Original 1955 posing pouch as sewn by Bob Mizer’s mother from the 2023 exhibition, "A Hard Man is Good to Find!" (The Photographers' Gallery, London, UK).
"There’s a little annex off to the side of the main gallery which gives an amusing history of the posing pouch. In this version of the story this skimpy little piece of fabric, barely enough to cover a man’s meat and two veg with the thinnest of fabrics going round the waist, was invented in America. It developed from the aim of American gay physique photographers to show as much of the male body as legally possible. In 1945 Bob Mizer started the Athletic Model Guild, a model agency for bodybuilders for the film industry. In 1951 he launched a quarterly magazine,
Physique Pictorial. For his photoshoots Mizer developed the skimpiest possible garment which dwindled down to the posing pouch. The exhibition explains that the earliest versions were sewn for him by his mother who, nonetheless, strongly disapproved of his sexuality."