A brief history of bras
The word ‘bra’ comes from the French brassière (bodice or child’s vest) and is a derivation of the old French word bracière, which was an arm protector in military uniforms and later a chest plate and a type of women’s corset.
1. Women have been using breast supports since ancient Greece when they used to bind their chests
2. The bra’s earliest relative, the corset, appeared in the 13th century and was worn by noblewomen
3. In the 1850s came a hinged metal bra contraption.
4. Although American Marie Tucek patented the ‘breast supporter’ in 1893 with hooks and eyes, it wasn’t until the invention of elastic fabric in the 1920s that the bra was born. In the early 1900s, the De Vovoise Company made a ‘brassiere’
5. Mary Phelps Jacobs took out a patent on her new design for the first modern brassiere in 1913. She had had enough of the bones of her corset sticking out around her neckline. So she covered them with a couple of silk handkerchiefs and some ribbon and attached it all together with some cords.
Unfortunately, Mary was no business woman and couldn’t raise the finance to produce in quantity. So she sold her patent to Warner Brothers Corset Company for a mere $1,500.
6. During the Roaring Twenties, bras were not much more than lace fabric bands with straps attached and suited the boyish no-shape fashions of the time.
7. In the Thirties ‘shape’ returned in a big way. Along came the Sweater Girls and the first false breasts – made of rubber.
The American movie star Lana Turner (right) earned the nickname “The Sweater Girl” from her close-fitting sweater in a scene in They Won’t Forget – and she hated it!
8. In 1935, Warners introduced cup sizing – A, B, C and D.
9. During the war years in the Forties, women sometimes made their own bras from parachute silk or old satin wedding dresses. Utility bras were also available, made from a 
cotton-backed satin or drill. They were usually only available in peach colour.
10. In the Fifties Marilyn Monroe led the pointed bra revolution, copied by Madonna decades later in the Eighties
11. Tops models such as Twiggy and Jean Shrimpton made small breasts fashionable again in the Sixties. This era also saw the first introduction of Lycra into bras.
12. In the late Sixties and early Seventies women burned their bras!
13. Innovation boomed in the Nineties with push-up and padded bras, sports bras and the 1994 Gossard Wonderbra phenomenon
14. In the new millennium, it seems that anything goes – seamless, backless, push-up and plunge bras are all available.
