When did purple become a thing.

June 8, 2020 9:26 AM

In Back to the Future Marty wakes up in Loraine's bedroom (1955) and at one point Loraine comments that she'd never seen purple underwear before. Was suburban male underwear in 1955 not coloured / plain white? If so when did coloured underwear generally and purple specifically become popular/normal?
posted by Mitheral to Clothing, Beauty, & Fashion (14 answers total)

The dye quinacridone was released in 1958. Perhaps once that dye came into market, fabric could be colored purple more cheaply and become more widely available?
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 9:45 AM on June 8, 2020

I would guess Lorraine wasn't seeing a lot of people's underwear in general outside of her own family?
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:47 AM on June 8, 2020

I think that's the point. In 1955, pretty much everyone wore the proverbial tighty-whities. But, Marty (coming from the 80's) is wearing some fancy purple Calvin Klein under where and his mom is saying she had never seen that before.

Not sure when the transition from "only white briefs" to "all kinds of colors (usually solid, otherwise plaid, maybe novelty)" happened, but I don't think "purple" specifically was a thing. That is, unless it was a thing when the movie came out. I'm 40 now, so I'm a bit too young to have been in the fancy underwear business when BTTF was release. However, I will say that with companies like Meundies kinda making "loud" underwear for dudes a thing, I do now own a pair or two of purple boxer briefs. But I also have bright blue, bright red, red with various coffee cups on them, etc.
posted by sideshow at 9:50 AM on June 8, 2020

I remember reading something that, at first, boxer shorts were made from leftover dress shirt fabric. I can't find a source or anything, but it fits, since dress shirts in the 50s were mostly white, light blue, or sometimes pink.
posted by kevinbelt at 10:05 AM on June 8, 2020

Agree with sideshow, I think the joke must be referring to non-white rather than purple. Also I'm pretty sure it's specifically non-white briefs rather than underwear in general, because the cartoon joke where a character is revealed to be wearing polka-dot or heart-print boxer shorts under their pants is something that predates the 50s.

I'm following this because now I'm dying to know the answer - if it's helpful, it looks like the colorful "days of the week" undies for women date to the 50's themselves.
posted by Mchelly at 10:15 AM on June 8, 2020

Boxers are made of thinner fabric than shirts. Boxers were usually mostly white, often striped or with a small pattern. Tighties were white. I don't recall men's underwear being interesting until the 70s. Even most women's underwear was white or beige; I recall it being quite risqué to wear a black bra. Day-of-the-week panties were a big fad in the 70s. There was lingerie, but a lot of it was cheesy à la Frederick's of Hollywood. I grew up in the Midwest, though, so coastal types may have had better options, earlier. There are resources for costumers, esp. on Pinterest.

Apropos of whatevs, my friend who repairs vintage quilts says boxer short fabric is often a good match for the fabric. In PandemicTime, day-of-the-week panties would be helpful.
posted by theora55 at 10:19 AM on June 8, 2020

When I was a kid helping with the laundry in the 1960/1970s everyone in my family wore only white underwear.
posted by interplanetjanet at 10:29 AM on June 8, 2020

Okay, so I found this article from 1985 that says that men's underwear "first got colorful in the 60's," sold well briefly (ha) "and then took off again (ha ha) in the 70's." It also said that they went from "virtual nonexistence five years ago to account for 25% of the market today" - where today is the year that BTTF came out. So even at the time of the movie, Marty's wearing colorful underwear would have been noteworthy for some of the people watching it.
posted by Mchelly at 10:59 AM on June 8, 2020

I suspect that white was dominant at first for briefs because their development coincided with washing machines and the use of bleach. Bleaching underwear obviously has advantages for dealing with stains and bacteria. The 60s definitely had a surge of interesting colors and designs for male underwear but by the mid 70s it seemed to have gone back to more white.

I don't know that I'd say purple ever became a common underwear color.
posted by Candleman at 11:19 AM on June 8, 2020

I think I got the joke seeing BTTF in the theater. Though the "Calvin Klein" reference is crucial to making the connection that Marty was wearing designer underwear, which was a foreign concept to most people in the 50s. (And I'd never even seen a pair of Calvin Klein briefs)
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 11:52 AM on June 8, 2020

You want colours? And mesh? And all sorts of creative designs? Check out this post.
posted by sardonyx at 2:11 PM on June 8, 2020

Men’s underwear (in the US) didn’t get fun until the 70’s. That’s when colors, patterns, and bikinis really hit the men’s market in earnest. Up until then, it was definitely mostly tighty-whiteys and boxers.

For some reason, wearing underwear without that damned fly was so nice.
posted by Thorzdad at 3:08 PM on June 8, 2020

What? Hey, no way - gotta have my Y-front, else you're wearing panties.

Myself, late 70s I was going commando, then when I got into wearing briefs again (never boxers, in my family) I noticed the three-packs now had a color option; probably a navy blue, green and grey was my first non-white, that would've been early 80s. Don't actually recall ever seeing purple available, but since that time I've been strictly a Jockey man, never Calvin Klein.
posted by Rash at 5:49 PM on June 8, 2020

Ancestry.com has Sears catalogs from the 1930’s to early 1990’s.
Perusing the 1950’s show white white white and some small patterned boxers.
Late 1960’s has one style of men’s briefs that are bikini style—
In three colors! White,black, and red!
1975 does have a number of colored briefs but the colors are a bit limited still— black blue green red yellow-
I don’t see purple as a choice yet—-
Early 1980’s sears goes back to white undies-
So I guess we need a more fashionable catalog...
posted by calgirl at 8:15 PM on June 8, 2020