Medieval Bras Discovered

Someone’s getting a whole thesis out of this one. Textiles is a difficult area of archaeology, because cloth can be hard to preserve. Our records of what women wore under their clothes is hardly complete, and most assumed that upper class women wore a combination of bodice and chemis on the top, and both genders wore loincloths or similar undergarments.

And then Beatrix Nutz, from Innsbruck University, found this in a hidden room in the Castle Lengberg, in Austria:

And this:

The thoroughly “modern” design was such a surprise that the discoverers assumed the clothes were introduced at a later date. The room had been sealed off in the 15th century, and the dry air preserved a great deal of material that would otherwise have decayed. Radiocarbon dating, however, confirmed that the bra and panties were 15th century.

Hilary Davidson, fashion curator at the Museum of London, told the Daily Mail that the discovery “totally rewrites” fashion history.

h/t Medievalist.net via Facebook and Daily Mail.