Bra
A bra, short for brassiere or brassière, is a type of form-fitting underwear that is primarily used to support and cover a woman's breasts. A typical bra consists of a chest band that wraps around the torso, supporting two breast cups that are held in place by shoulder straps. A bra usually fastens in the back, using a hook and eye fastener, although bras are available in a large range of styles and sizes, including front-fastening and backless designs. Some bras are designed for specific functions, such as nursing bras to facilitate breastfeeding or sports bras to minimize discomfort during exercise.
Although women in ancient Greece and Rome wore garments to support their breasts, the first modern bra is attributed to 19-year-old Mary Phelps Jacob, who created the garment in 1913 by using two handkerchiefs and some ribbon. After patenting her design in 1914, she briefly manufactured bras at a two-woman factory in Boston, before selling her patent to the Warner Brothers Corset Company, which began mass-producing the garment. The bra gained widespread adoption during the first half of the twentieth century, when it largely replaced the corset. The majority of Western women today wear bras, with a minority choosing to go braless. Bra manufacturing and retailing are key components of the multibillion-dollar global lingerie industry.
Etymology
The term brassiere, from French brassière, of 17th century origin, meaning a woman's or child's short garment covering the arms and upper body, was used by the Evening Herald in Syracuse, New York, in 1893. It gained wider acceptance in 1904 when the DeBevoise Company used it in their advertising copy. The French use the term soutien-gorge for the item. It and other early versions resembled a camisole stiffened with boning.Vogue magazine first used the term brassiere in 1907, and by 1911 the word had entered the Oxford English Dictionary. On 3 November 1914, the newly formed US patent category for "brassieres" was inaugurated with the first patent issued to Mary Phelps Jacob, later and better known as Caresse Crosby. In the 1930s, brassiere/''brassière was gradually shortened to bra''.
History
The history of the brassière is full of myths in which people like Caresse Crosby, Howard Hughes, Herminie Cadolle and Otto Titzling command center stage.Before the spread of brassières, the female bust was encased in corsets and structured garments called "bust improvers", made of boning and lace. The history of corsets indicates they started to go out of fashion by 1917, when metal was needed to make tanks and munitions for World War I, and when 1920s fashions emphasized boyish figures.
When corsets became unfashionable, brassières and padding helped to project, display and emphasize the breasts. In 1893, New Yorker Marie Tucek was granted a patent for a "breast supporter", described as a modification of the corset, and was very similar to a modern push-up bra designed to support the breasts. It consisted of a plate made of metal, cardboard or other stiff material shaped to fit against the torso under the breasts, following the contour of the breasts. It was covered with silk, canvas or other cloth, which extended above the plate to form a pocket for each breast. The plate curved around the torso and ended near the armpits.
Early brassières
Wearing a garment to support the breasts may date back to ancient Greece. Women wore an apodesmos, later stēthodesmē, mastodesmos and mastodeton, all meaning "breast-band", a band of wool or linen that was wrapped across the breasts and tied or pinned at the back. Roman women wore breast-bands during sport, such as those shown on the Coronation of the Winner mosaic.Fragments of linen textiles found at Lengberg Castle in East Tyrol in Austria dated to between 1440 and 1485 are believed to have been bras. Two of them had cups made from two pieces of linen sewn with fabric that extended to the bottom of the torso with a row of six eyelets for fastening with a lace or string. One had two shoulder straps and was decorated with lace in the cleavage. However, Rachel Case, Beatrix Nutz, and Carol James suggest that these fragments lacked the correct dimensions and structure to be bras and were instead some kind of headwear.
From the 16th century, the undergarments of wealthier women in the Western world were dominated by the corset, which pushed the breasts upwards. In the later 19th century, clothing designers began experimenting with alternatives, splitting the corset into multiple parts: a girdle-like restraining device for the lower torso, and devices that suspended the breasts from the shoulder to the upper torso.
Modern bra
Though the first bra, a linen and lace garment that looks almost exactly like a modern bra, was discovered in an early 15th century collection from Lengberg Castle in Tyrol, Austria, there is no other evidence of any use of bras in the 1400s.In 1914, the first modern bra was patented by New York publisher, activist, and socialite Caresse Crosby. Frustrated with a whale bone corset that kept popping through a new party dress, she created the bra from two handkerchiefs and some ribbon to create cleavage.
Crosby sold bras to friends for one dollar. Soon she founded the Fashion Form Brassière Company, with a factory in Boston staffed by two women. Crosby patented the first bra as "the backless brassière" in 1914. After making a few hundred bras and some orders from department stores, she was persuaded by her husband to close the company. She sold the patent to The Warner Brothers Corset Company for US$1,500. In the next 30 years, Warner Brothers made more than US$15 million from the design.
According to Cadolle Lingerie House, Herminie Cadolle, a French inventor, was the first inventor to patent the modern 'brassiere', called the "corselet-gorge", lingerie which separated the upper bra portion from the lower corset, the first step toward the modern bra. An urban legend that the brassière was invented by a man named Otto Titzling who lost a lawsuit with Phillip de Brassière originated with the 1971 book Bust-Up: The Uplifting Tale of Otto Titzling and the Development of the Bra and was propagated in a comedic song from the movie Beaches.
Half the patents filed for the design and manufacture of the bra were created by women. The Dresden-based German, Christine Hardt, patented the first modern brassière in 1899. Sigmund Lindauer from Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt, Germany, developed a brassière for mass production and patented it in 1912. It was mass-produced by Mechanische Trikotweberei Ludwig Maier und Cie. in Böblingen, Germany. In the United States, Mary Phelps Jacob received a patent in 1914 for the first brassière design that is recognized as the basis for modern bras. Mass production in the early 20th century made the garment widely available to women in the United States, England, Western Europe, and other countries influenced by western fashion. Metal shortages in World War I encouraged the end of the corset.
Development of the underwire bra started in the 1930s, though it did not gain widespread popularity until the 1950s, when the end of World War II freed metal for domestic use. Aviator and filmmaker Howard Hughes designed a prototype for an aerodynamic underwire bra for Jane Russell when filming The Outlaw in 1941. According to Hughes, the resultant amount was "the length of the actual cleavage is five and one-quarter inches." Bras in 1940s left a substantial amount of fabric in the center, thus creating a separation of breasts instead of the pushed-together cleavage of today. Frederick Mellinger of Frederick's of Hollywood created the first padded bra in 1947, followed by an early push-up bra a year later.
A padded bra adds material to the cups to help the breasts look fuller. There are different designs, from a slight lift to a highly pushed-up effect, that provide coverage and support, hides nipples, add shape to breasts that are far apart and adds comfort. Graduated padding uses more padding at the bottom of the cups that gradually tapers off towards the top. There also are semi-padded bras that suits deep neck dresses. With the advent of padded bras, sales of removable pads took a plunge, though some padded bras also have removable inserts. Actress Julia Roberts was required to wear a custom made silicone gel filled bra for the movie Erin Brockovich in order to increase her cleavage.
Brassières were initially manufactured by small production companies and supplied to retailers. The term "cup" was not used until 1916, and manufacturers relied on stretchable cups to accommodate different sized breasts. Women with larger or sagging breasts had the choice of long-line bras, built-up backs, wedge-shaped inserts between the cups, wider straps, Lastex, firm bands under the cup, and light boning.
In October 1932, the S.H. Camp and Company correlated the size and pendulousness of breasts to letters A through D. Camp's advertising featured letter-labeled profiles of breasts in the February 1933 issue of Corset and Underwear Review. In 1937, Warner began to feature cup sizing in its products. Adjustable bands were introduced using multiple hook and eye closures in the 1930s. By the time World War II ended, most fashion-conscious women in Europe and North America were wearing brassière, and women in Asia, Africa, and Latin America began to adopt it.
1960s–1980s
In fall 1963 and spring 1964, the Western fashion trends were dominated by plunging necklines, while audiences were charmed by movies like Tom Jones that portrayed "aggressive cleavages". Lingerie and Shapewear manufacturers like Warner Brothers, Gossard, Formfit, and Bali took the opportunity to market plunge bras. A plunge bra covers the nipples and bottom of the breasts while leaving the top part bare making it suitable for low-cut tops and deep V-necks. It also has a lower, shorter and narrower center gore that maintains support while increasing cleavage by allowing the gore to drop several inches below the middle of the breasts. Plunge bras comes in different depths that provide great cleavage. Like a push up bra these have some padding and provide support, as well as to help push the breasts together and create cleavage. Bali and Vassarette also marketed lace bras that maximized cleavage.The first push-up bra was created in 1964 by Canadian Louise Poirier and patented for Wonderbra, then owned by Canadelle, a Canadian lingerie company in 1971. A push up bra is designed to press the breasts upwards and closer together to give a fuller appearance with help of padded cups, differing from other padded bras in location of the pads. It leaves the upper and inner area of breasts uncovered adding more cleavage. These are available in many designs and every size starting from A to E. Most of the push-up bras have underwires for added lift and support, while the padding is commonly made of foam.