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WWI set a course for the end of the corset and the future of the bra

Ultimo-founder Michelle Mone will be live in studio today with Sean Moncrieff, filling him in on ...
Newstalk
Newstalk

12.50 4 Mar 2015


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WWI set a course for the end o...

WWI set a course for the end of the corset and the future of the bra

Newstalk
Newstalk

12.50 4 Mar 2015


Share this article


Ultimo-founder Michelle Mone will be live in studio today with Sean Moncrieff, filling him in on the business of filling out, and how her path has taken her from leaving school at 16 to the top seat in the boardroom of a global brand.

Oh, and there’s the time she helped Julia Roberts to win an Oscar by designing her gel-supported cleavage for Erin Brockovich.

Tune in live today at 2.30pm: www.newstalk.com/player/

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The bra as we know it is a relatively modern phenomenon, and its design owes an awful lot to the global metal shortage during the first World War.

Before the Great War, Victorian-era women following traditional decorum squeezed themselves into corsets and girdles, yanking at strings to squidge their frames into the accepted ideal – a buxom bosom giving way to a tiny waist for the perfect hourglass figure. The corset had been a mainstay since the 1500s, mandatory undergarments for nobility. With the emergence of the middle-classes, corsetry became commonplace, along with fainting spells.

But by the time WWI broke out, plunging Europe into a prolonged period of misery and death, attitudes towards the corset changed. The frames over which the lace and linen was wrapped were made of metal, which was needed for a rake of military supplies for the boys at the front. By 1917, the shortage was so bleak that leading war bodies around the world were asking women to show, for want of a better word, their support and to do their patriotic duty – stop buying corsets.

And that is when the bra broke free.

The first modern one was patented in the US in 1914, and owes its creation to the rather aptly named Caresse Crosby. The legend goes that she was getting ready for a debutante ball, and felt that the “boxlike armour of whalebone and pink cordage” of her corsetry was rather ruining her silhouette, poking haphazardly though her evening gown.

"Bring me two of my pocket handkerchiefs and some pink ribbon," she asked her maid, and the pair sewed the three into a very simple but recognisable brassière.

Crosby’s bras were the toast of the town, with other women at the ball asking her to fashion the new fashion for them. When someone offered her money for one, she set up a start-up, even getting orders from department stores, but sold the patent and company at her husband’s demand for $1,500.

 

The illustration from Caresse Crosby's patent application [U.S. Patent and Trademark Office]

By the end of the War, not only had enough steel been saved to build two battleships, but women had proven themselves to be able to perform physically demanding labour when not trussed up by restrictive corsets. More global conflicts meant more metal shortages, and by the 1940s, the era of the corset had come to a close.

Since then, innovation has pushed the modern bra into the billion-euro industry we know today. From letter-annotated cup sizes to sports bras (originally two jockstraps sewn together), 95 percent of western women wear one daily.

And with the right support, they help you become the CEO of one of the UK’s biggest fashion brands. Tune in to Moncrieff today at 2.30pm: www.newstalk.com/player/


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