The history of bras (brassières; variously pronounced) is closely tied to the social status of women, the evolution of fashion, and shifting views of the female body over time.
Throughout history, women have used various garments to support, cover, restrain, reveal, enhance, or modify the appearance of their breasts. Artifacts from the Minoan civilization, dating back to the 14th century BCE, depict women wearing bikini-like garments. Some evidence suggests that during the Greco-Roman period, women had developed specialized bra-like garments to support their breasts. By the 14th century CE, the proto-bra was in development in Europe.
From approximately the 16th century CE onward, the corset dominated the undergarments of wealthier women in the Western world. Corsets came in varying lengths, with some designed only to support the bust, while others extended down to shape the waist. In the latter part of the 19th century, women experimented with various alternatives, such as splitting the corset into a girdle-like shaping device for the lower torso and transferring the upper part to devices suspended from the shoulder.
By the early 20th century, garments emerged that more closely resembled contemporary bras; however, large-scale commercial production only occurred in the 1930s. The metal shortages of World War II encouraged the demise of the corset, and most fashion-conscious women in Europe and North America were wearing bras by the end of the war. The bra was then adopted by women in other parts of the world, including Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
Antiquity
Greece
Literature from Ancient Greece suggests the use of a specialized garment meant to support and contain women's breasts. In Book 14 of Homer's Iliad, written in the archaic period of classical antiquity, Homer refers to Aphrodite's "embroidered girdle" (, ) as being "loosed from her breasts", indicating a decorated breast-band rather than a girdle or belt, as is often interpreted. At least one example of late-Hellenic sculpture seems to confirm this, depicting the goddess wrapping a stróphion (from stróphos "twisted band" + the diminutive suffix -ion) around her chest.
Aristophanes mentions the stróphion in his plays Lysistrata and Women at the Thesmophoria. However, it is unknown if the stróphion was an everyday garment worn by the average woman or an item of clothing reserved for certain situations or specific types of women. Artifacts from the Minoan civilization, dating back to the 14th century BCE, depict women wearing bikini-like garments. However, most early Grecian sculpture and vase paintings that depict undressed women show no indication of breast bands, instead revealing the shape of the breast through draped clothing, or even the nipple itself, with no sign of an intervening item of clothing between dress and skin.
Rome
The Roman adaptation of the strophium was mentioned in writings by Martial, Ovid, and in the Scriptores Historiae Augustae as the fascia, fasciola, taenia, or mamillare. This garment was made from various materials. It is depicted in the Coronation of the Winner mosaic, nicknamed "Bikini Mosaic", dated to the 4th century CE, at Villa Romana del Casale in Piazza Armerina, Sicily. In the mosaic, the bra-wearing women are participating in sporting events. In addition, some large-breasted Roman women wore a mamillare under tunics and togas because Romans considered large breasts to be "grandmotherly".
The Middle Ages By the High Middle Ages, some women in Western Europe were using bra-like garments to support and restrain their breasts. Both Henri de Mondeville, surgeon to King Phillip the Fair of France, and Konrad Stolle, writing over a hundred years apart ( and , respectively), mention "breast bags" or "shirts with bags" that women used to contain their breasts. Stolle called these inventions "indecent". A 15th-century anonymous German writer said many women made and wore these garments, noting the benefits for one woman: "All the young men that look at her, can see her beautiful breasts..." In this era, women of status wore clothing that required specialized undergarments with separated cups that lifted and separated the breasts.
15th-century playing cards and illustrated manuscripts provide visible evidence of these garments. In 2008, fragments of four bra-like undergarments were discovered in Lengberg Castle in Austria. Dating to the 15th century, the garments represent three different designs but all had separate cups. They were probably worn attached to skirts, but the skirts were removed when the garments were discarded, perhaps to reuse the fabric.
The corset
Bodies The inventor of the corset is unclear, but it appeared around the turn of the 16th century CE. During this period, the lifted, separated "apple breasts" look of the Middle Ages, began to go out of fashion and was replaced with the look of a compressed bust. The corset was originally called a or "a pair of bodies" in English because they came in two pieces. It gave the chest and torso a smooth, conical shape that worked with the farthingale to create the illusion of a tiny waist.
In the mid-17th century, pairs of bodies began to be called "stays" and were usually boned with baleen instead of reeds. Some of these bodies were made in one piece but retained the same general shape and did not feature cups like a bra. This style remained unchanged until the end of the 18th century.
Short stays In the 1780s and 1790s, the shape of stays changed radically to suit the changing fashions. However, many of these "shortened stays" or "short stays", as they were sometimes called in Britain, resembled earlier support Middle Ages garments more than stays, with fitted cups that held the breasts apart and bands only as wide as the ribs or shorter, instead of waist-length. Around this time, the French started to refer to stays as corsets.
Victorian era
Victorian dress reform movement
During the 19th century, two parallel movements drove the evolution of the bra from the corset: health professionals' concerns about the cruel, constraining effects of the corset and the clothing reform movement of feminists who believed women needed to discard the corset before they could expand their roles in society. Reformed Amelia Bloomer said, "When you find a burden in belief or apparel, cast it off".
American women who made important contributions to the corset reform movement included Amelia Bloomer and Dr. Mary Edwards Walker. In the United Kingdom, notable figures in the movement included Constance Lloyd, wife of Oscar Wilde. The Rational Dress Society, the National Dress Reform Association, and the Reform Dress Association were prominent organizations that advocated for the end of the corset.
Despite the dress reform movement, early bras had limited commercial success. Only well-educated, wealthy reformers wore them to any significant degree because they were expensive.
Early designs and patents Numerous patents for bra-like devices were granted in the 19th century, indicating developments in the invention of the modern bra. A bra-like device that gave a "symmetrical rotundity" to the wearer's breasts was patented in 1859 by Henry S. Lesher of Brooklyn, New York. In 1863, a "corset substitute" was patented by Luman L. Chapman of Camden, New Jersey. Historians refer to it as a "proto-bra".
In 1876, dressmaker Olivia Flynt was granted four patents covering the "True Corset" or "Flynt Waist" which was designed for larger-breasted women. Reformers probably purchased and helped create a demand for these early garments on "hygienic" grounds over health concerns about the corset. Initially, Flynt's garments were available by mail order but eventually appeared in department and clothing stores. She won a bronze medal for her designs at the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanics Association in 1878, at the Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta from 1884 to 1885, and at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893.
According to Life magazine, Herminie Cadolle of France invented the first modern bra in 1889.Pechter E. A new method for determining bra size and predicting post-augmentation breast size. Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery 102 (4) September 1998, 1259–1265 It appeared in a corset catalog as a two-piece undergarment, which she originally called the corselet gorge and later le bien-être or "the well-being". Her garment cut the traditional corset in two: The lower part was a corset for the waist, and the upper part supported the breasts with shoulder straps. Her description reads, "designed to sustain the bosom and supported by the shoulders." She patented her invention and showed it at the Paris Exposition Universelle in 1889. By 1905, the upper half was sold separately as a soutien-gorge, the name by which bras are still known in France. She also introduced the use of rubber thread or elastic. Her company is still family-owned and claims that Cadolle freed women by inventing the first Bra."
In 1893, Marie Tucek received a U.S. patent for a device that consisted of separate pockets for each breast above a metal supporting plate, with shoulder straps fastened by hook-and-eye. This invention was a precursor to the underwire bra.
The bra was initially worn as an alternative to the corset, as a negligée or at-home wear, or was worn by women with medical issues stemming from corsets. After the straight-fronted corset became fashionable in the early 20th century, a bra or "bust supporter" became a necessity for full-busted women because the straight-fronted corset did not offer as much support and containment as the Victorian styles. Early bras were either wrap-around bodices or boned, close-fitting camisoles (both worn over the corset). They were designed to hold the bust in and down against the corset, which provided upward support.
Advertising of the times, typically in periodicals, stressed the advantages of bras in health and comfort over corsets and portrayed garments with shoulder supports in a mono-bosom style and with limited adaptability. Their major appeal was to those for whom lung function and mobility were priorities rather than outer appearance. Home-sewn garments competed with factory-made, ready-to-wear garments.
20th-century designs
The word "brassiere" was first used in Vogue magazine in 1907 to describe a device that supported the breasts. The word brassiere was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 1911.
The 1910s Sigmund Lindauer from Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt, Germany, developed a bra for mass production in 1912 and patented it in 1913. Mechanische Trikotweberei Ludwig Maier & Cie. AG mass-produced his design in Böblingen, Germany. With metal shortages, World War I encouraged the end of the corset. When the war ended, most fashion-conscious women in Europe and North America wore bras. From there, the bra was adopted by women in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
In 1910, Mary Phelps Jacob (known later in life as Caresse Crosby), a 19-year-old New York socialite, purchased a sheer evening gown for a debutante ball. At that time, the only acceptable undergarment was a corset stiffened with whalebone. Mary had large breasts and found the whalebone visibly poked out around her plunging neckline and from under the sheer fabric. Dissatisfied with this arrangement, she worked with her maid to fashion two silk handkerchiefs with a pink ribbon and cord.Her innovation drew immediate attention that evening, and she made more of her new device for family and friends. When a stranger offered her a dollar for one, she realized that her device could turn into a viable business.