If you appreciate cinema classics one might be excused for thinking that our prehistoric ancestors rocked furry bikinis à lá Raquel Welch in One Million Years B.C., but for the longest of times ladies have been looking for ways to support, suppress or accentuate the curves for a long time.

From the origins of basic undergarments to the Victorian corset to the birth of the engineering feat of the underwire bra, that versatile undergarment that helps defy gravity. And it turns out we have ancient Egyptians to thank for it (no surprise there, Nefertiti).

Egyptians wore a band of linen under their diaphanous robes to fl atten the bust line, while in China they were developing their own solutions — women wore single-pieced underpinnings that covered the breasts and belly but left the back, exposed. In fact, outerwear has always dictated the look and function of undergarments.

Cretan women pretty much invented the corset to get a wasp-waisted look that predated Mae West’s hourglass fi gure by 3,000 years. But how did we get from there to La Perla and Agent Provocateur?