Thongs or big pants? High waist or whale tail? Commando or ‘double panting’? Laura Craik takes a peek in the nation’s underwear drawer

LIBBY PURVES

ON the evening of September 15, 1954 Marilyn Monroe stepped onto a New York City Subway grating and into movie history. She was filming for “The Seven Year Itch”, released the following year, a scene

Once the reserve of mud-caked public schoolboys, the rugby shirt is now a bona fide sartorial superstar, embraced by outfitters across the globe,

Exaggerating her beetling monobrow and wispy dark moustache in self-portraits, the artist Frida Kahlo was a female force to be reckoned with, unafraid to pour her heart onto the canvas. Only last autu

In the early 1940s, the Royal Mint replaced the familiar image of a portcullis on the threepenny coin with a thrift plant. This was part of the government’s campaign reminding the public of the need f