A brassiere (pronounced UK: /ˈbræzɪər/, US: /brəˈzɪər/; commonly referred to as a bra /ˈbrɑː/) is an undergarment that covers, supports, and elevates the breasts. Since the late 19th century, it has replaced the corset as the most widely accepted method for supporting breasts. A wide variety of bras are manufactured today.
A woman can choose from a wide assortment of bras for a variety of purposes: to enhance the perceived shape of her breasts, to minimize or to enlarge the perceived breast size, to restrain breast movement during an activity such as exercise, to enhance her cleavage, to conceal her nipples, to overcome sagging, for prosthetic purposes, or to facilitate nursing. In certain circumstances, like the work place, employers may require a woman to wear a bra. In most Western countries, the majority of women wear bras, although a minority choose to go without, sometimes for health or comfort reasons. Breast support is built into some garments like camisoles, tank-tops and backless dresses, alleviating the need to wear a separate bra.
Most bras are designed to be form-fitting and to lift the breasts off the chest wall if they sag and to restrain their movement. Bra designers and manufacturers originally produced bras that were purely functional and gradually added elements to improve the design, but they have now largely shifted from functionality to fashion. Manufacturers’ standards and sizes vary widely, making it difficult for women to find a bra that fits. Bra-measurement procedures conflict with one another. Even professional bra fitters disagree on the correct size for the same woman. Women’s breasts vary widely in size and shape; most are asymmetric to a degree and can change from month to month depending on the menstrual cycle, pregnancy, or weight gain or loss. As a result, from 75–85% of women wear the incorrect bra size.
The bra has become a garment with erotic significance and a feminine icon or symbol with political and cultural significance beyond its primary function. Some feminists consider the brassiere a symbol of the repression of women’s bodies. Culturally, when a young girl gets her first bra, it may be seen as a rite of passage and symbolic of her coming of age.
Construction and fit
A brassiere usually consists of a cup for each breast, a center panel (gore), a band running around the torso under the bust, and shoulder straps. Standard, well-fitting bras are constructed in the form of a “square frame”, anchored by a chest band, with all dimensions fitted (i.e., adjusted) for each prototypical wearer, assuming they are standing with both arms at their sides. The design also assumes that both breasts are equally sized and positioned. Some bras are strapless. Prior to 1900, fabrics like linen, cotton broadcloth, and twill weaves that could be sewn using flat-felled or bias-tape seams were used to make early brassieres.
Bra components, including the cup top and bottom (if seamed), the central, side and back panels, and the straps are cut based on manufacturer’s specifications. Many layers of fabrics are usually cut at once using a computer-controlled laser or a bandsaw shearing device. The pieces may be assembled by piece workers on site or at various locations using industrial grade sewing machines, or by automated machines. Coated metal hooks and eyes are attached are sewn in by machine and heat processed or ironed into the two back ends of the bra band and a label is attached. The completed bras are transported to another location for packaging, where they are sorted by style and folded (either mechanically or manually), and packaged or readied for shipment
No manufacturing standards
Manufacturing a well-fitting bra is a major challenge for companies, since the garment is supposed to be form-fitting, but the size and shape of women’s bodies and breasts vary widely.Manufacturers make standard bra sizes that provide a “close” fit, however even a women with accurate measurements can have a difficult time finding a correctly fitted bra because of the variations in sizes between different manufacturers.
Variance in bra sizes
There are several sizing systems in different countries.Most use the chest circumferences measurement system and cup sizes A-B-C+, but there are some significant differences. Most bras available usually come in 36 sizes, but bra labeling systems used around the world are at times misleading and confusing. Cup and band sizes vary around the world. For example, most women assume that a B cup on a 34 band is the same size as a B cup on a 36 band. In fact, bra cup size is relative to the band size, as the actual volume of a woman’s breast changes with the dimension of her chest.In countries that have adopted the European EN 13402 dress-size standard, the torso is measured in centimetres and rounded to the nearest multiple of 5 cm.
A number of reports state the 80–85% of women are wearing the wrong bra size. A correctly fitted bra is determined by accurately calculating the chest size (or band size) and breast volume (the cup size). The band size can be adjusted slightly using the two or three alternate sets of fastening hooks and eyes in the clasp. The bra straps (over the shoulders) can usually also be adjusted slightly.
[edit] Mechanical design
Bra designers liken designing a bra to building a bridge, because similar forces are at work. Just as a bridge is affected vertically by gravity and horizontally by earth movement and wind, forces affecting a bra’s design include gravity and sometimes tangential forces created when a woman runs or turns her body.”In many respects, the challenge of enclosing and supporting a semi-solid mass of variable volume and shape, plus its adjacent mirror image—together they equal the female bosom—involves a design effort comparable to that of building a bridge or a cantilevered skyscraper.”
Commenting about brassiere design, British Chiropractic Association representative Tim Hutchful said, “Bras are like suspension bridges. You need a well-engineered bra so your shoulders don’t end up doing all the work. Bras that don’t fit will affect the shoulders and chest, and will almost certainly cause back pain as you get older.”
Types of bras
There is a wide range of brassiere styles available, designed to match different body types, situations, and outer garments. The degree of shaping and coverage of the breasts varies between styles, as do functionality, fashion, fabric, and color. Common types include backless, balconette, convertible, cupless, custom-fit, demi cup, front-fastening, full coverage, halter, longline, minimizing, padded, plunge, posture, push-up, racerback, sports/athletic, sheer, strapless, strapless-backless, support, t-shirt, underwire, wireless, sports bra, and invisible. Many designs combine one or more these styles. Breast support is built into some garments like camisoles, single-piece swimsuits, and tank tops, eliminating the need to wear a separate bra.
Culture and fashion
Bras are a relatively recent invention and are by no means universally worn around the world. The majority of Western women choose to wear bras to conform to what they feel are appropriate societal norms and to improve their physical appearance. Wearing a bra can boost a woman’s self confidence. Many Western women place a great deal of importance on their physical appearance, especially their breast shape and body image. Western media, especially advertising, emphasize a woman’s body shape, especially her breasts.
Women choose to wear a particular style of bra for a variety of reasons. Her choices are consciously or unconsciously affected by social perceptions of the ideal female figure reflecting her bust, waist, and hip measurement. Fashion historian Jill Fields wrote that the bra “plays a critical part in the history of the twentieth-century American women’s clothing, since the shaping of women’s breasts is an important component of the changing contours of the fashion silhouette.” Bras and breast presentation follow the cycle of fashion
Each fall, Victoria’s Secret commissions the creation of a bra containing gems and precious metals. In 2010, it hired designer Damiani, the jeweler who created Brad Pitt’s and Jennifer Aniston’s wedding rings, to create a US$2 million Fantasy Bra. It includes more than 3,000 brilliant cut white diamonds, totaling 60 carats, and 82 carats of sapphires and topazes.
Bras and youth
Firm, upright breasts are typical of youth. As such, they do not need the support of a bra. A pencil test, developed by Ann Landers, has sometimes been promoted as a criterion to determine whether a girl should begin wearing a bra: a pencil is placed under the breast, and if it stays in place by itself, then wearing a bra is recommended; if it falls to the ground, it is not.
Young pubescent girls may have ambivalent feelings around the experience of buying and wearing their first bra. When a girl receives her first bra, it may be seen as a long-awaited rite of passage in her life signifying her coming of age. A young girl may be anxious to acquire her first bra before she actually needs support, if only for decorative purposes. She then is faced with the challenge of keeping current and wearing the latest, fashionable bra. Some young girls avoid wearing a bra, fearing an end to their childhood freedoms, such as going topless. Girls who develop breasts earlier than their peers may be sensitive to comments and teasing. Because bras are built to manufacturers’ standards, if the girl’s body does not conform to the shape and size of the bra, she may blame herself.
Teenage females have a higher rate of body image issues than any other female age group. Girls who are unhappy with their breast size are driving an increase in the number of breast augmentation surgeries. The number of women under the age of 18 who received breast implants more than tripled between 1992 and 2002, increasing by 24 percent of the population. Teens who undergo breast augmentation are at risk for a higher number of risks and complications and may require additional surgery sooner than older women.
Within Western cultures that place great value upon youth, bras are marketed to emphasize their ability to preserve a youthful appearance. The design of fashionable rather than solely functional bra has been influenced by changing fashions in outerwear and undergarments. The bra is sometimes viewed as an icon of popular culture that eroticizes female breasts as sexual objects.
Tween market for bras
Marketing executives have invented the concept of Tweeners, girls from under the age of about nine to girls of 13 or 14 who have reached puberty, as a new niche for selling bras. The tween market has been defined by media like MTV, brand globalization, the increased amount of money controlled by children, peer pressure, and more separated families with guilt-ridden parents playing off against each other. Paparazzi coverage of celebrities of all ages have included reports of teen star Miley Cyrus going braless.
In 2006, Target stores began stocking a range of bras for three- to four-year-olds, Bratz bras for three- to four-year-olds, Saddle Club bras for four- to six-year-olds, and a lightly padded Target brand bra for eight- to 10-year-olds. Australian retailer Big W’s added a Just Girls padded bra for eight- to 10-year-olds and a My Little Pony bandeau bra for two- to three-year-olds, and Bonds is now marketing My First T-Shirt Bra, for ages eight and up. In 2010, Primark stores withdrew a bikini featuring a padded bikini top targeted at seven-year-olds after protests by local consumers who described the marketing program as “premature sexualisation”
Bra shape
The culturally desirable figure for woman in Western culture has changed over time. In the United States during the 1920s, the fashion for breasts was to flatten them as typified by the Flapper era. During the 1940s and 1950s, the sweater girl became fashionable, supported by a bullet bra (known also as a torpedo or cone bra) like that worn by Jane Russell.
During the 1960s, bra designers and manufacturers began introducing padded bras and bras with underwire. Women’s perception of undergarments changed, and in the 1970s, they began to seek more comfortable and natural looking bras In response to the feminist era, many bra manufacturers’ marketing claimed that wearing their bra was like “not wearing a bra”. Women usually purchase a bra because they recognize they need to replace an existing bra or because they purchased new outwear requiring a new type of bra. Although in popular culture the invention of the bra is frequently attributed to men, in fact women have played a large part in bra design and manufacture, accounting for half of the patents filed
Social pressures and trends
The average American woman today owns six bras, one of which is a strapless bra, and one in a color other than white. Consumers spend around $16 billion a year on bras. In the last 15 years alone, the average bust among North America women has increased from 34B to 36C. A number of sources state that about 90% of Western women wear bras, although no authoritative source for this fact is available. Some wear bras because of feelings of modesty or because it is a cultural norm and they fear criticism or unwanted attention. Some wear bras because they believe it improves their appearance, while a minority prefer to go without because they find it more comfortable.
In a cross-cultural study of bra size and cancer in 9,000 women during the 1960s, a Harvard group found 93% wore bras (from 88% in the UK to 99% in Greece), but could not find enough women in Japan who wore bras to complete their study. In a number of cultures, including Europe and other Westernized countries outside the United States, there are fewer social restrictions against sunbathing or swimming topless. A Harris Survey commissioned by Playboy asked more than 1000 women what they like in a bra. Among the respondents, 67% said they like wearing a bra over going braless, while 85% wanted to wear a “Shape-enhancing bra that feels like nothing at all.” They were split over underwire bras, 49% said they prefer underwire bras while 49% said they prefer wireless bras.
The prevalence of the bra, and perceived social expectation to wear one, does not imply that openly displaying it is encouraged. On the contrary, it is often not considered suitable to expose one’s brassiere in public in western cultures, even partially, despite the fact that it is similar in appearance to the upper part of a bikini; to do so may be considered sexually provocative.
Even considering this relative cultural taboo, being seen in one’s bra is still more socially acceptable than exposing the bare breasts. Indeed, women may choose to be seen in just a bra may make a specific point. For instance, bras have recently been used by organisations like breast cancer charities to raise money, either by sponsored walks[60] or to sell bras owned or decorated by celebrities.
In 1994, a significant shift in advertising lingerie occurred when advertising executive Trevor Beattie working for TBWA/London featured Eva Herzigova in a close-up of her black Wonderbra and cleavage with the title, “Hello boys.” Looking down at her breasts, it is not clear whether she is addressing male admirers or her breasts. The ground-breaking, racy ad campaign resulted in many imitations along with a few complaints that the photograph demeaned women. The influential poster was featured in an exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and it was voted in at number 10 in a “Poster of the Century” contest. Push-up bras got significant attention in 2000 when actress Julia Roberts as Erin Brockovich wore an Ultimo bra containing liquid silicone gel to enhance her bust.
[edit] Bralessness
It is increasingly commonplace to see public figures, especially celebrities, actresses and members of the fashion industry have chosen not to wear bras. A well-known example is a member of the BBC Gardening’s Ground Force, Charlie Dimmock. Other celebrities noted for public bralessness include Britney Spears Clare Danes, Lindsay Lohan, Nadine Coyle, Mischa Barton Meg Ryan Paris Hilton, Miley Cyrus, Lady Gaga, fashion executive Tamara Mellon and former model and France’s first lady Carla Bruni, who welcomed Russian president Dmitry Medvedev at a state dinner in tight dress that revealed she was braless.
Many outer garments like sundresses and formal evening wear are designed to be worn without bras, or are designed with built-in support Fashion writers continue to suggest alternatives to bras or ways of dressing without bras, emphasising that wearing a bra or not is a matter of choice, as opposed to necessity Given the discomfort women experience with ill-fitting bras, an increasing number of women, once they are home, are switching to undershirts, jogbras, or nothing at all. Unhappy bra owners have donated thousands of bras to the Braball Sculpture, a collection of 18,085 bras.The organizer, Emily Duffy, wears a 42B and switched to stretch undershirts with built-in bras because standard bras cut her mid-section
[edit] Brassieres and security
The United States Transportation Security Administration recommends that women do not wear underwire bras because they can set off the metal detectors, though some travelers say they wear them and they do not set off the detector every time. On Sunday, 24 August 2008, big-busted passenger and film maker Nancy Kates set off a metal detector during security screening. She objected when the agent attempted to pat-down her breasts. She said she told the agent, “‘You can’t treat me as a criminal for wearing a bra.” A TSA supervisor told her she had to either submit to the pat-down search in a private room or not fly. Kates offered to take off her bra, which the TSA accepted. She went to the restroom, removed her bra, and walked through the airport and security screening braless. She said that a supervisor told her that underwire bras were the leading cause of metal detector false alarms.
According to underwire manufacturer S & S Industries of New York, who supply bras to Victoria’s Secret, Bali, Warner’s, Playtex, Vanity Fair and other bra labels, about 70 percent of women wear steel underwire bras.
In response, Triumph International, a Swiss company, launched what it called a “Frequent Flyer Bra” in late 2001. The bra uses metal-free clasps and underwires made of resin instead of metal that are guaranteed to not set off metal detectors.
[edit] Opposition to bras
During the Miss America contest in 1968, about 400 women from the New York Radical Women protested the event by symbolically trashing a number of feminine products. These included false eyelashes, high-heeled shoes, curlers, hairspray, makeup, girdles, corsets, and bras. Someone suggested burning the contents of a trash can, but a permit could not be obtained. The media seized on an analogy between draft resisters burning their draft cards and the women burning their bras. In fact, there was no bra burning, nor did anyone take off her bra.
Some feminist writers have considered the bra as an example of how women’s clothing has shaped and even deformed women’s bodies to historically aesthetic ideals, or shaped them to conform to male expectations of what is desirable. Professor Lisa Jardine observed feminist Germaine Greer talking about bras at a formal college dinner:
At the graduates’ table, Germaine was explaining that there could be no liberation for women, no matter how highly educated, as long as we were required to cram our breasts into bras constructed like mini-Vesuviuses, two stitched white cantilevered cones which bore no resemblance to the female anatomy. The willingly suffered discomfort of the Sixties bra, she opined vigorously, was a hideous symbol of female oppression
Germaine Greer’s book The Female Eunuch has been associated with the ‘bra burning movement’ because she pointed out how restrictive and uncomfortable a bra in that time period could be. “Bras are a ludicrous invention,” she wrote, “but if you make bralessness a rule, you’re just subjecting yourself to yet another repression.” For some, the bra remains a symbol of restrictions imposed by society on women: “…the classic burning of the bras…represented liberation from the oppression of the male patriarchy, right down to unbinding yourself from the constrictions of your smooth silhouette.”
Some people question the medical or social necessity of bras. An informal movement advocates breast freedom, top freedom, bra freedom, or simply going braless.
Bra opponents believe training bras are used to indoctrinate girls into thinking about their breasts as sexual objects. In their view, bras are not functional undergarments but simply exist to make the body more sexy and appealing. Feminist author Iris Young wrote that the bra “serves as a barrier to touch” and that a braless woman is “deobjectified”, eliminating the “hard, pointy look that phallic culture posits as the norm.” Without a bra, women’s breasts are not consistently shaped objects but change as the woman moves, reflecting the natural body. Unbound breasts mock the ideal of the perfect breast. “Most scandalous of all, without a bra, the nipples show. Nipples are indecent. Cleavage is good—the more, the better…” Susan Brownmiller in her book Femininity took the position that women without bras shock and anger men because men “implicitly think that they own breasts and that only they should remove bras.”
In October 2009, Somalia’s hard-line Islamic group Al-Shabaab forced women in public to shake their breasts at gunpoint to see if they wore bras, which they called “un-Islamic”. Those found to be wearing a bra were publicly whipped because bras are seen as “deceptive” and to violate their interpretation of Sharia law.
