To protect & uphold: Bra evolution in one amazing video
From simple Roman cloths to corsets, the bra's evolution since ancient times is intertwined with the social history of the status of women and the evolution of fashion. Whether to cover, restrain or modify breasts, bras are a females' best friend.
The first charts back to several thousand years ago and simply consisted of cloth wrapped around the body. Romans disliked large breasts, the clip notes, so the 'mamillare' bra tried to disguise them.
By the Middle Ages fashions had changed to the corset for an hourglass figure. The design's now making a comeback with celebrities like Kim Kardashian and Amber Rose touting its slimming benefits.
Women went for boyish flat-chested designs in the early twentieth century with the Symington, but by the late 1920s the Maiden Form once again embraced natural curves.
Within a decade new underwired bras helped lift and support the breast, a design popular to this day and which according to the video even deflects bullets!
Post-war bullet bras were 'worn under sweaters to create a very buxom look' states the Glamour Magazine clip. The cone shapes were popularized by Hollywood icons like Marilyn Monroe and enjoyed a brief revival in the 1990s.
A model demonstrates how the see-through sheer or 'no bra' of the sixties had no lining or underwire. They were popular with the era's counterculture.
During the 1970s, the nipple bra created a 'sensual cold weather look', although the video claims a top lingerie firm's recent effort to bring it back was a failure.
The first do-it-yourself sports bra was apparently just two jock straps stuck together. The jogbra was the first manufactured sports bra.
The wonderbra, though created in the 1960s, was revived in the early nineties and marketed as the first design to lift and push the bustline together.
By the start of the 21st century the strapless nubra was attached with silicone adhesives and advertised as enhancing breast size. The design is still popular with women allowing them to wear strapless and backless dresses.
The smart memory bra claims to offer a hi-tech foam that expands with heat and contracts in the cold.
The video ends with a cheeky 'future bra' joking that women will be robots by the end of the century.
