The Underwear Course

The Underwear Course is a full-length collection of cultural essays by Yu Xiaodan, an underwear designer, translator and writer. First published in 2015, it was reissued in a revised and expanded edition by CITIC Press Group in October 2022, with more than 50% new material, 52 hand-drawn illustrations by the author, and a rewritten introduction and afterword. Organized around six categories—classical corsets, bras, underpants, shapewear, sleepwear and loungewear—the book traces nearly two centuries of change in the materials, structure and craftsmanship of women's intimate garments, and tells the story of the shifts in women's circumstances and attitudes that lie behind them: from the constraints of corsets and binding, to the deliberate use of underpants and bras to draw a boundary between the body and the outside world, to today, when wearing shapewear, or wearing a bra or not, has become an expression of personal will. The author weaves into her narrative 23 years of frontline underwear design experience in New York, her work for brands such as Victoria's Secret and Vera Wang Princess, and her practice in post-mastectomy underwear design, discussing the body, pain, intimacy and generational memory. The book includes a Chinese-English glossary of common underwear terms and fabrics, a special chapter on visible ornaments, and a complimentary practical guide to dressing; the afterword, "My Mother's Body and My Life," records her double look back at her mother and at her own body. The book contains numerous color images.