AnonyMs: Bizarre Brassiere Facts:
The bra dates as far back as 2,500 BC, when Minoan women on the Greek island of Crete wore a garment similar to a bra, which lifted their busts out of their clothes, leaving them exposed. The custom of ancient Greek and Roman women, to minimize the bust size, completely reversed the Minoan trend. To minimize their chest size, these women strapped bands over their busts to rein them in.
In the 1860s, corsets and bindings were so tight that young girls just reaching puberty were supposed to aspire to 13-inch waists.(that's an inch bigger than a ruler !) At that time a group of pre- feminists gathered in Boston to launch what they called the dress reform movement;. They agreed on a breast-freeing bodice that could be attached to a simple petticoat. No bones, no eyelets, no laces or pulleys
The modern bra hasn't been credited to one specific person, but in 1884 Mortimer Clarke of Washington D.C. filed a patent for a woman's undergarment that is similar to the sports bras sold today, and Marie Tucek obtained a patent for the first brassiere, which she named the "breast supporter"; in 1893. It had separate pockets, and straps that went over the shoulders, and hook-and-eye fasteners in the back. Marie never marketed her invention, which resembled the modern bra, and so most people have never even heard of her!
In 1913, a New York socialite named Mary Phelps Jacob (a.k.a. Caresse Crosby) was credited with inventing the first modern bra. She was planning on going to a major social event, and wearing a super-sheer evening gown. Back in those days, the only undergarment available was a corset stiffened by whaleback bones, which would definitely have shown through her gown. Mary and her French maid, Marie, created a basic, backless brassiere from two handkerchiefs, some ribbon, and cord- the sole purpose of her bra was to flatten her chest - there weren't even any cups. Everyone at the ball commented on Mary's daring new bra and soon she began sewing bras for friends and family, who told everyone they new about Mary's new invention. Mary the businesswoman was born, when she received a request from a complete stranger for a bra, along which was enclosed with money to pay for it. In November 1914 Mary was granted the patent for the "Backless Brassiere". While Mary was definitely a bra visionary, she didn't really know how to market her product, so even though she made several hundred bras, she only managed to sell a few of them and had to close her business. She made a really bad business move, when she sold her rights to the brassiere to the Connecticut based Warner Brothers Corset Company for only $1,500.
If World War I hadn't broken out the bra, as we know it, never would have become popular. For the first time in history many women in factories and uniforms for the first time, and they couldn't work in cumbersome corsets or whalebone stays. And here's a shocking true fact: The U.S. War Industries Board called on women to stop buying corsets in 1917, freeing up some 28,000 tons of metal which was enough to build two battleships (that's about 10,000 VW bugs!) .
In the roaring 1920s, women would bind their breasts to conform to the flat-chested "flapper" era. Ida Rosenthal, an immigrant from Russia, was fed up with the way that women were mashing down their breasts. She and her husband, William, founded a company called Maidenform. She realized that women and their bodies did not all fit into one category, and she meticulously grouped women into different cup sizes, and developed bras to fit women of every size and age group.
During the Cold War, breasts and bras began to resemble torpedoes, think Marilyn Monroe (who incidentally wore a size 12-14 ) or Jayne Mansfield. Billionaire, Howard Hughes, had an engineer Hughes use his aeronautical engineering knowledge to design a bra for Jane Russell that turned her into a star. Hughes dropped a story to the press that religious groups should be scandalized by Russell's significant cleavage; in turn these groups protested the release of the movie "The Outlaw". The movie was so lame, that if it hadn't have attracted so much negative attention, it would have faded quietly into obscurity.
In 1968 women gathered together to symbolically protest the Miss America contest. They tossed their bras, girdles, stockings and other articles of constricting into a trash can and then set them on fire. They felt that destroying these clothes in such a public manner would serve as symbolic condemnation of the modern skewed image of female beauty. They felt that women should be valued as more than just their body parts, or judged based on their beauty.
In the early 1970's many feminists went braless for the first time as sort of a social commentary - their personal comfort meant more to them than meeting society's view of a woman's beauty.
In the 1980;s many women started having silicon and saline implants to enlarge their breasts. Celebrities like Pamela Lee have made some women aspire to the unrealistic Barbie doll ideal of beauty. If Barbie would come to life, she'd have to crawl on all fours to support her disproportionately huge breasts.
Statistics show the average American woman owns six bras. Out of those six, one of is a strapless bra and one is a color other than white.
60 to 65 percent of all sport bras sold are white.
The average woman wears a 36C bra.
