Bra
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.
The term brassiere, from French brassière, of 17th century origin, meaning a woman's or child's short garment covering the arms (Fr: bras) and upper body, was used by the Evening Herald in Syracuse, New York, in 1893.
[2] 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.
[15] Women wore an apodesmos,[16] later stēthodesmē,[17] mastodesmos[18] and mastodeton,[19] all meaning "breast-band", a band of wool or linen that was wrapped across the breasts and tied or pinned at the back.
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.
Development of the underwire bra started in the 1930s,[35] though it did not gain widespread popularity until the 1950s, when the end of World War II freed metal for domestic use.
[41] 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.
[2] 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".
These are available in many designs and every size starting from A to E.[43] Most of the push-up bras have underwires for added lift and support,[43] while the padding is commonly made of foam.
[64][65] America's largest lingerie retailer Victoria's Secret was launched by Roy Raymond, a Stanford alumnus, in San Francisco in late 1970s with a similar appeal.
[80] Because, according to Sarah Shotton, creative director of Agent Provocateur, "Now it's about the athletic body, health and wellbeing", than "about the male gaze,"[81] while according to independent lingerie designer Araks Yeramyan "It was #MeToo that catapulted the bralette movement into what it is today.
[86] Manufacturing a well-fitting bra is a challenge since the garment is supposed to be form-fitting but women's breasts may sag, vary in volume, width, height, shape, and position on the chest.
Lingerie designer Chantal Thomass said, It's a highly technical garment, made of lots of tiny pieces of fabric, with so many sizes to consider for the different cups, etc.
[93] Bra components, including the cup top and bottom (if seamed), the central, side and back panels, and straps, are cut to manufacturer's specifications.
Coated metal hooks and eyes are sewn in by machine and heat processed or ironed into the back ends of the band and a tag or label is attached or printed onto the bra itself.
They are now made of a variety of materials, including Tricot, Spandex, Spanette, Latex, microfiber, satin, Jacquard, foam, mesh, and lace,[93] which are blended to achieve specific purposes.
[95][13] The antecedents for underwire in bras date to at least 1893, when Marie Tucek of New York City patented a breast supporter, a sort of early push-up bra made of either metal or cardboard and then covered with fabric.
[116] Women's choices about what bra to wear are consciously and unconsciously affected by social perceptions of the ideal female body shape, which changes over time.
Bras can also be used to make a social statement as evidenced by Jean-Paul Gaultier's designs and the cone-shaped bra Madonna wore outside her clothing on her Blond Ambition World Tour.
Advice included avoiding plain, flesh-toned, smooth-cup bras, so that the exposure does not appear accidental; making sure the bra is in good condition; and wearing a style that either matches the colour of the outerwear or is dramatically different.
[135][136][2] In Western society, since the 1960s, there has been a slow but steady trend towards bralessness among a number of women, especially millennials, who have expressed opposition to and are giving up wearing bras.
In 2016, Allure magazine fashion director Rachael Wang wrote, "Going braless is as old as feminism but it seems to be bubbling to the surface more recently as a direct response to Third Wave moments like #freethenipple hashtag campaign, increased trans-visibility like Caitlyn Jenner's Vanity Fair cover ... and Lena Dunham's show Girls (which features young women often without bras).
[146] In 2009 Somalia's hard-line Islamic group Al-Shabaab forced women to shake their breasts at gunpoint to see if they were wearing bras, which they called "un-Islamic".
[158] Similarly, Honduran garment factory workers in 2003 were paid US$0.24 for each $50 Sean John sweatshirt they made, less than one-half of one per cent of the retail price.
A local news story in the Atlantic City Press erroneously reported that "the bras, girdles, falsies, curlers, and copies of popular women's magazines burned in the 'Freedom Trash Can'".
Make a bonfire of the cruel steels that have lorded it over your thorax and abdomens for so many years and heave a sigh of relief, for your emancipation I assure you, from this moment has begun.
In 1964, Professor Lisa Jardine described her dinner with Australian writer and public intellectual Germaine Greer during a formal college dinner in Newnham College, Cambridge: At the graduates' table, Germaine was explaining that there could be no liberation for women, no matter how highly educated, as long as we were required to cram our breasts into bras constructed like mini-Vesuviuses, two stitched white cantilevered cones which bore no resemblance to the female anatomy.
"[186] The feminist author Iris Marion Young wrote in 2005 that the bra "serves as a barrier to touch" and that a braless woman is "deobjectified", eliminating the "hard, pointy look that phallic culture posits as the norm."
In a 1952 article in Parents' Magazine, Frank H. Crowell erroneously reported that it was important for teen girls to begin wearing bras early.
[195][197] The key factors influencing breast ptosis over a woman's lifetime are cigarette smoking, her number of pregnancies, gravity, higher body mass index, larger bra cup size, and significant weight gain and loss.
