Fashion Blog » The Bra Turns 100

The bra as we know it today is now a centenarian, and it has lived a full and exciting life, indeed. But even before it made it’s way into fashion magazines, the concept of breast support was experimented with by the Greeks and Romans as well as the Minoans, who sported their own version over 3,000 years ago. Fascinating facts like this are included in John Walsh’s history of the bra in today’s issue of The Independent.

Here are some other fun highlights in the life of the over-the-shoulder bolder holder:

• 1874- Patricia P. Clark ads a shoulder strap to the corset

• 1900- Henry Lesher of Brooklyn offers woman a metal contraption to keep things upright

• 1907 - the word “brassiere” is featured in Vogue for the first time

• 1910- Mary Phelps Jacob and her maid sew two silk handkerchiefs together with some string and ribbon after her whale-bone corset fails to flatter her sheer party gown. Her friends clamor for one of their own, and someone pays her $1 for one

• 1911- “brassiere” appears in the Oxford English Dictionary

• 1914- the backless brassiere is patented by Phelps Jacob and then sold to Warner Bros. Corset Company for $1500 (it’s later valued at $15 million)

• 1914 -1918 - World War I creates a bra craze since women have to abandon the corset to work in factories

• 1922 - Ida Rosenthal invents the cupsize

• 1930- Maidenform revolutionizes the fit and comfort of the “brassiere,” which becomes known as the “bra”

• 1939-1945 - during World War II, the military decides that low-ranking women should don a bra for “protection”

1950s - the pointy bra gets rounded out and sales soar

• 1960s - the bra becomes a political tool when feminist Germaine Greer declares, “Bras are a ludicrous invention” that sexually objectifies women

• 1968 - at a protest against the Miss America pageant, women throw their bras, nylons, and girdles into a “Freedom Trash Can” and even though their plans to set fire to the lot never materializes, the legend of bra burning feminists is born.

• 1974 - viewers get a glimpse women’s naked torsos and bra-clad breasts in a groundbreaking Wonderbra commercial

• 1980 - Bra sales bring in multi-millions

• 1990 - Madonna wears a Jean Paul Gaultier bra for her Blonde Ambition tour

• 1994 - With the help of Eva Herzigova, the Wonderbra makes a comeback

Read more about the social history of the bra in John Walsh’s fantastic article “Breast supporting act: a century of the bra”

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