Part CXIII
Then by the end of the 1990s, things had changed drastically. It is always amazing to consider how college and professional athletes influence clothing designs for other guys, but that is something that has long gone on. Most interesting to me is the impact on what guys wear and do not wear as undergarments, not only when participating in an active sport, but how many of the same ideas spill over into non-athletic wear for school, work and leisure.
The late 1990s started the era of compression gear for athletes that had only been a minor part of sport prior to that. The Under Armor company was founded with very limited capital by a 24-year old ex-University of Maryland Fullback Kevin Plank who disliked how the cotton tee shirts he was wearing under his jersey seemed to retain water from sweat rather than quickly dry out, and so he started by making a compression poly-stretch fabric tee shirt that he discovered had a natural wicking action and quickly dried. He soon had contracts to supply compression tees for a number of college teams and this was quickly followed by compression pants.
Wikipedia explains all of this in a lot of detail here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Under_Armour
College and professional football players generally must wear straps and cups, but in an era when (sometimes female) reporters are allowed locker room access, there is a modesty issue here should the camera see something inappropriate for TV, so players by regulation are required to wear something OVER the strap and cup but UNDER the football pants. I suppose and ordinary brief would do, but wouldn’t a pair of compression shorts work a lot better,
and then for cold weather, instead of showing bare skin below the knee, why not simply go with a pair of compression tights that extend to the ankle?
Guys took notice. The players wore compression tees under the jersey, ones with long sleeves in colder weather, and compression shorts or tights under the football pants and hiding the strap and cup.
Meanwhile, over in professional and college basketball, played indoors, the athletes began wearing (usually white) short sleeved compression tees as the first layer before the sleeveless team jersey went on, and, guess what? Compression shorts (again usually white) with legs that extended near the knee were peeking out from under the team shorts.
If these items made sense for serious athletes, why not also for more casual active wear for non-athletes. Besides a lot of guys have always had this closely-guarded secret “thing” for finding an “excuse” to wear skin-tight compression gear. I can think of any number of reasons why guys might feel this way, and, the perfect excuse when with your buddies (or even trying to come up with a motivation that would seem rational to your parents)—I am just wearing what the big athletes are wearing.
Starting around the year 2000, sales of snug-fitting compression gear at Under Armor soared, and companies like Nike and Adidas had to come up with their own versions of much the same thing. It soon became a compression gear free-for-all. The guys who had always simply wanted to find out how it would feel to wear such skin-tight gear could now freely do so without having to dream up elaborate explanations for their parents and buddies. How does it feel to get a hard-on in this type of skin-tight gear? That was now a realistic empirical experiment that could be conducted.
Compression pants come in a variety of lengths, with the most popular being the length that stops about mid thigh. The look had become so popular that underwear manufacturers started to take notice. Why not stretch underwear of a cotton/Lycra or even polyester/Lycra blend with a similar fit but for daily wear under street clothes. And the tees—obviously loose-fitting tees should be replaced with cotton or poly/Lycra-blend fabrics that fit close to the body, like the athletes wore.
So underwear styled like athletic compression gear almost overnight took over a major share of the entire market. Gone or nearly gone were the tighty whiteys, the colored briefs, bikini briefs, string bikinis and thongs, not to mention a lot of the loose-fitting plaid boxers. Instead, there was now a bunch of underwear with the same fit and coverage as the compression shorts worn by athletes. This was a strange turn of events for sure.
The one remaining issue was whether this underwear should have a fly or not. Versions without a fly COULD be worn as an outer garment, but generally if there was a fly in the design that meant that the garment was intended always be worn under another garment.
For that matter, some compression shorts have a fly but others do not. I assume that I should pull a loose-fitting pair of shorts OVER the ones with a fly, but it is OK to wear the ones without a fly as an outer garment. I assume other guys view this likewise.
To be continued…