Nothing here yet.
It clicked for me getting ready for a wedding in June, standing in a changing room in a pale blue dress that was doing nothing until I tried it with white underneath instead of the nude set I'd packed out of habit. The dress had a slight sheen to it and every other colour showed through as a shadow. White just disappeared. That's the whole case for it really, not some big romantic thing, just that it behaves itself under pale and sheer fabrics in a way nothing else quite does.
It pairs with more than you'd expect once you stop thinking of it as a bridal thing you wear once and shove in a drawer. Under white or ivory shirts obviously, but also under linen trousers in summer, under thin jersey dresses, under anything with a bit of stretch where a darker set would ghost through at the seams. I wear mine under a cream knit a lot in early autumn when it's too warm for a vest but the jumper's thin enough to show a bra line if I'm not careful. It's less forgiving with very fitted white trousers though, I learned that one the hard way at a barbecue in July, so if you're wearing it under something clingy on the bottom half it's worth checking the knicker line doesn't show through, because white on white apparently still shows white.
It ages differently to coloured lingerie and you need to know that going in. The fabric itself usually holds up fine for months of normal wear, but white shows every wash and every graze long before the elastic actually gives out, so a set that's structurally perfect can start looking tired and a bit grey after a summer of regular wear and deodorant marks under the arm of the bra band. Cool washes, no tumble dryer, and I keep a separate white wash bag for anything delicate because one stray navy sock ruined a decent bra of mine two winters ago and it never recovered. Hand washing sounds tedious but it genuinely extends the life of white lingerie more than almost anything else you can do.
In the shop, check the lining before anything else, because some white bras have a flesh toned lining that defeats the entire point under pale fabric, and check the straps and any lace trim for opacity against a window or a bright light, since thin white lace can go slightly see through in a way you won't notice under shop lighting. Would this actually disappear under the thing I'm planning to wear it with, or am I just buying white because it feels like the sensible choice?
Nothing here yet.