Pierre Dufay’s Le Pantalon Féminin is a French-language history of women’s drawers and trousers, tracing the curious and often scandalous career of the feminine undergarment through French society. Dufay follows the garment from rarity to commonplace, attentive to the morals, jokes, and controversies it provoked along the way.
Witty and well documented, the book treats an intimate item of dress as a subject worthy of serious cultural history. This work is in French. It will most reward readers comfortable in the language, but remains a notable source on the social history of women’s underclothing. The text is offered here as a free EPUB download.