Underwear of Men and Women in China, Past and Present

choi

Intimate apparel | The Little Red Look; A brief history of Chinese underwear.
http://www.economist.com/news/ch ... ear-little-red-look

Quote:

"Bosoms were often bound * * *  Men wore thong-like loincloths, similar to sumo-wrestlers’ competition belts, but underpants for women were rare. * * *  

"Under Mao’s rule, both sexes sported loose outfits. If women wore any underpinnings at all they were typically modelled on functional Soviet undergarments. During the anti-bourgeois fanaticism of the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and 1970s a famous producer of female underwear, Gujin 上海古今内衣集团有限公司, started making woollen jumpers to survive.

My comment:
(a) The title is a wordplay on The Little Red Book, of Chairman Mao.
(b) underpinning (n): ""UNDERWEAR—usually used in plural"
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/underpinning
(c) In China" "But breast size has since become an obsession: racks are now filled with technicolour, diamanté and heavily padded cleavage-boosters."

diamanté (n; from a French adjective)
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/diamanté
(d) As a biologist, I doubt women anywhere did not or do not wear underwear during menstruation.