I SEE LONDON, I SEE FRANCE: MUSEUM AT FIT SHOWS OFF UNDERPANTS
- 09/03/2014 by Jessica Dawson (Village Voice)

It is with naked astonishment that one encounters a lavender Hanky Panky thong in a museum exhibition.

It is also, in fact, with some dismay that one spies the underwear one may currently be wearing (if not today, then tomorrow or the next day; they're in the drawer somewhere) in a Plexiglas box at the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology's current exhibition, "Exposed: The History of Lingerie."

Because the phenomenally successful underwear brand's products are the stuff of dailiness, and a museum is something apart. If anything, an exhibition showcasing said undergarments — ostensibly a survey of lingerie, from corset to bustle to bandeau, and its influence on day and evening wear — is, in fact, a show about how the patina of time makes us more comfortable with exhibitions of contemporary mass merchandise.

Sure, this particular panty — a gift to the museum from "The Most Comfortable Thong®," as a nearby placard informs us — and other everyday items are fodder for many a material-culture grad student. Historians understand that today's outfit is tomorrow's grist for societal analysis.

Read the rest at Villagevoice.com

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