The history of the knicker is a history of women's rights as much as fashion. From Queen Victoria and the Quaker reformer Amelia Bloomer to the G-string, Rosemary Hawthorne is the perfect guide through this fascinating history. As entertaining as it is informative, Rosemary Hawthorne exposes the true history of women's fashion, social history delivered with a large helping of humour, irreverence and evocative illustrations of knickers, drawers, pantaloons, bloomers and g-strings. One of Britain's leading fashion historians describes, like never before, the liberty bodice, the mighty Y-front and much much more... there isn't a brief left unturned! Did you know--that before the 1800s no nice women wore knickers at all? That underneath their crinolines Victorian women wore knickers with separate legs? That before the advent of elastic, knickers were held up with buttons, tapes and even soldier straps? That until World War II many poorer people made their knickers our of flour bags? That during the War women made hand knitted knickers? That in the '60s women enjoyed a craze for throwaway paper panties? That in the most parts of the world you can buy multi-flavoured edible knickers. This is the book that gets to the bottom of what is worn next to nothing