PieceWork November/December 2014

Oh my-it’s underwear! This often-overlooked element of textile history is the focus of this issue of PieceWork. For centuries, people have constructed all manner of underwear, using a variety of techniques. Compelling, often personal, stories go hand in hand with this specific element of dress. Projects bring the unmentionables out of the closet.

Inside this underwear issue, you’ll learn about Laura Ricketts’ discovery of four fifteenth-century bras in a vault in Lengberg Castle in Nikolsdorf, East Tyrol, Austria, in “The Case of the Medieval Bras.” She aptly calls them “the Dead Sea Scrolls of undergarments.” The fact that one of the bras incorporates needle- and sprang-lace work is icing on the cake. In “The Under Side of Weldon’s,” Karen Brock, our managing editor, writes, “No historical study of hand-stitched undergarments would be complete without a glimpse into the pages of Weldon’s Practical Needlework, one of England’s beloved resources for Victorian patterns.” And those Victorians certainly were intent on covering up everything-be it household objects or bodies.

Discover the unique history of undergarments with the PieceWork November/December 2014 issue!