Wearing

Elastane recovers better when it is given time. A garment worn on Monday and again on Tuesday has not had the chance to return to its original dimensions, and repeated loading without recovery accelerates the permanent loss of elasticity described on elastane and stretch.

The practical effect is that five bras worn in rotation will last considerably longer in total than three worn harder. That is not an argument for buying more; it is an argument for using what is already owned in rotation rather than reaching for the same favourite every morning until it dies.

A functioning drawer covers a small number of genuine situations rather than a large number of imagined ones. In practice that is fewer pieces than most people expect. The capsule drawer sets out a specific list and what each item is for.

• Everyday: two or three pieces that fit properly and go under most things.
• Smooth: one moulded or bonded piece for fine knits.
• Soft: one wire free piece for long days, travel and tender weeks.
• Support: one piece built for movement.
• Specific: one strapless or convertible piece for the necklines that need it.
• Briefs: enough that laundry never forces a compromise.

The test of a drawer is not what is in it. It is whether the first thing reached for on a normal morning actually fits.

Making underwear invisible is a solvable problem with a small number of moves: a moulded cup under a fine knit, a bonded edge under a fitted trouser, a slip under anything that clings, and a colour that matches skin rather than the outer garment. Layering covers each of those and the necklines that complicate them.

Two situations get their own page because both reward planning and punish improvisation. Special occasion deals with backless, sheer and strapless problems and with the fact that an evening is a long time to wear something untested. Packing deals with getting a week of intimates into very little space without arriving with a creased moulded cup.

The common thread is that both are about reducing decisions in advance. Anything worn for a long day should have been worn for a shorter one first, and anything packed should be a piece already known to work rather than a piece bought for the trip.

Two adjustments cover the whole year. In hot weather, fibres that take moisture into themselves become the priority, which means cotton or modal against skin and less moulded foam, since foam traps a layer of warm air against the chest. In cold weather the opposite applies and a fine base layer under a bra is more comfortable than a thicker bra. Neither change requires a second drawer; both are a matter of which of the existing pieces gets reached for.

The one genuinely seasonal item is a slip, which earns its place in summer under lighter fabric and again in winter under wool, for opposite reasons: cling in the first case and static in the second. See slip and camisole.

Nothing in this section is about how a body should look. Garments are chosen because they do a job: stay put, disappear under a fabric, survive a long day, pack small. A garment that fails at those things is a badly chosen garment. That is the entire judgement being made here, and it is made about the garment.