Why do people wear red underwear on New Year's Eve? A tradition that dates back to Ancient Rome

Every country has its own New Year’s traditions that may seem more or less strange from the outside. In Italy, one of the most famous is probably eating lentils to bring wealth in the coming year, but now that we live in the era of restaurant decorations, gourmet menus, or simply epic hangovers, a plate of legumes at midnight after an indefinite number of gin and tonics, wine, and sparkling wine has lost its popularity. A tradition that has instead gained in popularity is wearing red underwear on New Year’s Eve, but where does it come from?

While some think of a Chinese origin for the tradition, according to several sources it all began in ancient Rome during the Saturnalia, which took place about one or two weeks before the new year. The Saturnalia were originally a religious festival linked to the end of the sowing season. Now, Saturn is a complex god whose origin is actually Indo-European and linked to the Vedic god Varuna, who represents time as a cyclic force of destruction and regeneration, whose coming and going brings us from the “death” of winter (symbolized by the lengthening darkness) to the reconstruction of a regulated and fertile time with the return of light and the agricultural cycle. But what does red have to do with it?

Ancient gods and red garments

Many of the traditions linked to Saturn trace back to the Greek cults of Cronus: both have the sickle as a symbol, are connected to the cyclical nature of time, and had winter festivals. The Greek titan Cronus, father of the Olympian gods, who devours them one by one only to be later overthrown, already symbolized for the ancient Romans (Cicero explains it in De Natura Deorum) “the fact that time devours the course of the seasons and greedily ‘insatiably’ consumes the past years.”

Cronus had been defeated by his son Zeus when his wife Rhea tricked him into swallowing a rock wrapped in a cloth, believing it to be his son. Once he had defeated his father and become king of the gods, Zeus placed that rock in Delphi, making it the center of the world. In Greece the rock (which still exists) is called the Omphalos, meaning navel, and the expression “navel of the world” comes from there. In any case, the rock was carried in processions and was at the center of rituals, but as the Christian writer Tertullian recounts much later, the rock was wrapped in a red woolen cloth. This detail of the cult also passed to Rome, where the statue of Saturn was anointed and its feet wrapped in wool that was removed only during the Saturnalia.

During this festival social rules were suspended, including those of sobriety and austerity that governed Roman society. The toga was set aside and a unisex garment called synthesis or cenatoria was worn in very bright colors, especially red, along with a pointed felt hat called the pileus, a modern version of which still exists in traditional costumes of certain Balkan areas and which, centuries later, would also become Santa Claus’s hat.

From antiquity to today

Here comes the mysterious part. Having established that there is an ancient link between winter festivals and the use of red garments and cloths with “seasonal” significance, it remains to understand how the tradition crossed two millennia and became, with regional variations and modifications, so typical of Romance-language countries such as Italy, Spain, and Latin American countries. Over the following two millennia, the symbolism of red survived thanks to its luck-bringing function in European folklore, especially Italian and Mediterranean, evolving into popular customs that eventually became linked to the winter period of renewal.

In the Middle Ages, red was an archetypal color with ambivalent meanings: a symbol of power, fire, the blood of Christ, and vitality, and therefore protective against evil spirits, witches, diseases, and misfortune; but it was also the color of sin and passion. Red amulets were used, such as threads, coral necklaces (for children, to ward off illness and the evil eye), or hidden cloths often in the groin area to preserve fertility and drive away spells. These practices clashed with the Christian-medieval context, where red “repelled” the devil precisely because it represented him.

This “hidden” and personal function favored the focus on underwear or fabrics in contact with the body, making the rite discreet in an era full of superstitions and rigid religious morality. The shift to New Year’s Eve probably took place in modern times (between the Renaissance and the 19th–20th centuries), when it became tied to the moment of annual transition, amplified by aesthetic, cultural, and commercial influences and by Romance-language folklore.

There is no uninterrupted “chain” attested in primary historical sources, but a cultural persistence: red, as the color of life and strength, remained a powerful symbol in popular heritage, adapting to new winter festive contexts also influenced by Christmas and the solstice. Today it is a playful rite, but its roots lie in that millennial human need for protection and renewal.