Panty line

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A woman with a visible panty line of a thong

A prominent, visible panty line or VPL ("Visible Panty Line") occurs when the outline of someone's underpants becomes visible through his or her clothes.

Causes of panty lines include:

The outer clothes being partially transparent, due to the nature of the fabric (silk, thin cotton, etc), contact with water, or lighting conditions.
Darker colored underwear being worn underneath lighter colored clothes.
Tight, clinging outer clothing, such as leggings.
Soft fabric clothing such as jogging pants and business pants which, when sitting or bending over, causes an indentation of the panty to show.

Due to clothing gender roles, this is almost entirely a female issue.

The taboo in many cultures against showing one's underwear means that panty lines are generally considered undesirable and embarrassing. At the same time, this also makes VPL an attribute of erotic clothing, and some men have a panty line fetish.^{[citation needed]} Its erotic value leads to women and fashion designers paying a lot of attention to lingerie that will be worn under a see-through garment.^{[citation needed]}

Some women choose to wear thong underwear or no underwear at all to avoid the condition altogether, or more generally pay attention to matching underwear with appropriate outerwear.^{[citation needed]}

The origin of the term is probably traced to barracks humor, the term VPL for Visible Panty Line as a mockery of overused bureaucratic initialisms, coined in analogy with water line.^{[citation needed]}

Panty line also refers to the line on the body beyond which a woman must remove her pubic hair to assure that it will not be seen while wearing a bikini.

[edit] Pop Culture

Referenced in the Woody Allen film "Annie Hall".
Visible Panty Lines was also exploited by pantyhose company advertising in the early 1980's, when polyester pant suits were rampant. The pantyhose company Sheer Energy advertised "invisible panty lines" as a key selling point in the early 1980's.