DAMN THOSE FRENCH!

By the author and inline sources.

Bras have been adapted and influenced by fashion, culture, and sexual tastes of the times. Athletic Olympian women wore bandeau-like strips of cloth worn by athletic women in ancient Greece.

Pompeii: The Bikini Mosaic

The history of the brassiere rather new. The French in the early 1500s invented the corset to given women an hourglass waste.

Sometimes they could barely breathe. Most were shaped by whale-bone strips, causing the tops of the breasts to spill out alluringly. The corset cursed women for four centuries. For men, it was devilishly difficult to take off in a hurry.

In 1889, French designer Herminie Cadolle separated the corset into two pieces, covering the breasts while still cinching the waist. The word ‘brassiere’ was coined by Vogue Magazine in 1907 and in 1911 was added to the Complete Oxford English Dictionary.

The women’s corset reform movement included Amelia Bloomer—you read that right.

In 1914, New York socialite Mary Phelps Jacob invented and patented two silk handkerchiefs joined by a pink ribbon. They showed the nipples and sold for a dollar.

Smaller-chested and slender-figured flappers took over the fashion scene during the Roaring Twenties. And instead of corsets, they opted for tight bandeau tops that flattened their breasts and gave them a younger teenage silhouette.

During WWI, the ‘Saf-T-Bra” was sold to protect women on factory floors where the bombs mimicked later bras. Saf-T-Bras looked like two yellow hard hats.

Lockheed informed their workers that bras must be worn because of "good taste, anatomical support, and morale."

In 1947, Frederick Mellinger (Frederick’s of Hollywood) invented both padded and push-up bras. Frederick also patented crotchless panties, some of them edible.

By the 1950s, bras started to look like Nike missile launchers, also popular at the time, the ‘bullet bra’ favored by Hollywood glamour stars and, well, pretty much every housewife in America.

Playboy Magazine featured women for 70 years with breasts so big they had to get a leg up. The first issue in 1950 featured a tasteful nude Marilyn Monroe (Happy Birthday, Mr. President) in her birthday suit. She was asked in the press if she had anything on, “I had the radio on.”

AI: Protesting against the Miss America pageant In 1968, New York Radical Women threw their brassieres into a burning barrel on the Atlantic City boardwalk.

In fact, the 1960s and 70s were a glorious time of freeing the nipple. Many women of all ages continue braless to this day.

Free the Nipple in 2012 was a topfreedom campaign for women to have the right to go topless same as men. It became the title of a 2014 document.

Free Pussy Riot demonstration

The Russian female punk band Pussy Riot also used nudity as freedom messaging. They served prison time for dissidence.

While women seem to be able to release the hooks and eyes of brassieres, potential Casanova have mostly fumbled the balls.

Then came the Canadian Wonderbra in 1964. It only became popular in the 1990s. Fitness became more popular for women and the ‘Jogbra’ made the scene.

Throughout history, women have used various garments to support, cover, restrain, reveal, enhance, or modify the appearance of their breasts.

Certainly breasts are the most attractive milk bottles ever. However, women are forced to breastfeed covered up. Various public establishments require women to breastfeed in the rest room. How would you like to eat in a stinky toilet?

In fact, medical science has come to think that restricting the area around the torso prevents lymph flow predictive of breast cancer. See Dressed to Kill: The Link Between Breast Cancer and Bras by Sydney Ross Singer and Soma Grismaijer, first published in 1995. 

It’s completely accurate to say a bouncing bosom isn’t very comfortable. But the success of brassieres is sex appeal. For women who feel inadequate.

Nipples are not illegal! No garment draws men’s attention to the breasts. For men, all breasts are beautiful.