Underwear ranges from brassieres, panties, knickers, chemise, camisoles and slips for women and briefs, boxer briefs, boxer shorts for men.  Both men and women wear tank tops, t-shirts and long johns.  Underwear are worn next to the skin and support body parts like the genitals and the breasts.  Underwear also protects the outer garments from being soiled by perspiration, sweat and bodily discharges.  They are also worn for additional warmth in cold weather climate.  Aside from basic protection, underwear is also used in sports and in fashion.  Jock straps are worn by male athletes as a protection for their genitals.  Corsets, on the other hand, are worn by women to enhance their figure.

The simplest form of underwear recorded in ancient times was the loincloth and is often made of wool and linen.   It is unclear if women in the ancient times also wore the loincloth.  The loincloth evolved into braies, chemise, corsets, boxers, brassieres and into our present day underwear.

Long johns are two-piece undergarments worn in colder climate regions consisting of a long sleeve shirt and bottoms that reach down the ankles.  Thermal underwear is the forefront in long johns as they protect the body from cold.

Tank tops, camisoles, corsets, round neck or v-shaped t-shirts and brassieres are upper body underwear.  Lower body undergarments are panties, boy shorts, bikini underwear, briefs, boxer shorts and bloomers.

Materials commonly used for underwear are cotton, silk, nylon, modal and blended with spandex for that perfect fit.  Women’s underwear often times are trimmed with laces and ribbons to add a feminine look to it.  In this day and age, sleepwear falls into the underwear category.

Just like any garment, fashion dictates the styles and trends in undergarments.  From the bulky and long underwear in the middle ages up until the industrial age, present day underwear are now short, skimpy, and best of all, functional.

Stockings are coverings for the feet and legs and traces back its roots in ancient Greece when workmen and slaves wore hosiery. The Japanese, Chinese and Koreans also wore socks as part of their traditional clothing.

The socks evolved into stockings and stockings into pantyhose. Back in the 16th century, stockings were originally worn by men under their breeches. Women also wear them and they were held in the knee with a garter. They were worn as a protective covering for the feet and legs especially during winter. When Reverend William Lee invented the knitting machine in 1589, the stockings was taken into another level using wool, silk and cotton. When men’s pants became longer and women’s skirt became shorter, stockings became even more popular with women.

Stockings then were “fully fashioned”, meaning they were knitted to fit the shape of the body. Garters and garter belts were used to hold up the stockings in place. In the 1920’s when hemlines rose and it was fashionable to show off the legs with sheer silk stockings. Nylon stockings came into the picture in the late 1930’s and the demand for silk stockings declined. In the 1960’s when women’s skirt were very short, it was no longer acceptable to show off the stockings and the pantyhose took the lead. The popularity of the pantyhose reached its peak in the 1970’s and 1980’s and began declining by the 1990’s. This was probably because of bare-legged fashion and most especially, changes in the dress code in workplaces. Fashion plays a very important role with the wearing of stockings and pantyhose.

Today, stockings refer to women’s hosiery configured as two pieces, one for each leg with a garter on top to hold it in place. But for the Americans and Australian English, the term can also be used for pantyhose.