A day to bare your underwear

Online retailer wants more talk of unmentionables

ASSOCIATED PRESS

NEW YORK - Get ready to uncover the covered and mention the unmentionables: It's Freshpair.com's National Underwear Day again. Because of last year's wildly successful launch of this signature event, Wednesday has been designated the second annual National Underwear Day by Freshpair, a leading online retailer of men's and women's intimate apparel.

This year, among other events planned for the day, 20 Freshpair models will be all over midtown New York in their underwear. They'll solicit signatures for a petition to win official recognition for National Underwear Day, survey passersby about their underwear choices and invite people to show a little of their own skivvies. People around the country are encouraged to celebrate the big day in their own ways and go to www.freshpair.com to sign the petition.

The reaction to similar festivities last year exceeded all expectations. From the women who revealed their bra straps in Times Square to the sanitation workers who held up traffic on Broadway by flashing their boxers, it was obvious that people are ready to celebrate what lies beneath.

"We were delighted, but not surprised, by the reaction to our launch of National Underwear Day last year. Everyone loved the idea, and a lot of people asked how they could celebrate it themselves," said Michael Kleinmann, chief operating officer of Freshpair.com. "Underwear is definitely in, and more and more people are having fun with the whole concept."

Freshpair thinks that underwear -- the first thing everyone puts on and the last thing they take off -- deserves a lot more recognition than it gets.

Since 1327 B.C., when King Tutankhamen was buried with 145 of his loincloths, to the visibility of intimate apparel in today's pop culture, underwear has always been as close to our hearts as to our bodies. Even when it isn't thought about consciously, it reflects a mood, personality, fashion sense, special occasion and so much more. We devote enough resources to it: Americans alone spend nearly $13 billion on intimate apparel each year. And yet few ever talk about it, while even fewer show it.