If you’re like me, you have considered the history of the bra, and come to your own conclusions as to how it was invented. My theory involved a torture chamber during the Spanish Inquisition, an angry husband, and well, never mind, it gets complicated from there.
In actuality, the story of the bra is an old one. Over the centuries, women have pushed, lifted, crammed and distorted their bodies into a countless number of devices to conform to the current view of the perfect woman. Ancient Minoan women, 2500 B.C., wrapped a leather band below their breasts to lift them up out of their clothing. Their Greek and Roman counterparts went the opposite direction and strapped a band of cloth around their breasts to reduce the size of their chest.
The bra has been used throughout HERstory, in one form or another, to enhance or conceal the bust, as fashion demanded. The history of the modern bra will not begin until 1913, with the advent of the flat-chested flapper and her bouncy dances like the Charleston. Socialite Mary Phelps-Jacob was going to attend one of those glittering, high society events, like we have all seen in the old movies. You know the ones where the people move just a little too fast and they talk in elaborate font styles on cardboard screen boards with slightly flat piano music pounding in the background. Who wouldn’t go out and purchase a new, sheer evening gown for such an event? Mary certainly did. Unfortunately, the dress was meant for a lady who was less well-endowed than she.
The other unfortunate thing was that underwear fashion had not kept pace with dress design, and the undies of the day included a whalebone corset to emphasize the bust and minimize the waist. You have probably already come to the same conclusion that Mary did. Whalebone and sheer fabric just don’t go together. Being an enterprising young woman, she sewed a couple of handkerchiefs together, added some cord, and designed herself the first backless bra. Her friends, who were also struggling to be flat-chested in a world of the corseted chestiness, were delighted with Mary’s invention, and she whipped up copies of her masterpiece for them. When a stranger offered Mary a dollar to make one, she knew she was on her way to underwear fame and fortune. Mary Phelps-Jacob patented her invention in 1914 as the “backless brassiere”. The word brassiere is an old French term for “support”.
Even with their commercial success, bras have gone through their own evolution, from Mary’s chest-binding minimizer, to Madonna’s infamous cones, that, one should remind you, should not be tried at home unless you want to put an eye out, brassieres have developed to complement the fashion of the day. In fact, one could say that bras are the foundation upon which couture is shaped. Literally.
