It may seem like women have been wearing bras since the beginning of time, with the added support they provide, but this is not true. Although the first linen brassiere was discovered in a medieval castle over 600 years ago, the first true brassiere as we know it was invented in 1859 by Henry Lesher, but this was only a prototype and never took off.
the first bras
Around 1930, a woman named Mary Phelps Jacob created the first bra worn by women (Source: “The History of the Bra,” LulaLu Blog). When dressing for an evening event, she noticed that her dress did not match in color or style with her corset, which was her usual undergarment at the time. Her making two silk scarves and pink ribbons for her shoulders, she unknowingly came up with the first bra. When all of her friends expressed her interest in this new invention, she started her own business. It’s not clear if she sold the rights to Maidenform, a popular lingerie manufacturer, but Maidenform made the first bras with formed cups at the time, and padded bras appeared later in the 1930s to protect the breasts from women. athletes.
The change to lingerie
The bra remained fairly straightforward in terms of style until the 1960s and 1970s, when a shift toward seeing the bra as more than just functional began to take hold in America. In the mid-1960s, the first breast lift Wonderbra was introduced, the brainchild of Canadian designer Louse Poirier. This came just after the trend shifted towards more natural, sheer looks that were popular with the growing women’s movement.
French designers of the 1970s took the idea of bras as lingerie one step further and debuted them on the runways as a fashion accessory. Until then, the only place you could really find sexy lingerie was in the Paris red-light district, where tacky lingerie was largely functional in nature (Source: “The Bra: An Uplifting Tale,” BBC). Now, with fashion models sporting bras along with their garter belts and panties, lingerie has become affordable for the mainstream woman. The first sports bra for fitness-conscious women came out in 1977 (Source: “History of the Bra,” Women’s Health Magazine).
embracing sexuality
Once considered simply a support system for the breasts, bras began to take on a whole new persona as a sex symbol, spurred in large part by Madonna’s Blond Ambition tour, which put her in the spotlight wearing shaped bras. cone and very little else. . This was a sea change from previous decades, when bras were thought to be a symbol of a repressive lifestyle. Models took center stage in cleavage-baring padded push-up bras in an attempt to sell lingerie and clothing lines, this time with a whole new audience in mind: men. The idea was that if lingerie companies could attract men, those men would go out and buy beautiful bras and accessories for their partners. Hence, Wonderbra’s “Hello Boys” campaign starring model Eva Herzigova in the mid-’90s created quite a stir.
Today, the bra continues to celebrate a woman’s sexuality, marked by the pervasive influences of companies like Victoria’s Secret, who not only sell lingerie, but also introduce all the new fashions on the runway every year.
Sources:
“The History of the Bra”, LulaLu’s blog, http://blog.lulalu.com/2013/09/18/the-history-of-the-bra/
“The Bra: An Uplifting Tale”, BBC, http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20150220-the-bra-an-uplifting-tale