Family shorts - a cultural phenomenon of the Soviet period

2024 Author: Sierra Becker | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-26 03:46

Family underpants… Do they have anything in common with shenti - ancient Egyptian loincloths, bra - men's underpants of the medieval period and underpants that appeared in the 18th century at the French court?

It turns out that until the end of the 19th century, no one knew anything about men's underpants (especially family ones). Only at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, representatives of the nobility began to appear in places of recreation, on beaches and resorts, in vestments that resemble this piece of clothing to some extent. At the time, briefs served as bathing suits.

Around 1920, an image of the first men's underpants appeared in one of the fashionable English magazines. After some time, they came up with a codpiece, or fly. Most men did not really like this wardrobe item. But the invention of the codpiece did not go unnoticed. The fly appeared first on the pants, and then on the top trousers.

Finally, the Soviet era is coming. In 1930, the whole country becomes a solid stadium. Every film magazine shows cheerful and energetic athletes. On May Day parades not only in Moscow in front of the governmenttribune, but throughout the country there are columns of youth and schoolchildren. They are all dressed in shorts and T-shirts and march bravo to the sound of a sports march.

As a result, shorts and T-shirts become a symbol of real men, their popularity is growing. The younger generation chooses a sporty style of clothing. Men imitate sports idols, so pants are becoming less and less popular and are being replaced by shorts. Advanced citizens proudly began to enter the kitchens of communal apartments in such sports attire, shocking their not-so-young neighbors.

Mass production of underpants begins around the fifties, when physical education and sports become a cult in the country. These were exclusively black or dark blue products, having a length of half a meter and a width of the lower part of one leg of sixty-five centimeters.

Such clothes were inexpensive, suitable for every member of the family, from the youngest son to the father of the family. It washed well, dried quickly, so all the boys ran around the yards during the summer only in wide shorts, called parachutes.

They were not ashamed to sit at the dinner table with the family or sit in the yard with friends, fighting board sports such as dominoes or checkers. Family briefs have become universal home wear.

Every self-respecting mother of the family knew how to sew clothes. Girls in labor lessons were taught this even in elementary grades. Along with aprons and skirts,their textbook also included a pattern of family shorts. Traditionally, cheap fabric for dresses was bought several meters long. Then updates were sewn from it for everyone. Bathrobes and sundresses are for girls and women, and family briefs are for men and boys.

Things sewn by hand were bright and colorful. They differed from the black and blue satin "seeds" bought at the store and became more preferred over time. Therefore, industrial production, closer to the seventies, began to produce family briefs for men not only from satin, but from other types of fabrics, and in various colors and models.