I feel so…
Macho. Mucho macho, even. I wore the silver lamé everyday codpiece, as opposed to the gilded, jewell-encrusted night-on-the-town codpiece I wear when we go to weddings and such. Anyways, Mike the Desktop Guy gave me some shit about it, so I smote him. It was fully satisfying.
Uhhh…why do you own a codpiece?
And why do you wear it?
To work?
Proudly?
To me it’s just like, “Hey here’s my junk! It’s protected and shiny!”
I wore my merkin.
Yeahj, I remember the Cleaver codpieces. I saw pictures of them, but I don’t recall anybody actualy wearing them.
The only codpieces I’ve seen were at a local production of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. There are several jokes about codpieces, so it made sense. Of course, one of the codpiece wearers was female (this being a modern production, she realy was), playing a man. In any event, the codpieces for that production were really small.
I wanted to accessorize, but I couldn’t find my power tie.
Now that’s a thread title. This is how it’s done, people.
Hi - larious! Hee!
Wow, we’re suddenly back in 1602!
“Let’s do the Time Warp again…”
Bravo!! Pictures? Please?
Also if anyone knows of a photo of the Cleaver business, I’d be tremedously grateful. It was before my time, and I’m afraid I’m having trouble picturing it, which I’d truly like to do.
I’m actually more into girls, so junk-enhancers don’t do much for me personally, but I have to love the whole concept, especially in puritan America.
One of his friends had a crayon removed from his brain, and realized that codpieces give men the comfort and support they’ve always wanted.
Think Siegfried and Roy, but not as happy.
So what does all of this have to do with Mrs. Paul?
Couldn’t find a picture on-l;ine. I think I originally saw it in Time. Here’s the article, but no pic in the free version. You might get one if you sign up:
http://www.time.com/time/archive/preview/0,10987,913426,00.html
It didn’t look like this classic version:
http://www.purpleunicorn.com/codpiece101.html
It looked more like a plastic tube stuck on the front of an otherwise normal pair of pants.
Obligatory TYO reference:
The only acceptable codpiece is red leather and you must be singing Word Up while wearing it.
“Yo pretty ladies across the world, got a weird thing to show ya…”
Hmmmm, sounds like the Cleaver version might have been less than fetching. Thanks for the links! I’d never thought about the comfort angle until I visited that men’s tights link - I always figured it was a quick access/emphasize volume type of deal. Makes sense.
I do like Winston’s version. Well done.
Never two days in a row lest it become rancid, and stink like a skink!
I never got the appeal of codpieces. To me they were meant to show off. I mean, really, different colors from the pants or leggings or whatever? The bigger the better? At a time when women couldn’t show their ankles, why were men advertising?
I saw a documentary on Henry VIII, and while discussing the painting done of the King in his prime, quite heavy and florid and sporting an enormous codpiece, the scholar made reference to what she called an old Spanish proverb, “If you can’t fight, wear a big hat.”
Were they the Middle-Age equivalent of a souped up sports car?
No, not really. Codpieces started as serving a functional purpose. From Boucher’s 20,000 Years of Fashion:
Even at its most ridiculous, it still was useful. There are reports of people carrying books and moneybags in their codpieces – a bit like a manpurse for the 16th century.
Hose started as two separate legs that tied with points through eyelets at the bottom of the doublet/pourpoint/gippon/what-have-you. They wore braies (kind of like boxers) underneath, but there was still potential for escape. From Boucher again, brackets mine:
Codpieces didn’t reach the height of ostentation until the 16th century, when everything was ridiculous and overdone. It wasn’t like there were tons of guys running around in simple clothing and an enormous codpiece. Male fashion was heavily influenced by the military (Boucher makes a note about men’s fashions resembling the lines of armor), and this was most definitely an era of machismo. Even so, in Italy, the codpiece never really took off. Most Italian portraits show plain breeches. After 1580, the codpiece is done. The iconic image of a codpiece, thrusting towards the heavens, was actually pretty shortlived, lasting only for about forty years, which, in the eyes of fashion before the twentieth century, is a mere twitch of a lamb’s tail.
So, in the sixteenth century, which is not the Middle Ages by a longshot, yes, the codpiece could be seen as “the equivalent of a souped-up sports car,” and it’s not as if the people of the time weren’t aware of it. (See the codpiece jokes in Twelfth Night: Malvolio and his attempt to win Olivia, a much younger woman and above his social class. A bit confounding, since it was written in 1601.) But in the actual Middle Ages, probably not, since it was just a modest triangle of fabric in its brief appearance during them. Europe was barrelling towards the Renaissance when codpieces finally showed up.
And I think you might be overestimating the sexual repression in the period. They were a great deal more liberal in attitudes towards sex than many people are today. The amount written about the embroidery designs on women’s stockings (and that they were embroidered at all) shows that there was probably a bit of ankle being shown. Don’t confuse the Victorians with the Tudors.