Undressing the Past

Undressing the Past

It is one of the largest industries in the world, it affects every country, and it withstood the decline of the recent recession.  It is the female lingerie industry.  Lingerie has been a notable part of many cultures throughout the centuries: Crete, Rome, Italy, France, and the United States to name a few.  One of the most influential articles of lingerie is the bra.  The bra has evolved through the centuries and is now an object used by females daily in the United States.

There are records of lingerie usage dating back to the early 1700s.  The Kent State University Museum has an exhibit devoted to showing the evolution of lingerie starting in the 1700s with a metal corset with leather ties, leading to a satin tea rose corset circa 1905.  Corsets were worn by women to shape their body.  Between the 16th and the 19th centuries, it was important for a female to appear to have a tiny waist of twenty to twenty-six inches.  When the waist is that tiny, it creates the illusion that the hips and breasts are larger than in actuality.  Men considered a small waist and large hips good because they indicated that the women would bear healthy children while retaining her hourglass figure.  Corsets were often lined with bone or metal to keep its shape while being tied in the back.  Women found corsets to be like torture devices and had difficulty breathing and moving in them.  Many women have died from wearing a corset due to the inability to breathe and having ribs broken.

         However, not all corsets were used for fashion.  Valerie Steele, in her book, The Corset: a cultural history, states that some corsets from 1560-1600 were made of metal.  These corsets were designed to correct deformities in the spine.  This was apparently not uncommon, for there have been metal boots found that were used to correct deformities in the legs as well. 

“Ambroise Paré, a French military surgeon, famous for reforming and modernizing the practice of surgery, described these metal corsets in his work, stating that they were used ‘to amend the crookednesse of the Bodie.  In order to correct and to hide such a defect, they will be made to wear iron corsets, which shall be full of holes so that they will not be so heavy, and they will be well fitted and padded so as not to hurt at all and will be changed often if the patient… [is] still growing.” (Steele pg 5)

Many times when individuals recall the image of the corset, they picture those in current movies, such as Pirates of the Caribbean or Phantom of the Opera where the ladies are fainting from their lack of air.  Though this did happen, the purpose of the corset was to bring out the shape of the body. 

Over the next three hundred years corsets stayed in fashion, however, the fad faded for a time during the French revolution but regained its place in fashion after.  Nearing the 19th century corsets began to die out.  Women were looked down upon for tight-lacing, which was lacing themselves in a corset so to have a waist of sixteen or less inches.  They were seen as vain and sinful.  Tight-lacing was a dirty habit as was masturbation or fetishes. 

In the 1920s the girdle began to replace corsets.  The girdle was made of an elastic material that was designed to stretch, making it more comfortable than the corset.  When the girdle was invented by Paul Poiret, it was made to have shoulder straps and eventually evolved to start at the waist, not using shoulder straps.  They had straps and snaps that connected to stockings to keep them in place.  The elastic material smoothed the bodies of women in a safe way that allowed them to breathe and to move freely.  The girdle was used frequently until the 1960s when it was replaced by the panty girdle and followed by the control-top pantyhose.  Today girdles are still able to be found in stores under various names such as “body shapers” and “slimming apparel”.

         As the corset went out of style and the girdle came in, women felt they needed something to support their bosoms.  In 1907, Vogue magazine first used the French word “brassiere”.  The first brassiere patented was by Mary Phelps Jacob, who was later known as Caresse Crosby, in 1913.  She had bought an evening gown and could not wear a corset, thus fashioned a brassiere out of fabric and ribbons.  It did not sell as well as she had hoped so she sold the patent and within years the brassiere was worn everywhere. 

During the times of the flappers and feminism, having a flat chest was popular and considered flattering, so women would strap their breasts close to their body.  Since the start of the 1930’s women began to think there should be a sizing system for the brassiere.  It was now used for support, rather than to bind.  There were many models of brassieres but one of the more popular was the Kestos bra.  It was a simple brassiere; however, it was classy enough to have stood the test of time.  This style of brassiere can still be found today.  During the 1940’s, development of the brassiere slowed in America due to the war.  Women made their own with patterns from magazines, such as Vogue.  Once the war ended, the brassiere industry escalated.

Throughout the 1950s, the cone shaped brassiere was extremely popular and was shortened to the term ‘bra’.  Many viewed it to be glamorous to have the breasts that were exaggerated.  Filmstars such as Lana Turner, Jane Russell, and Marilyn Monroe encouraged this exaggerated look through their popularity.  Push up brassieres and the bullet bra, which is the pointed cone shaped brassiere, were very popular during this time because they enhanced the size of the breasts.  Many companies, including Maidenform, began being very outgoing with their advertising.  Maidenform reached out to its audience with its “Dream Campaign” which lasted for the next twenty years.  Before these ads, brassieres were only shown while women were wearing clothes, these new advertisements from Maidenform were the first to show women freely wearing the brassiere.

In the 1960s women were divided.  It was the era of the hippies and of freedom.  Many women viewed the brassiere as a form of masculine oppression and so went without wearing them.  There is a myth concerning bra-burning.  There have been accounts of women burning their brassieres in an act of revolution.  However, this is not accurate, there are accounts of women throwing their undergarments in a trash can but not burning them.  Other women who were not swept into the hippie movement continued to wear their undergarments; however the brassiere industry dipped and did not introduce more new types in the United States.

The early 1970s introduced one of the most known and influential stores for the brassiere industry.  “Victoria’s Secret” was founded in San Francisco by Roy Raymond.  The empire began as a three store operation that was bought out by Limited Brands in the early 1980s.  Since the beginning of “Victoria’s Secret” the company has introduced hundreds of models and over seven collections of brassieres.  In the 1980s women were becoming more aware of their femininity and brassieres made a comeback.  Females were breaking into the workforce and needed to appear presentable.  Madonna, an icon from the 1980s, brought back the cone shaped bra.  Other women use the push up, or the brassieres with under wire, which supported the breasts.  In the late 1980’s the Wonderbra was introduced.  This bra has been a success ever since.

From 1990 to 2010, the bra has come a long way.  The silicon stick on bra was invented.  Silicon sticks on bras have an adhesive which sticks to the skin, allowing for no straps or band around the ribs.  Push-up bras are also becoming extremely popular.  In the early 1990s it became fashionable to show the straps of a bra.  This fad continued into the mid 1990s.  Many bra companies began experimenting during these years and began selling many different models than in the past.  The sports bra, a non padded bra that repressed movement of the breasts, the convertible bra, a bra where the straps are removable and able to be changed to fit the clothes being worn, and the seamless bra, a bra that is made of molded fabric with no seams, are a few of the new brassieres being worn by women.  Fabrics have also been experimented with.  Bras now come in silk, cotton, mesh, satin, nylon and many other materials.

There have been many myths concerning the brassiere in the past years.  One of these myths is that bras cause breast cancer.  John Walsh explains this myth in his Article “Clothing” from the Encyclopedia of Cancer and Society: “[s]ince a higher proportion of Western women seem to contract breast cancer than people in the developing world seem to do, it has encouraged some to see a causal link between the data points. The hypothesis goes that underwire bras, in particular, may cause damage to the lymphatic system and hence add a risk factor.”  However, to debate the proof of the myth the authors of Dressed to Kill: the Link Between Breast Cancer and Bras, Sydney Ross Singer and Soma Grismaijer, who are trained medical anthropologists, traveled to Fiji to research the women who wear and do not wear bras.  They found that the majority of women who do not wear bras also do not have breast cancer, while the working women who wear bras have a higher rate of breast cancer.  They believed that when women wear tight fitting, skin contorting bras, toxins linger in the breast tissue, unable to drain, which causes cancerous cells to form.  That wearing a brassiere causes cancer is debatable, however, there have been experiments done to prove that mouthwash also causes cancer.  If mouthwash causes cancer, women have other things to worry about than the bra they are wearing. 

In the American society the normal female owns, on average, six bras.  Over two million dollars are spent annually by Caucasian women on lingerie and a large percentage of this money goes toward the bra industry.  Many women feel the need to be attractive and this has caused “Victoria’s Secret” to be so popular.  Their advertisements show models wearing lingerie of all colors and shapes.  Its supermodel ‘Angels’ are among the most beautiful women in the world.  They show females that to be beautiful, they must wear elaborate undergarments.  “Lane Bryant”, founded in 1904 in New York, is a store that caters to plus size women.  It has become the equivalent of “Victoria’s Secret” for larger women who want to purchase and wear beautiful lingerie.  Through these stores, and others, all women are able to feel beautiful and are able to love their bodies. 

The bra is a universal article of clothing that is not only worn in America, but all over the world, from Fiji to China, to Norway, and while many believe that lingerie affects only women, this is false.  Men find that lingerie is a good gift to give their partner when hoping to improve their sex life.  They also buy posters and computer screen savers of lingerie models, especially those of Victoria’s Secret Angels.

When looking at all cultures there are many similarities and differences.  All have idols that the population strives to copy, and all have their criminals that the population looks down upon.  All cultures have customs which they follow concerning politics, courtesy, and even their clothing.  In the American culture and others around the world, lingerie and more particularly, the bra, will be remaining for years to come. 







Works Cited

Bissonnette, Anne. Bissonnette on Costume: a Visual Dictionary of Fashion. Kent State University, 26 April 2010.

Burns, Wendy A. Jiggle: (re)shaping American women. Lanham: The Rowman and Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc., 2007.

Dingus, Anne. "Mentionables." Texas Monthly 32.11 (2004): 88-94. Academic Search Elite. EBSCO. Web. 25 Apr. 2010.

Lunau, Kate. "TEMPEST IN A BOTTLE OF MOUTHWASH." Maclean's 122.6 (2009): 50. Business Source Elite. EBSCO. Web. 29 Apr. 2010

O'Loughlin, Sandra. "Real Women Have Lingerie." Brandweek 46.41 (2005): 22-24. Academic Search Elite. EBSCO. Web. 25 Apr. 2010.

Ruth la Ferla.  "Now It's Nobody's Secret."New York Times 25 Oct. 2007, Late Edition (East Coast): ProQuest National Newspapers Core, ProQuest. Web.  25 Apr. 2010.

Singer, Sydney Ross and Soma Grismaijer. Dressed to Kill: The Link Between Breast Cancer and Bras. Garden City: Avery Publishing Group, 1995.

Steele, Valerie. The Corset: a cultural history. Singapore: Yale University Press, 2005.

Walsh, John. "Clothing." Encyclopedia of Cancer and Society. 2007. SAGE Publications. 27 Apr. 2010. <http://www.sage-ereference.com/cancer/Article_n153.html>.

Workman, Nancy V. "From Victorian to Victoria's Secret: The Foundations of Modern Erotic Wear." Journal of Popular Culture30.2 (1996): 61-73. Academic Search Elite. EBSCO. Web. 29 Apr. 2010.