The history of the bra

Some form of stiffening becomes part of how a woman’s gown is made — built into the bodice, or worn as separate “stays” beneath.

The original corset from Queen Elizabeth I’s 1603 funeral effigy was found to survive when the effigy was restored in 1995. It is displayed at Westminster Abbey.

Front-lacing stays of pink watered silk in the V&A are fully boned with whalebone — in fact baleen, the filter plates of whales — and worn with a separate stiffening busk.

Around this time “corset” starts to be used as a refined name for stays. New, lighter stays with gussets begin to support the breasts.

A Boston dressmaker patents a “bust supporter” meant to preserve the figure “without lacing or otherwise injuriously pressing or binding the body”.

The cellular fabric Aertex is invented in the UK. Breathable and warm, it is later used for bust bodices sold as healthy alternatives to corsetry.

According to Maison Cadolle, Herminie Cadolle shows a corset “cut in half” — with a separate upper part supporting the breasts — at the 1889 Universal Exhibition in Paris.

US patent 494,397: a shaped plate with pockets for the breasts, held by shoulder straps crossing at the back and fastened with hooks and eyes at the front.

The word is borrowed from the French brassière. The short form “bra” follows by 1923.

In Enid Bissett’s New York shop, Bissett and Ida Rosenthal gather the flat bandeau in the middle for more support; William Rosenthal adds straps.

Viscose “artificial silk”, used widely for 1920s underwear, becomes known as rayon. Elastic begins to appear in the backs of bras.

The first stretch yarn is introduced. Knitted or woven into fabric, it lets bras stretch and recover — and fit bodies between standard sizes.

The first commercially produced underwired bra is sold in America; an “overwired” strapless follows in 1934. Wires become common in Britain only after the Second World War.

Joseph R. Bowen of Hollywood-Maxwell patents concentric rings of stitching to stabilise and shape the cup — the ancestor of the 1950s “bullet” look.

Canadelle’s Wonderbra brand introduces Canada’s first push-up bra, style 1300. Gossard takes the UK licence in 1968.

Protesters at the Miss America pageant throw bras and girdles into a bin. No bras are burned — the “bra burner” label came from later press coverage.

After her mastectomy, Barbie creator Ruth Handler founds a company making a more realistic breast prosthesis and campaigns for early detection.

Breathable microfibre nylons and viscose, such as Tactel and Tencel, are used widely for underwear.

Playtex relaunches the Wonderbra in Britain; Gossard answers with the Ultrabra. Lingerie sales in February 1994 jump 370% on the month before.

Shops now offer pocketed post-surgery bras, front-fastening styles, nursing and maternity bras and size ranges far beyond A–D.