The bra

In 1903 Mr Otto Titzling of Hamburg had horrendous difficulties with the laces of his wife's guépière and dressing her was like arming a sailing ship. But Otto was an ingenious man and to free himself from this task he did some geometric research and invented the bra, but all this is not very credible. However, if the invention is not the Germans', it is their wittiest advertising slogan for the bra: "It contains the strong, supports the weak, collects the lost". The first modern bra appeared in 1913, made by a wealthy New York lady, Mary Phelps Jacobs. The fashionable women of the time wore a corset made of whale sticks and ropes, similar to a box, which was very uncomfortable and hindered free movement. Mary Jacobs bought an expensive evening dress for a society party. The dress revealed the contours of her corset, so Mrs Jacobs, with the help of her French maid, Marie, designed a reduced bra that would not cover her back, using two handkerchiefs, some ribbon and a cord. Her friends who admired this light and improvised fashion received a sample as a gift. Mrs Jacobs gave the patent rights to Warner Brothers Corset for 1500 dollars. Since then the patent has been valued at $15 million.

The bra was born in Paris in 1889 thanks to Mrs Herminie Cadolle, an envelope and owner of a fashion house specialising in lingerie from which the garment that redeemed the woman from centuries of constraint came out. Historically, the only approach to women's breasts, in terms of clothing, consisted of a band that compressed them. Then came the bust, an instrument of torture. Tired of torturing women said Herminie Cadolle invented, in 18889, the garment that freed women from sticks, corsets and bandages, and they could finally breathe. What's more, her creation was in keeping with the female form instead of repressing it. He called this garment "Bien-ètre", to be well. It was a bra made of small sticks, silk and tulle. Madame Cadolle did golden business until the eve of the First World War when she competed with the more practical bra of the second generation of Warner Brothers. Since then the bra has had alternating fortunes. The Twenties were those of the "crisis woman", the imperative of fashion was to reduce the shapes to a minimum and the bra became again a band of constraint. At the festival of the Great, Gatsby women were all flat. But Ida Rosenthal, a seamstress and fashion designer, convinced that this would not last long, that breasts would soon be back in fashion, created Maidenform, a $40 million industry. In the 1930s there was the irruption of the prosperous women of Boccasile. After the war, the "oversized" ones arrived and there was Marilyn Monroe who didn't hide her use of padded bras: she called them underwear and on sultry days she put them in the fridge. During the years of the protest, feminists burned the bras in the square to symbolise sexual liberation. Over time the bra has evolved to become an element of elegance, design and fashion.