Don't ask me how I found this:

Why Nice Girls Abandon Underwear

"We're frantic about it," a spokesman for a brassiere firm was quoted as saying. "This thing will mean that in five years the American girl will look like people in a jungle."
....the height of fashion in 18th Century France was to sport a muslin dress so thin it could be pulled through a wedding ring. Again, no underclothes, and, again, the dresses were put on wet. Of course, the women died like flies, of pneumonia, but while they were alive they looked mighty enticing.