greg Jenner?

  That's right, no train.

• 1:00:29Speaker 05

  A crime, a crime. And I hear you on that, and I still think it's a crime. I'm sorry.

• 1:00:33Greg Jenner?

  Question five, which male community first embraced wearing briefs in the 1950s?

• 1:00:38Speaker 05

  Oh, the gay community.

• 1:00:39Greg Jenner?

  It was gay men. Question six, what was a Union suit, my favorite?

• 1:00:44Speaker 05

  You repeat the question?

• 1:00:45Greg Jenner?

  What was the Union suit?

• 1:00:47Speaker 05

  And then you said it was your favorite. So I was like, I listened extra hard because anytime it's your favorite, I go, well, I gotta remember that for Greg's birthday. Okay, what? Okay. Union suit, your absolute favorite, and I would like to get a...

• 1:01:00Greg Jenner?

  Based on your onesie design?

• 1:01:02Speaker 05

  Origin of the word.

• 1:01:04Greg Jenner?

  What did it have in the rear?

• 1:01:06Speaker 05

  Can use it in a sentence?

• 1:01:08Greg Jenner?

  My Union suit is so handy for number twos.

• 1:01:10Speaker 05

  Okay, can you give me the definition of a Union suit?

• 1:01:13Greg Jenner?

  No, I don't think so.

• 1:01:15Speaker 05

  Okay, I know this. A Union suit. A Union suit? We didn't talk about this. There's no way.

• 1:01:23Greg Jenner?

  This is the one with the bum flap.

• 1:01:24Speaker 05

  The bum flap!

• 1:01:25Greg Jenner?

  Bum flap, sorry.

• 1:01:26Speaker 05

  Wait, take it back and then cut it in the beginning, right?

• 1:01:27Greg Jenner?

  I can't give you that one, I'm sorry. Question seven, name one purpose a corset or set of stays served apart from creating a smaller waistline.

• 1:01:36Speaker 05

  Posture.

• 1:01:36Greg Jenner?

  Yeah, very good. Posture, back support, back support for manual labour. Question eight, a sexy woman's silhouette in the late 18th century was inspired by which sexy bird?

• 1:01:45Speaker 05

  The pigeon!

• 1:01:47Greg Jenner?

  It was the powder pigeon. Question nine, what was the first sports bra made from?

• 1:01:52Speaker 05

  Becky made her sports bra from, well, this is a fact, Becky made her sports bra from whale bones, but that isn't going to be what your answer is.

• 1:01:59Greg Jenner?

  No, I'm talking about the 1970s one.

• 1:02:00Speaker 05

  Right, of course. Did we say?

• 1:02:02Greg Jenner?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:03Speaker 05

  We did, and we just talked about it. Here we go. It was made out of swimsuit?

• 1:02:09Greg Jenner?

  Two...

• 1:02:10Speaker 05

  Two, oh, two chalk straps.

• 1:02:12Greg Jenner?

  Very good, well done. Question 10, this is for nine out of 10, which is a very strong score.

• 1:02:16Speaker 05

  Oh, huge.

• 1:02:16Greg Jenner?

  What was a rump?

• 1:02:19Speaker 05

  The tool that went in the back? Or like, it was any, these, anything that you could fit back there?

• 1:02:25Greg Jenner?

  I'll let you have it.

• 1:02:26Speaker 05

  A chicken and a pig.

• 1:02:28Greg Jenner?

  Not a pig, but yes.

• 1:02:29Speaker 05

  You don't know that you weren't there, Greg.

• 1:02:31Greg Jenner?

  Padding for the rear of the woman's dress. Nine out of 10, Vic, well done. You powered through. It was, it was sort of touch and go in the middle.

• 1:02:39Speaker 05

  I got scared. I got genuinely pretty scared there for a second.

• 1:02:42Greg Jenner?

  You did very, very well.

• 1:02:43Speaker 05

  What's my prize?

• 1:02:44Greg Jenner?

  You get to take home two chickens. Yeah, no, you don't get that. No, we need that.

• 1:02:47Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 1:02:48Greg Jenner?

  Okay, well, that is the end of the show, so thank you so much, Vic, and of course, thank you, Serena. Listener, if you want more historical beauty and fashion trends, check out our episodes on the history of high heel shoes, which is a great one. We did one on Renaissance beauty, and we did one on haircare entrepreneur, Madame C J Walker. I'd just like to say a huge thank you to our guests in history corner. We had the superb Dr Serena Dyer from De Montfort University. Thank you, Serena.

• 1:03:10Speaker 04

  Thank you for having me.

• 1:03:11Greg Jenner?

  It's been an absolute hoot. And in comedy corner, we had the magnificent Vic McHale. Thank you, Vic.

• 1:03:15Speaker 05

  Greg, this was a blast. Thank you for having me.

• 1:03:18Greg Jenner?

  And thank you for putting on the corset. I know that was a weird request.

• 1:03:21Speaker 05

  No, I love it. This is the best.

• 1:03:24Greg Jenner?

  And to you, lovely listener, join me next time as we rummage around in the historical wardrobe to unearth some more forgotten gems. But for now, I'm off to go and buy 145 Union suits to be buried with me in my future tomb. It's going to be bum flaps at Go-Go. Bye!

• 1:03:52Speaker 04

  Hi, I'm Phil Wang, and this is a podcast to podcast trailer for a different podcast than this podcast that you've listened to or are going to listen to. But nonetheless, I'm talking about another podcast that you should also definitely listen to. The podcast I'm talking about is Comedy of the Week, which takes choice episodes from BBC sitcoms, sketch shows, podcasts, and panel shows, including my own show, Unspeakable, and puts them all into one podcast. Maybe I'll trail this podcast or that podcast. Who's to say? I'll do what I like. Listen to Comedy of the Week now on BBC Sounds. Podcast.

• 1:04:31Greg Jenner?

  Hello, I'm Chris Richards, general manager at Safford Volkswagen Richmond. I'm here to announce an exciting new program that I want you to listen to. Here's my friend, Happy.

• 1:04:40Speaker 07

  Hi, I'm Happy Harry Turner, special finance manager at SaffordCredit.com. If you're in an open Chapter 13 bankruptcy, recently filed a Chapter 7, or you've been turned down because of credit challenges, don't give up. For nearly 30 years, I've helped people get reliable transportation when others said no. Visit SaffordCredit.com. Remember, I'm not happy unless you are.

• 1:05:01Speaker 02

  Hi, I'm Molly Graham, host of Work Life, a podcast from TED. The most important lessons about work usually aren't the ones anyone teaches you. They come from experience, from uncertainty, from figuring things out as you go. On this show, my expert guests and I explore how careers really unfold, through change, through doubt, through the decisions that shape who we become over time. Because those moments aren't the exception, they are the work. Listen to Work Life wherever you get your podcasts.