underwear

Nowadays, women who want a trimmer waist in a pinch typically turn to Spanx or some other body-slimming underwear. But when it's less about practicality and more about looking sexy in nothing but your skivvies (like for your Valentine's Day date night, for instance), you may choose to don a corset. While modern women are free to wear these fitted underpinnings whenever we want to spice things up in the bedroom, corsets and the idealized tiny waists they create have a long and controversial history that doesn't seem to be going away anytime soon.

A couple years back, Vogue Italia controversially featured Ethel Granger and her 13-inch waist, which she achieved by wearing a corset 24/7. Ethel, who holds the record for the smallest waist in recorded history, went through the painful process for her husband. Her motivation brings up one of the main issues with corsets: are they for the men or the women? Then you have "the human hourglass," Romanian-born model Ioana Spangenberg, who was criticized for setting a bad example with her 20-inch waist, even though she claims she can't help her shape and didn't use corsets to achieve it.

To find out more about what made corsets so controversial back in their heyday (including info from Valerie Steele's book The Corset: A Cultural History), let's look back at some of the vintage ads and photos of these constrictive undergarments and the nonhuman-like shapes they created on women.

Considering how much time tots wear them, it's amazing how little thought we put into our kids' underwear. We're usually so excited for toddlers to move beyond diapers that we'll buy them packs with whichever characters motivate them onto the potty — thinking nothing of the actual quality of the product. The truth of the matter is that most character-adorned underwear is thin and uncomfortable, but kids don't know that they can expect more. Check out nine toddler underwear finds that prove you don't need a character on your lil one's underpinnings to make your tot want to wear them.

While we spend years curating the perfect wardrobe we can often overlook its foundation — our underwear drawer. Fact of the matter is, having the right underwear, bras, and slips can change the way we feel in our clothes, giving us the confidence and the coverage we need to wear everything from our everyday t-shirts to our evening dresses right. So, while we always encourage shopping for sweet and sexy lingerie, here we're cutting right to the chase with the 11 essential pieces no woman should be without. We've narrowed it down to the best bras, sculpting shorts, and slips all inside — read on for a little underwear 101, then keep clicking to shop the pieces you need.

• Great underwear really is a worthy investment — as the first layer of your look, it can help smooth and sculpt and help you look and feel better in everything you own.
• You'll notice too that a lot of the pieces we selected are nude; that's because nude pieces are best with sheer clothing — even white underneath a white dress can show through, while nude will be the most discreet.
• Look for multipurpose undergarments. Why buy four different bras when you can invest in one convertible bra that you can change up four ways depending on your needs.

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October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, so let's hear it for the girls who give our bodies curve appeal! Breasts come in all shapes and sizes, and the lingerie that holds them in has changed by leaps and bounds (thankfully) since it was first introduced in the late 19th century.

We have some groundbreaking women to thank for where lingerie is nowadays. British fashion designer Lady Duff-Gordon, "Lucy," was one of the first pioneers of lingerie, creating underwear that was more about being beautiful than practical and constricted in corsets. And Mary Phelps Jacob patented the first brassiere in 1914 (conveniently two days before Valentine's Day). But it was Frederick's of Hollywood, founded in 1947 by the inventor of the push-up bra, Frederick Mellinger, that really put the sex in lingerie. See how the sultry little things we wear under our clothes have been targeted to women over the years with a look back at vintage lingerie ads!

The choice of loose versus formfitting workout clothes is a matter of personal style and preference, but even more personal is the question of what to wear under your workout wear. Sixty percent of polled FitSugar readers say they always wear underwear when exercising, but 21 percent say nothing gets between them and their workout bottoms. Of course, high tech fabrics, wicking panties (specially designed to keep your nether regions cool and dry), and built-in lining just add to the options. Help us solve the debate about the best underwear for every workout by weighing in on your favorite pair or style.

>> There's no excuse like the holidays to dress up — even if it's just in the bedroom.  For the naughty and nice, we have an array of sultry lingerie from Agent Provocateur, Kiki de Montparnasse, and Victoria's Secret that will surely inspire.