Underwear
Briefs, boxers, boxer briefs, trunks and everything in between. 83 articles.
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Underwear · 11 min read
The Postbag: Dispatches from the Locker Room
Six letters from the changing room: the unhurried strut, the towel years, a jammed locker, a dentist at the worst moment and eleven years of Tuesday swims.
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Underwear · 12 min read
The Postbag: How I Converted My Mates
Six letters on talking friends into briefs: a wager that went far too well, a five a side team, a wedding crisis and a son who got there first.
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Underwear · 11 min read
The Postbag: Away Games, Sofas and Spare Rooms
Six letters on staying away from home: a two night bag that lasted nine days, a sleepover settled thirty years late, and a hospital gown with critics.
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Underwear · 11 min read
The Postbag: Letters from the Gym Floor
Six letters from the gym, the bike, the five a side pitch, the dojo and the boathouse on what men actually train in, and the editor writing back to each.
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Underwear · 11 min read
The Postbag: The Home Front
Six letters from the domestic front line: a drawer amnesty, a mother who has bought the same pack since 1998, and a washing line the neighbours can see.
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Underwear · 11 min read
Underwear After Surgery: What Actually Helps While You Heal
What to wear while you recover from an operation: waistbands away from the wound, when support is prescribed, and getting dressed without bending.
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Underwear · 11 min read
What to Pack for a Hospital Stay
A hospital bag list written from the underwear end: how many pairs, why the ward heat matters, slippers with backs, and what a partner can bring later.
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Underwear · 11 min read
Adaptive Underwear: Getting Dressed With Limited Mobility
Underwear you can actually get on and off with one hand, from a chair, or with help, and what a man who sits all day needs from a waistband and a seam.
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Underwear · 11 min read
Incontinence and Underwear: A Practical Guide Without the Euphemisms
What men actually wear when they leak, said plainly. Pads, pouches, washable pants and sheaths, the underwear underneath, skin, odour and laundry.
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Underwear · 11 min read
Moisture-Wicking, Antibacterial, Four-Way Stretch: What the Claims Actually Mean
A plain English decoder for the claims printed on underwear packaging, and one short test that tells you which of them survive the wash.
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Underwear · 12 min read
How to Read a Composition Label
The little tag inside your waistband tells you how a garment will behave and how long it will last. Here is how to read every line of it properly.
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Underwear · 12 min read
Vanity Sizing: Why You Are a Different Size in Every Shop
No brand has to agree with any other on what a medium is. Why your size changes shop to shop, and how to buy by the measurement instead of the letter.
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Underwear · 10 min read
Against Black
Black underwear is the colour men buy when they do not want to choose. A warm argument for keeping two or three pairs and retiring the rest.
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Underwear · 10 min read
Against the Novelty Pair
The problem with novelty underwear is not that it is embarrassing. It is that the joke gets printed on the cheapest blank in the factory.
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Underwear · 11 min read
Against the Sports Brand Tax
The logo sits on the waistband, the part that fails first. A case against paying a multiple for cotton underwear with a sportswear name on it.
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Underwear · 11 min read
The Best Boxer Briefs You Can Actually Buy
Six boxer briefs worth owning, from German cotton that outlasts your trousers to a cheap synthetic that is genuinely good. Each with its honest weakness.
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Underwear · 11 min read
The Best Trunks You Can Actually Buy
The best trunks for men, judged on the only thing that matters: whether the leg stays put. Six pairs from Swiss cotton to supermarket, weaknesses included.
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Underwear · 11 min read
The Best Cheap Underwear That Is Not a False Economy
Some cheap underwear lasts for years and some is gone by Christmas. Knit, waistband, seams and staple length tell you which is which before you buy.
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Underwear · 11 min read
The Best Underwear for Big and Tall Men
The best underwear for big and tall men: why waistbands roll, why sizing up rarely fixes the rise, and which brands grade width and length separately.
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Underwear · 11 min read
The Best Merino Underwear
Micron count, core spun yarn and why pure fine merino fails in underwear. The brands that build it properly, and the men who should buy something else.
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Underwear · 11 min read
Underwear for Big Thighs: The Chafing Problem Solved
Why the leg rides up, why it burns by mile eight, and the four variables that fix it: inseam length, leg retention, fabric friction and seam placement.
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Underwear · 11 min read
Uniqlo Airism vs Marks and Spencer: Which Everyday Brief Wins?
Uniqlo AIRism against Marks and Spencer briefs on heat, tailoring, waistbands, sizing and how each pair ages, with a plain answer about which one to buy.
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Underwear · 11 min read
Calvin Klein vs Tommy Hilfiger: Are You Paying for the Waistband?
Calvin Klein vs Tommy Hilfiger underwear, compared at the seams: one parent company, two different cuts, and a waistband costing more than the cotton on it.
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Underwear · 11 min read
Sunspel vs Hanro: Two Ways to Spend Serious Money
Sunspel vs Hanro, compared on fabric, cut, waistband and how long each pair lasts. Sea Island cotton against Austrian knitting, and an answer at the end.
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Underwear · 11 min read
Is Zimmerli Actually Worth It?
Is Zimmerli underwear worth it? What the money buys, what it plainly does not, and the specific man who should own a pair rather than three cheaper ones.
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Underwear · 11 min read
How to Wash Underwear Properly
How to wash underwear so the elastic survives: the right temperature, why fabric softener wrecks cotton and synthetics differently, and when to go hot.
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Underwear · 11 min read
What to Wear Under Cycling Shorts
What to wear under cycling shorts is nothing, and here is why: the pad is built for bare skin, seams cause saddle sores, plus honest exceptions for commuters.
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Underwear · 11 min read
What to Wear Under a Kilt
What to wear under a kilt, answered without the innuendo: what the historical record shows, what kiltmakers advise, and why a brief is right for a wedding.
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Underwear · 11 min read
The Long-Haul Flight Kit
What to wear on a long haul flight, from the skin outwards. Why cotton fails in dry cabin air, what compression socks really do, and a plan for a lost bag.
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Underwear · 11 min read
Underwear After Weight Loss or Weight Gain
Your body changed and the drawer did not. Underwear size after weight loss or gain: why hips beat waist, and why a stretched waistband never recovers.
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Underwear · 11 min read
VPL, Static and Other Trouser Problems
How to avoid visible underwear lines under trousers: the hem is the culprit, not the garment. Bonded edges, colour under pale cloth, and why briefs show less.
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Underwear · 11 min read
The Y-Front at Ninety
The Y-front went on sale in a Chicago window in a 1935 blizzard. Ninety years of Coopers, Lyle and Scott, and the fly that turns out to be proper engineering.
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Underwear · 11 min read
The Underwear Index: The Recession Indicator in Your Drawer
The men's underwear index is better psychology than it is economics. Where the Greenspan story came from, and what the sales data does and does not show.
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Underwear · 11 min read
How Calvin Klein Sold Sex in 1982
A pole vaulter, a wall on Santorini and a billboard over Times Square. What the 1982 Calvin Klein underwear campaign changed, and what it cost the garment.
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Underwear · 11 min read
Before the Brief: Loincloths, Fundoshi and Four Thousand Years
Linen in Tutankhamun's tomb, leather trunks in a London well, a length of Japanese cotton: the history of underwear before briefs, over four thousand years.
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Underwear · 11 min read
Why Underwear Is White
White underwear is not a taste, it is a manufacturing decision that outlived its reasons. Bleach, boil washes, dye cost, and why whites turn grey.
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Underwear · 11 min read
Against the Multipack
A multipack turns one fit decision into six identical mistakes and stops you learning anything. The case against it, plus the one time it is the right buy.
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Underwear · 11 min read
The Boxer Short Is a Pyjama
Are boxer shorts good underwear? They are cut from the same pattern as pyjama shorts and sold on a health claim the evidence never backed. Where they belong.
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Underwear · 11 min read
Why Men Are Frightened of Colour
Black, grey, navy, repeat. How men's clothing lost its colour, which excuses for the black drawer hold up, and why coloured underwear is the place to start.
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Underwear · 11 min read
In Defence of Christmas Pants
Novelty Christmas underwear is one of the last things a man owns purely for pleasure, and it is usually badly made. How to enjoy the joke and buy well.
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Underwear · 11 min read
The Locker Room Strut: A Field Manual
A field manual for carrying yourself in a changing room: the approach, the bench, the pace, the eyes, the towel and the exit. The advice underneath is real.
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Underwear · 11 min read
How to Convert Your Friends to Briefs Without Losing Them
How to get a friend to try briefs without losing the friend: why arguing backfires, the one moment a man is receptive, and the gift that actually lands.
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Underwear · 11 min read
The Nine Men You Meet in Every Changing Room
A field taxonomy of the nine men in every changing room on earth, from the towel virtuoso to the sock archaeologist, and what each one knows that you do not.
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Underwear · 11 min read
An Apology to Every Pair of Briefs I Have Wronged
An apology to seven garments I destroyed through carelessness, and the laundry lesson buried in each. A care guide in the shape of a confession.
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Underwear · 11 min read
How to Buy Briefs in a Shop Without Dying of Embarrassment
Buying underwear in person means bad light, sealed boxes and sizes that disagree. Four things your hands can learn that a photograph cannot, in ten minutes.
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Underwear · 11 min read
Things Men Say About Briefs, Ranked by How Wrong They Are
Eight myths about wearing briefs, ranked from the ones with a real point to the one stated with most confidence and least support. Fertility ranks worst.
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Underwear · 11 min read
A Letter to My Nineteen Year Old Self, Who Wore Boxers
Twenty pairs in the drawer and four he actually liked. A letter to a younger man on switching from boxers to briefs, waistbands, multipacks and false comfort.
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Underwear · 11 min read
The Unwritten Rules of the Communal Changing Room
Eye discipline, bench space, the phone rule that genuinely matters, and why you get dry before you dress: changing room etiquette, finally written down.
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Underwear · 11 min read
So Someone Asked Why You Wear Briefs
A ladder of possible answers, from one word to the full lecture nobody asked for, and an honest account of the time I climbed all of it.
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Underwear · 11 min read
The Emergency Pair: A Tribute
In praise of the emergency pair of underwear at the back of the drawer, the one nobody chose, and the drawer arithmetic that makes it unnecessary.
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Underwear · 9 min read
The Drawer Audit: How Many Briefs You Need and When to Replace Them
How many pairs of underwear a man should own, worked out from your laundry. The rotation maths, five signs a pair is finished, and how to rebuild a drawer.
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Underwear · 9 min read
What Doctors Actually Say About Underwear
Is tight underwear bad for you? What clinical guidance says about fungal infection, chafing and support after surgery, and which advice is invented.
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Underwear · 11 min read
Slip: Why European Briefs Fit Differently
European briefs sizing explained: what a Swiss, German or Italian slip changes in the rise, side seam and front panel, and how to buy without guessing.
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Underwear · 11 min read
Anatomy of a Brief: Every Panel, Seam and Stitch Explained
A brief is three to nine pieces of fabric. What each panel, seam and stitch does, and the sixty second inspection that tells good construction from cheap.
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Underwear · 10 min read
The Fabric Bible: What Your Briefs Are Actually Made Of
Cotton, modal, merino, bamboo and the synthetics compared. The best fabric for men's underwear comes down to staple length, knit and the label's small print.
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Underwear · 7 min read
How a Boxer Brief Should Actually Fit
Ride up, bunching behind the knee, constant adjusting: the style is not the problem. How boxer briefs should fit, in four checks you can do standing up.
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Underwear · 7 min read
The Trunk Is the Sweet Spot
Shorter than a boxer brief, more covered than a brief, and quietly the right answer for a lot of men who have never tried one. The case for the trunk.
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Underwear · 5 min read
Launderette: The Sixty Seconds That Rewrote Men's Underwear
The history of boxer shorts is an advertising history: a Times Square billboard in 1982, a launderette in 1985, and the hybrid that arrived in 1992.
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Underwear · 7 min read
The Boxer Brief Won, and It Deserved To
Boxer briefs are the most worn design in the West, and not by accident. What they are genuinely best at, and the three situations where something else wins.
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Underwear · 6 min read
Briefs, Boxers, Boxer Briefs or Trunks: How to Choose
The five types of men's underwear, and a way to choose between them based on your trousers, your thighs and your day rather than a flatmate's opinion.
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Underwear · 6 min read
In Praise of the Loose Boxer
Boxer shorts support nothing and fail under tailoring, yet remain the best thing in the drawer. What they are good at, and whether woven really beats knitted.
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Underwear · 4 min read
Under the Suit: What to Wear on Your Wedding Day
What to wear under a wedding suit for fourteen hours in a hot room: the brief, the vest men forget, the socks, and the four problems each of them solves.
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Underwear · 4 min read
The White Brief: A Cultural History
The white brief history, from 600 pairs sold in a Chicago blizzard in 1935 to the Y-front joke: why the most mocked garment still sells in huge numbers.
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Underwear · 3 min read
Right Support, Right Sport: What to Wear for What You Do
Running, cycling, five-a-side, lifting, racquet sports and contact sport all ask different things of your underwear. A sport by sport guide to getting it right.
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Underwear · 4 min read
Do Briefs Affect Fertility? What the Study Actually Says
Do briefs affect fertility? What the Harvard study measured, what it found about sperm count, what it could not show, and what to do while trying.
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Underwear · 3 min read
Five Briefs Worth the Money
Zimmerli, Hanro, Schiesser, Sunspel and Le Slip Francais: the best premium men's briefs, what the money actually buys you, and when it is not worth spending.
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Underwear · 3 min read
Where the World Wears Briefs: An Atlas
Indonesia, the Philippines, India, Italy, Germany, Japan: the countries where men wear briefs by default, and what that says about the ones that do not.
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Underwear · 5 min read
How a Brief Should Actually Fit
Four checks that tell you a brief fits: where the waistband sits, what the leg opening does, how the front sits, and the sizing mistake most men make.
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Underwear · 3 min read
The Locker Room Question: Getting Over the Fear of Being Seen in Briefs
Confidence wearing briefs is a changing room problem, not a clothing one. The spotlight effect, the evidence against the fear, and a plan for walking past it.
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Underwear · 3 min read
Buy It Once: The Durability Guide to Briefs That Last Years
The most durable men's underwear fails in a predictable order: waistband, seams, then fabric. How to read construction, and the care that doubles its life.
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Underwear · 3 min read
The Working Man's Brief: Underwear for the Site, the Van and the Ten-Hour Shift
The best underwear for work: why tradesmen have relied on briefs for a century, how ladders, kneeling and heavy trousers break loose pairs, and what lasts.
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Underwear · 3 min read
The Sweat Article: Moisture-Wicking Fabrics, Explained Properly
Wicking is the most misused word in underwear marketing. What moisture wicking underwear for men really does, and how the fabrics compare for sweat.
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Underwear · 3 min read
Briefs in the Wild: The Camping and Hiking Guide
Chafe ends more walking weekends than sprained ankles do. The best underwear for hiking and camping, why loose boxers fail on the trail, and what to pack.
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Underwear · 3 min read
Making the Switch: The 14-Day Brief Plan
Three pairs, two weeks, one permanent upgrade. The day-by-day plan for switching to briefs: what to buy, what to expect, and why you won't go back.
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Underwear · 3 min read
The Tanga: Europe's Best-Kept Secret
Between the bikini brief and the beach lies the tanga, the continental cut Europe wears without blinking. What it is, who it suits, and how to buy your first.
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Underwear · 3 min read
Travel Light: The One-Bag Case for Briefs
Half the fabric, twice the pairs, dry by morning. Why briefs are the one-bag traveller's secret weapon, with the exact packing maths and the pairs to buy.
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Underwear · 2 min read
Briefs for the Office: The Tailoring Argument
Slim trousers ended the underwear debate years ago. Why briefs are the only correct choice under tailoring, and the three pairs that work hardest from 9 to 5.
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Underwear · 2 min read
The Jockstrap Never Left the Locker Room
The jockstrap has been doing the same job since 1874. What it actually is, why athletes never dropped it, and how to choose the best jockstrap for the gym.
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Underwear · 3 min read
A Summer in Italy: What to Pack (Spoiler: Slips)
What to pack for an Italian summer, from the skin out: seven pairs of slips, one swim brief for the pool rules, linen over the top, and why Italy is right.
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Underwear · 3 min read
Six Briefs That Built the Modern World
From Jockey's 1935 Y-front to Le Slip Français's stock-market debut: six heritage briefs from great houses, all still in production, all still worth buying.
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Underwear · 4 min read
The Great Rebrand: How the Boxer Brief Won the Argument
Boxer briefs vs briefs: the popular style kept the brief's support and the boxer's name. How a rebrand won an argument the brief had already settled.
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Underwear · 3 min read
Brief, Slip, Tanga, Jock: A Field Guide to Supportive Underwear
Brief, slip, bikini, tanga and jockstrap: the types of briefs in men's underwear, who each cut suits and where a first-timer should sensibly start.
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Underwear · 5 min read
The Case for Briefs: Why They Should Be Every Man's Default
Briefs supported your grandfather, dress two billion men worldwide and win on every measure that matters. The full case for making briefs your default.