Why The Codpiece Remains One Of Menswear’s Most Essential Accessories

There really is no delicate way to open a story about a piece of horsehair-lined leather designed to cover and celebrate a man’s genitals, is there? So let’s just get on with it: The codpiece, as it is called, was wildly popular for just a brief few decades during the Renaissance, and yet it remains a cult object of comical fascination to this day. And it has, you may be delighted or terrified to learn, had a big year: it is the subject of a slim new treatise, the color of artisanal Gatorade, entitled Thrust: A Spasmodic Pictorial History of the Codpiece in Art, by the English art critic and poet Michael Glover, released by David Zwirner Books. And it was an unexpected motif in the Spring 2020 menswear collection by American designer Thom Browne, shown in Paris this past June. See more at GQ.