Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society - Bras

Episode Date: July 12, 2022

Bras are an everyday item for around half of the adult population, and for as long as humans have developed breasts they have been faced with the question of how to keep them contained within intricate outfits and during strenuous activity.But how has the modern day bra developed from strapping and so-called bra bags? When did cups and cup sizings make their debut? What about underwires and padding? And has the pandemic changed our preferences?Kate is joined by Lorraine Smith, twitter’s Master of Bras, to find out about the technical and stylistic development of bras, and what burning them is all about.*WARNING There is some fruity language in this episode*Produced by Charlotte Long and Sophie Gee. Edited & Mixed by Thomas Ntinas.Betwixt the Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society.A podcast by History Hit.Vote for Betwixt the Sheets in the Listener’s Choice Award at The British Podcast Awards Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Do you want even more shocking and scandalous history? Like why the ancient Greek statues had such small manhoods? Or what went on behind closed doors in the Georgian era? We'll sign up to History Hit, where you can see me discover the scandalous side of history, as well as hundreds of hours of original documentaries, plus new releases every week, covering everything from prehistoric Scotland to the Treaty of Versailles.

Sign up to join me in locations around the world and explore the past. Just visit historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. Hello, it's me again and my lovely betwixters, jumping in to give you your fair do's warning. This is a podcast about sex scandal in society, and as you might expect, we will be straying into these areas. It's not particularly shocking this episode, but it is fabulous as always.

But there is some fruity language, and we're talking about bras and all the things that go in them. So if you are somebody that will be shocked by this type of conversation, Fair do's you have been warned. But if you are still with me, my lovelies, then let's get into it. Lacey, plain, padded, push-up, plunge, boostiers, sports bras, brawlets, wired, underwired. I could just go on and on and on. There are so many different kinds of contraptions that we use to hoist the girls up or squish them down or whatever it is that we're trying to do to wrestle our chesticles into submission.

But how did we get here? When did the bra arrive? What's been the fashion? Has it changed? And particularly now we've come out, ish, of the pandemic. And we all spent about a year lolling around with no bras on at all. Has that changed things? Well, we are betwixt the sheets, or in this case, betwixt the clothes, to find out more.

What do you look for any man? Oh, money, of course. You're supposed to rise when an adult speaks to you. I make perfect compensation. whatever my boss needs by just turning enough and pushing your butt. Yes, social courtesy does make a difference. Goodness, my beautiful time. Goodness has nothing to do with it, Derry. Hello and welcome back to the Twix the Sheets, the history of sex scandal and society, with me Kate Lister.

So around half the adult population, the time that you'll see a bra is possibly in a laundry basket or if you are lucky enough to be getting down and jiggy with it. But for the other half, there are pretty much everyday objects, ranging from sports bras to push-up bras to the one bra that we've all got that we actually wear that's kind of ratty around the edges, and the massive pile of other glorious bras that we never actually wear, and there will be many of them. My producers, Charlotte and Sophie, who are desperately trying not to get arrested at this point, very respectfully approached Londoners to find out just how long you should keep a bra for, i.e. What's the most historical bra in their collection? I definitely have still have some bras from when I was in sick form, which is like nearly 10 years ago. But I feel like you should probably keep them for a couple of years, but I have some old ones.

I would keep an underwire bra until it fell apart. For as long as there's no thread bareness or there's no holes or it doesn't smell really bad, keep wearing them. To get some answers to these points, questions. I'm joined by Lorraine Smith, Twitter's Master of Bras, to dig into these items of clothing that so often and so irritatingly dig into us. And welcome to Betwixt the Sheets and who have I got Betwixt the Sheets with me? It's only Laurie Smith. Hello. Hello. Nice to meet you. It is amazing to meet you. One of the things I love about this job is just meeting all kinds of

different people who research different things. And a bra historian, I think, is just incredible. Yeah, who'd have thought it? Such a thing would exist, but I did get a little bit obsessed. You know, it's these sort of objects, aren't they? They're everyday, at least half the people, well, maybe not. A lot of people wear bras. We're all familiar with bras. They feel quite modern. But when you actually stop and think about it, yeah, bras. What was the history of bras? Because the thing that I was thinking about when I knew I was going to talk to you was that, like, said, they feel like a modern invention, but we've always had tits. Yes. And for as long as there have been tits swinging off the front of us, they must have been a bit uncomfortable, right? For some people. So there

must have always been a need to hold them down, hoist them up, keep them where they're not swinging low and free. Yeah, there has been, hasn't always been a bra that's done that. So there's been all sorts of different things ranging from Greeks and Romans with strips of fabric that were wrapped around to keep everything in place. That's, well, if you were doing anything vaguely approaching exercise, that was, but most of the time, I guess you just weren't moving around enough to need support, perhaps. Oh, that's rather depressing, isn't it? You were just sort of lounging with your boobs, just sort of spread out across your rib cage. Which, you know, does actually, sound quite nice. Actually, when I just said that, yeah.

I was like, that's what I intend to do with the rest of my evening. It just doesn't sound too bad. And then more recently, then there would have been corsets or stays, as they were called, before that. So that gave you, it wasn't just about shaping the body, but it gave lots of bust support as well. So if you were working, it would give you. support for your bust and also support for your back as well. So, I mean, don't get me started on like corset myths, because we'll probably get to bra myths later on. But yeah, so this was the reason that bras kind of came into being how they are now

is partly thanks to feminists in the 19th century. Yeah, feminists in the late 19th century were, there was a few of them that were called dress reformers because they were basically coming up with all these really cool ways to dress that were not as oppressive as the latest fashions and would allow a woman to be as free and floaty and arty and active as she wanted to be. And one of these things was alternatives to the corset. So although they wouldn't necessarily, a lot of them wouldn't have looked like bras,

not the way we would view a bra. It was kind of the first steps towards the bras that we get today. Oh, I see. And then when you get to the beginning of the 20th century, the fashionable corsets rather than covering your tits, they moved a bit further down the body, so they just covered your middle and your abdomen and onto your hips. So the boobs were once again...

I've seen that. That Betty Page spotted that, didn't she? That kind of mid-drift corset thing. Yeah, so they started... I'm with you. In the sort of early 20th century and then became... rather than the sort of steel-boned corsets then, they sort of morphed into girdles with stretchy fabrics and everything by the time that Betty Page was wearing, things like that.

But it's basically the same thing, really. So when they were first, they first became fashionable, obviously you've got nothing covering your boobs, nothing supporting your boobs. And so these radical things that had been around in the late 19th century, suddenly corset manufacturers were like, hmm, if women haven't got anything covering their boobs, maybe we can sell them something to cover their boobs. So when they buy a corset, we'll try and sell on this other thing that covers the top half as well.

There are two large gaps in the market. Yeah. So it went from being a sort of, if you want to wear it, to, oh, it's the latest thing. We all need to have one. And then companies started, they first called a brazier in, I think that term was first coined in about like 1904, 1907, something like that. That's a lot later than I thought it would be actually. Before that, they tended to be called bust supporters.

That's catchy. Which is not quite as good as it. It doesn't sound quite so kind of French and fashionable. It sounds a bit kind of frumpy. No. So yeah, and then the word brazier was shortened to bra in the 1930. I think it was a manufacturer called Warner that first did that. And then lots of other companies were like, ooh, that sounds quite modern.

Maybe we should go with bra as well. So then everyone started calling them bras. And yeah, so from the 1930s onwards, not just in name, but lots of other things that lead to the bras we have today, started to come into place. So, yeah, I always think the 1930s is kind of when modern bras were born. Wow. See, I thought, and I don't know why I thought this, but I thought you were going to say the bra was invented in blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But that doesn't sound like it was the case. Yeah, well, so one of the big bra myths is that one person invented the bra.

Oh, tell me. Actually, lots of people invented the bra at lots of different times. They came up with various different garments that, were basically a type of bra. Oh. So, yeah, it just developed over time. It's like there are a few people that patented things that became quite famous, including one lady who when she patented her design, she was Mary Phelps-Jacob.

And then she changed her name when she got married, including her first name as well, because her husband suggested it and she was like, oh, okay. So she became Caress Crosby. I would change my name to that though It's pretty good, isn't it? Apparently one of the names that she was considering was clitoris. No, it was. Spout slightly differently.

But instead she named her dog clitoris instead, and she went with caress. So yeah, I think her and her husband, Harry Crosby, were a bit interesting. There were some conversations there. I would imagine standing at the back door and shout. for clitoris. Yeah. I bet that's exactly why they named their dog that. So when they took it out for a walk,

they could really embarrass everyone that was near them. Don't worry. She's really friendly. Oh, dear, right. So they sound like an absolute riot. Yes, yeah. So because Caress was... I can't quite that serious.

She was quite the socialite. You'd need to be. She wrote a book in the 1950s, which I have a copy of, which is like her memoirs, the story of her life. And in that she says, I can definitely claim to be the inventor of the bra. And so I wonder if that's why lots of people think that she invented the bra, because she said she did.

And you're not going to argue with a woman who has a dog called clitoris. No. But what did she invent then? What did she do that was new? It was at the time there were sort of, I think it was around 1914, maybe 19, 19, lots of the, types of bras or bus supporters that you can get were quite frumpy. They had a lot of coverage to them. And so if you wanted to wear something under a nice evening gown, it might show. And so the legend has it that she got, she tried on this dress and her brassiere showed. And she asked her maid, I guess, to like get me some handkerchiefs and a sewing kit and some ribbon. And she made a bra out of that. Wow.

So the thing that she made was basically like sort of two triangles with a couple of darts in them and ribbons that sort of wrapped around the back and went across the shoulders. So it was super, super simple. But would have given a little bit of support and would have been a lot smaller under an evening gown. So that's her sort of famous patent. But there's so many. I've got this book called Uplift the Brough in America. And it's got an awful. lots of patents from that, that period.

That particular chapter has just got masses and masses of people inventing something that gave more uplift, was more comfortable, was more like, yeah, just loads and loads of different things. So there's loads of people getting in on the act by the 1930s and I've got one with a different strap and I've got one that does this and I've got one with radio signal and all of that. Yeah, pretty much. Wow. okay, if I could take you right back to some of the earliest evidence that we've got of it,

before we get up to caress and her dog clitoring. I'm really going to struggle to move past that. You've told that to me. Sorry. If you were like a Roman woman or a Greek woman, do we have any kind of sense of what they were doing? Because I know you said, like, wrap it round. Like, would that be like a long piece of fabric and they'd kind of try and strap their boobs down? Or do we have any idea what they were doing?

Well, my little admission to make here is that I'm pretty much a anything before the 20th century is boring kind of person. So it's only very recently that I've thought, hmm, if I'm going to write about history of the bra, maybe I should know about stuff that's earlier than the 20th century just to kind of round things out and lead in to the main event. Just for a rounded picture. Yeah, yeah. So I did do it a little bit of reading up on this recently. And it seemed like, I mean, a little bit of reading up, but not so much that I can actually remember what these things were called. Braricus. Maybe.

They were basically very, very long strips of fabric, like hugely long. And they just kept wrapping it round, around, around and tuck the ends in. So it's like chest binding? Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. Okay. Okay, I guess that makes sense. If you've got places to be and things to do, I suppose you would need some kind of support.

There's sort of anything as we're going, like, into the medieval period or maybe something in, like, non-Western cultures. I suppose it's kind of difficult, isn't it? But if you looked at a long piece of fabric, why would you know that was wrapped around someone? Well, exactly. I think that's maybe the reason why there's quite a lot of gaps in this sort of history. Yeah, there was a discovery that was dated around 15th century. I think and a whole load of garments and things were unearthed in this castle. Oh, I think I read about that.

In Europe. I think it was Germany, I think. Yeah. And I remember that because I tweeted about it and everyone said that it looks like Kanye's latest line of clothing. Yes, that's exactly it. So what it turns out, all of the reporting on this was like, oh my God, it's a bra. It's a bra from far earlier than we thought it was a bra. but I found a longer piece that had been written by the archaeologist who found that

and it turns out that all of the pictures that were used in newspapers reporting that only showed the top part of the photograph so the garment it didn't all survive but what you could see on the mannequin in those photos was what looked like straps and two cups like bra but actually a bit further down the photo you could see there was a bit of fabric going further down the side, which looks like it was basically part of a bigger undergarment. So it was maybe some sort of chemise or slip that happened to have these kind of what I've heard referred to as breast bags. Who's out there referring to the breast bags?

There's so many really hilarious words in the history of the bra. I'm never referring to a bra as anything else. Even in the sexiest of moments, I needed to take my breast bag off, please. I've got my comfy breast bags on today. That's ridiculous. Sorry, continue. So that garment was actually probably more like a chemise or a slip that had a bit of extra support in the top. But because a lot of the fabric had degraded and there was only little bits showing, it was mostly the bit that looked like a bra that had survived.

So that's why everybody got super. excited. So yeah, there would have been, there's probably quite a lot of things like that that were just boob pads. Other, yeah, other types of undergarment that someone had thought, hang on a minute, maybe we can do a bit more than just cover. Maybe we can kind of hoist them up a bit as well, yeah. One of the things I've kind of knows, I don't know, maybe you're researching this, maybe somebody's researched this, but boob size seems to go in and out of fashion. Like I'm doing a bit of work around medieval beauty standards. And they keep referring back to that.

All boobs are being compared to apples. Like pretty, like this kind of, they're like, pipkin apples and like lovely, like they're supposed to like these little kind of very round, very firm boobs. And it seems like the absolute pendless knockers that we would see in the Wonderbrow adverts, that they just weren't interested in that. Yeah. There has been massive change over the centuries in what's considered to be.

attractive and what's the sort of fashionable body ideal and boobs are a huge part of that. I remember reading an article that a few years ago people got a little bit annoyed about it without having read it a lot on social media. Oh, what was the article? I love it when we do that on social media. We're pissed off and we don't know why.

Do you want to read it? No. Oh God, I'm going to have to buy Vogue so I can actually read what the journalist has written. What was it? What was said? But basically she said like, boobs are over. Nobody wants boobs anymore. Cleavage is done. But actually what it was is she was reporting that on red carpets, lots of dresses were kind of covering up a lot more. So they were high necklines. So it wasn't boobs or out of fashion. It was like not showing cleavage was currently not the thing. It did make me think what has been the fashion in the time that I was researching. And I think I looked from the start of the 20th century. And the start of the 20th century was the monobosom. A monobusum. Yes.

So not two separate breasts. Just one big full chest. Just squeezing together until you get one. Yes. Yes. Basically, not even matronly. Just weird looking. Like a pigeon, basically, with those weird S-Bend corsets.

I'll be back with Laurie after this short break. Millions dead. A higher proportion of civilian casualties than in the Second World War. America, Britain, Russia and China all involved in a conflict that technically remains active to this day. So why is the Korean War of 1950 to 53 called the Forgotten War? The North Koreans and the South Koreans, even today in the 2020s, they're still officially at war. This July, we're dedicating a special series of episodes to finding out what this unique conflict was all about. From the halls of power?

I've seen documents in the last week where the British Chiefs of Staff. are telling Clement Attlee, this might lead to World War 3. This might be a nuclear war. To the battlefront. During the Korean War, the ship fired its guns, far more than it ever did in the whole of the Second World War, because that's what we were doing, die in, died out. Join me, James Rogers, throughout July,

on the Warfare podcast from History Hit. As we remember the war, the world forgot. Actually, yes, I think I've seen adverts for that. So your bum's sticking out and your boobs are sticking out, but your boobs are one boob. Just one big, you know boob. Right. And then when we get towards the 1920s, not having boobs is fashionable. So to get all those nice dresses to hang properly, people would squish their boobs down and flatten them so that it looked like they didn't have the curves that they've got. And then in the 1930s, having nice, rounded, separated breasts was in fashion.

Two boobs was in fashioning. So, yeah, we've got bras them with two separate cups in, but not loads of uplift or anything. Wait, wait. So did the really early ones, they just had one cup, just one giant boob cup? Yeah, yeah. The separation only started, like, towards the end of the 1920s. Okay. So the 30s was, I hate to use the word natural, but that's how they were imagining it. Yeah.

It's like that this is a natural shape for breasts to be. It didn't have any weird shape, extra uplift. It was just two separate boobs. And then the 1940s, everything got a bit, ooh, we can uplift by like adding stronger fabrics and stitching and make boobs really pointy, like torpedo. The pointy boob. So pointy boobs then became a thing

and was still a thing into the 1950s and still kind of a thing at the beginning of the 60s as well because if you look at a lot of early 1960s bras they're a bit more pointy than we would wear today. They are and they do look like cones, don't they? Yeah, yeah. You look at sort of old vintage modelling and catalogue pictures

is the boobs do, like if somebody was approaching you in a bar with tits like that, you would be quite alarmed, I think. Yeah, I thought they were quite, scary. And also I... They're quite aggressive. I thought, oh, well, that's, you know, a lot of that's going to be, I don't know, people are a bit smaller, photo editing, lots of it is illustrations on adverts. Nobody really looked like that. And then I found that one of the bras I've got in my collection, because obviously I collect vintage bras. Of course. Is 1940s one, and it actually fits me. So I tried

it on. It's like mega, mega pointy. And oh my God, it actually made my boobs super pointy. And it was really weird, but also quite, I mean, I didn't put any clothes on over the top. I think that would have been the weird thing if I put a t-shirt on over the top with like super pointy boobs. So, yeah. Was it comfortable? It can't be comfortable. It was actually comfortable. It hasn't got any underwiring in.

Yeah. It made from quite a sort of sturdy fabric, but which I thought, mind you, I say that it was comfortable, but, I did not spend all day in it. And that's the thing, isn't it? You try on a bra and you're like, oh, this is great. And then by the end of the day, you're like, I don't want to wear this anymore. So, yeah, maybe I should do a test.

Give it a wear test. Yeah. And also, if you could just like have a little body camera on you somewhere just to see people's reactions when you're walking around these traffic cone tits just to see what people were making of it. But just what you said there about people can... Because I haven't worn a bra for years, I like free-boobing it,

and I realise that that puts me into an interesting category of my own that is much politicised and... Yes. We'll talk about that in a minute. But when did underwiring come in? Because there is very little that will make a woman feel more like, oh, thank fuck for that, than coming in and taking that bra off.

As you say, she's been in it all day and that underwire's been digging. Where did that come from? When did we start getting underwheres? Underwires first got developed in the US in the 1930s. So they weren't super popular in the UK until after the Second World War. There was a period of they were just being developed and they were quite innovative and new. So not many manufacturers are doing it yet.

And then the war happened and metal went to other uses rather than under things. But then after the Second World War, when garment manufacturers could get hold of more. supplies again. They were like, oh my God, we're going to make so much stuff out of nylon and put loads of metal in it again just because we couldn't. And now we can. I know what women want. Metal clothes. But then also, because the fashion at the time was inspired by Christian Dior and what got called his new look. So tiny waists, burky breasts, and the sort of thing that you basically need a bit of kind of corsetry and help to be able to get. that shape. So lots of underwired bras then became popular. I mean, it still wasn't as ubiquitous as it was

at the beginning of the 21st century. There was still an awful lot of bras that didn't have underwires him. But yeah, they became more common. And actually, the problem of them being uncomfortable has always been a thing. And manufacturers have always tried ways to make them more comfortable. And one of my favorite things about a lot of 1950s bras is that you look on the inside of them and the back of the underwires is quite often in fancy ones covered in velvet. Ooh, fancy pants, okay. And the ends of the underwires where it might poke a little bit, that is padded a little bit to make it a bit more comfortable.

So it's always, always been a pain in the padded boom. Yeah. I always think underwire bras, they're a bit like shoes. You can buy a super comfy slouchy bra. You can buy super comfy slouchy shrew. shoes. Yeah. But also, sometimes you might want to wear fancy, high-heeled, pointy, tow shoes that are actually

quite impractical, but they look super nice. If you want your knuckers to look amazing, you need the scaffolding. Exactly. So comfort is relative. And if you are sat in a very nice outfit at a posh event, you're probably going to be sitting up straight and not slouching and lazy around anyway. Yeah, so, you know. This is true.

Choose the right bra for the right job as you would choose the right shoes for the right job, I think. Those are words to live by, without a doubt. So let me ask you this. I've always been curious about this. Brassizing. Yeah. Right. Why does it go A, A, A, A, B, B.

Why doesn't it just like continuously go through the alphabet? Why do we get like double D? Why doesn't it just like run through? Why aren't the people walking around going, yeah, I am a Z though? You know, like why? Well, there's probably one really big, busted person listening to this going, fuck off. Yeah. But where did that come from?

The doubling up? Well, my theory on this is that when Warner, again, as well as being the first to shorten Brasier to Bras, they were the first, well, there was a couple of companies, but I reckon they were first to develop the cup sizing system that had letters. And they went with ABCD. Right. Because at the time, I'm assuming, they thought anyone's smaller than that, ain't going to be wearing a bra. And nobody's bigger than that. Or maybe they thought, these are fashionable bras.

Nobody bigger than this is going to be wearing fashionable bras. They're going to be wearing matronly bras. Right. They're going to be wearing the old fashion style things because there seemed to be a lot of insinuation in the adverts that I've seen that if you had smaller boobs, you were youthful and if you had bigger boobs you were a bit of an old lady really so...

So what I think happened was that when you get to, I don't know, maybe getting to the 1960s and you're doing lots of kind of youthful styles for teenagers and someone maybe thought oh actually we kind of need to make these smaller than an A

what do we do? And someone went on double A that'll be smaller than a we'll just go with that and then we need to make something bigger than a D. I know, let's just go with double D. Not thinking ahead to actually think, well, maybe we might want to make bras in bigger sizes. Right, because you don't get double Bs, do you?

No, no. How much I try to pretend that you could. So you got double A. I think some specialist brands even do triple A, even smaller. That was probably like my first bra when I'm sure I was being humid because I just had the physique of a map. stick but yeah feeling very grown up in my triple A bra

So yeah I think that's what happened And then after the double D somebody thought Actually do you know what They're getting bigger lads There are people we can sell bras to Who are bigger than this

Maybe we should go with some additional letters The thing I don't understand though Is why have we got double F Because in UK bra sizes It goes like double A, which you can't always find, A, B, C, D, D, D, D, E, F, D, D, F, G, why, why is there a double F?

It makes no sense. It's like we're over-complicating things. And then in America, I think this is because nobody made any rule for this in the same way that all clothes-sizing for women's wear is like nobody's agreed on any of this. They're just making it up as they go along. So in America, I think you can get triple letters as well.

But it just, anytime I go to buy bra I just have to like search for a million different sizing charts and look up what the brand suggests you measure yourself as. So if anyone listening is confused by bra sizes, you are not alone. Even somebody who has a master's degree that turned out to mostly be about bra history, even though it was supposed to be about fashion history.

I just basically wrote about underwear. Yeah, even. I am super confused by bra sizes. That's so true. There is a certain brand, but I won't name it here, but the thing is that they cater towards bigger chests. And I don't know any friend that has gone in there to get measured that hasn't come out absolutely bouncing because they've been told they're like a double D. And even though I'm looking at them going, yeah, but you're definitely not. Well, that's the thing though, because the cup size is relative to the band size. Okay.

So all of that thing where people, well, I say people, I kind of mean men, were always like, oh yeah, I can tell she's a D cup. It means nothing, isn't it? You can't. It means nothing because somebody who is a 32D is going to have very different size boobs to somebody who is a 38 or a 40D. Yeah. Her boobs are going to be huge. And the one with the 32 band size is going to be much smaller in comparison. So yeah, it's all a bit of a big. mystery, which is why...

It's very much a complete mystery. It's why if you go somewhere and you get measured and you get a bra that actually fits you and lifts your boobs up to somewhere you want them to be, that can be super exciting because it's so hit and miss trying it by yourself. Yes. So I touched on just briefly there. Like the bra is quite a political item as well, isn't it? Because we can't not talk about, I think this might be a myth.

Brow burning in the 60s. Tell me about that. Yeah, well, it's one of those, I think it's a myth, but then maybe, basically, it all stemmed from a protest at the Miss America Beauty Pageant in 1968, I think it was. And this group of feminists had planned this protest. And what they were going to do is they were going to get a trash cam and throw into it objects that. they considered to be the patriarchy oppressing women, and then they were going to set fire to it. But because where this protest is being held, it was on a boardwalk, a nice old wooden boardwalk. When they looked into the details of having their protests there, the fire regulations were like, no, you can't burn anything. Like, if you try and burn stuff, we're going to call the police.

That's such a woman's response. It's like, right, we're going to riot. Oh, does anyone check the fire regulations? are we better not. I know. They were being very, very sensible about this. So, yeah, what actually happened on that particular day was they had this trash can, which I've seen the photos of it,

and they put a handwritten sign on the front that said, Freedom Trash Can. And they threw in like high heels, bras and girdles and things like that. But the reason that the bra burning thing sort of became a little bit of discourse around it at the time was because a journey. list had written about it for the New York Post saying, oh, these feminists, they're going to burn bras outside the Miss America beauty pageant. So it got written about before it happened. Right. But it didn't actually happen the way it was reported. It didn't actually happen because of

health and safety. Yes. So although I tend to consider it as a bit of a myth because it didn't happen the way everyone says it did, somebody also pointed out to me, but maybe I'm, maybe I after reading about it, other people did go and have their own protests and burn bras. So maybe it did happen. Hmm, who knows? That could be a whole research paper in and of itself, I reckon. I love that story though, of like, right, smash the patriarchy, but safely, do it safely, everybody. There's no point of being silly about this.

There was some research that came out a couple of years ago that I'd like to talk about, and it was some kind of link between bras and cancer? Or is that just nonsense? Maybe it wasn't like research, maybe it was just like the internet rumours? It is a bit of nonsense, really. It's nonsense, right, okay. I haven't seen any research that actually says there's any links.

I think the only thing that I've read that maybe links into that is somebody like suggesting that wearing tight clothing that presses against certain lymph nodes was more likely to lead to something which might... So basically it's nonsense, yeah. And it's something that basically anything to do with bras that is slightly shocking

tends to get picked up by people and say, bras cause this, bras cause that. Bras are super unhealthy to wear you shouldn't be doing it. Same as corsets. As corsets in the 19th century. It's like, it's health risks. It's dreadful. Why do women do this to themselves? There was a paper that was published a few years ago. And I think this was research, she says, in inverted commas. Women that wear bras have saggier boobs than women who don't. That was the idea was that if you don't wear a bra, the muscles are stronger and you have mussely, spectacular tits.

Well, this, again, is a whole bunch of rubbish. Rubbish. It's rubbish. I think it's one of those things when you read research like that and you get just like the headlines from it, actually when you look into the detail about what was their sample size, what was it they were actually testing for in the first place. So the similar thing with the 80% of women are wearing the wrong bra size. As far as I can tell, that came from one tiny study of only a handful of women who they were measuring because they had reported. back pain. So chances are they were all wearing the wrong bra size. The wrong size bra. Always follow it up. Or if it says research says, go and find the research paper and read it. Yeah. I went to the University of Portsmouth. A couple of years, actually, no, it's not a couple years ago. We've had a pandemic. It'll be much longer ago than that. Before the, before pandemic. Because yeah, I actually went there in person. They have a breast health research group and they do little workshops that you can go along to.

They tell you all about their research. You get lots of information about breast health and bras. And the breast health stuff was super interesting because they do a lot of testing of sports bras there. So it was very, very interesting to go along to. But when they were talking about how breasts are actually made up, it's mostly fat and glandular tissue. So how a bra could stop your boobs from sagging or make your boob sag?

Yes. Yeah. How? It's just not possible. They're basically just big fatty bags. And the reason that some boobs are firmer and perkyer than others is usually down to the amount of fat compared to the amount of glandular tissue. So if someone's got more glandular tissue, then their breasts will be firmer because of that. And if they've got more fatty tissue, then your boobs will be squishier.

So, yeah, but wearing or not wearing a bra makes no difference whatsoever. Makes no difference. It's time and gravity that does its thing. Oh, boom. Yeah. Boom. Sadly. Just before I let you go, we've got to finish off by talking about where we are now and the future of bras.

Because I mentioned that, like, years ago, I just decided I hate bras, I don't want to wear one. which to me is just, this is just much more comfortable. But then I'm always aware that if you're out and about without a bra on, like that can freak people out. And it's like, I'm not doing it to upset anybody. It's just, you know, free the leads too. So it's quite a political, like, political is the right word. But it's either you wear the bra and you sort of force yourself into it

and then you're sort of dealing with the, well, do I want to be sexy bra or do I want to have the breast bags or whatever? Or do you think do I just free-boab it and then just have people freaking out because you're not wear... Like I remember when Charlie Dimock, the gardener became really famous. What for gardening? No, because she didn't wear a bra

and no one could cope with it. Yeah. It's like, where are we at the moment with bras? Do you think? That's the thing that stops me from not wearing a bra is the reaction from other people. It's weird, isn't it?

Because boobs have for so long been hoisted up into something that stops them moving around. Yeah. Even a small amount of moving around which isn't at all uncomfortable to the person who has the boobs, is just immensely distracting for the rest of the world. We are not ready for this jelly.

We're not ready for it. I remember when I was a student in Manchester in the early 90s, and I had a particular bra that I loved because it was super comfy. I don't think it was underwired. It was made of a really stretchy fabric. So these days you'd probably call it a brawlet. And I remember walking across the city centre, and I must have had limited time

so I was striding really, really purposely striding no coat on covering up and I suddenly noticed like why are people staring at me like what have I got something stuck in my hair or on my face

and then I glanced in a shot window as I was walking past and saw my reflection and my boobs were really bouncing and then once I realised that that's why people were staring I walked the rest of the way with my arms crossed.

Oh, that's so... And so ever since then, it's partly been because a bra hold your boobs at particular height. And so sometimes I'll put clothes on and the clothes will look weird if I'm not wearing a bra because my boobs are too low

and that's just my own mental image of myself. It doesn't match up. But then there's other outfits that would look absolutely fine without it, but I'd be like, is it going to be too bouncy? Are people going to be staring at me? And I think that's

been a lot of, like in the 70s, there was a big period of time where a bunch of people with boobs gave just zero fucks given and would just go out without wearing a bra. It became very, very fashionable. So it started off with feminist ditching the bras and then in the 70s became super fashionable to either not wear a bra or look like you weren't wearing a bra. So these very sort of not as supportive bras became super fashionable. but still I think there were people who would stare there were people who'd be like oh I would never do that I'd never go without bra but I think maybe now because of the pandemic and so many people who did wear bras being at home and saying actually do you know what I'm not gonna and then going back out into the world again and being like actually do you know what I still don't want to I wonder if it'll stop being a thing now do you know I was promised to that During the pandemic, we all agreed that we wouldn't wear tailored trousers or bras anymore.

And there's a lot of people out there who have now reneged on this promise. And I am still slaying the flag. Do you think we're going to see because of the pandemic, because people spent just two years indoors just going, I'm not wearing a bra. And do you think it's changed? I think that maybe a lot of people are thinking a bit more about it. So rather than just automatically assuming

this is a thing I need to wear, thinking about do I want to, do I want to with this outfit? Do I want to wear a boring everyday bra or shall I just go, fuck it, to boring everyday bras? But I still like the super fancy ones. Yes, I'm in that camp. Because bras that show with lots of strappy bits that show underneath your clothes. It was a thing before the pandemic, but it's like even more of a thing now. Yeah. So I wonder if it's now getting to be more of a freedom to do what you want.

and more people are just caring about what they want from a bra or not, rather than what other people think they should do. Yeah. Corona tits. I love it. And what about that's a thing? I don't know where that came from. What about like brawlets?

Because now there's a whole, I'm not sure I remember brawets being a thing when I was growing up, but these seem to have like cornered the market, don't they? We don't have underwire and we don't have those claspie bits at the back, but we still offer you some support. that is a thing that I tend to get really, really annoyed about because... Oh, right. Okay.

Right, I'm buckling up. Okay, go on. First of all, the word brawlet was just completely made up by marketing people because there have always been bras without underwires. The first bras didn't have underwires. But at the beginning of the 21st century, pretty much all the bras you could buy were underwired ones with foam cups so your boobs look like two big round globes with no nipples. And so I think that to make non-wired bras seem exciting again and that oh this is a new

thing that you might want to try, they called it a brawlot because saying like a non-wired bra it didn't sound very sexy in marketing terms. Whereas if you call it a brawlot, it sounds always a fancy thing, what's this new thing? Because there's always been non-wired bras, like every single decade that I think, oh, was it all under, no, it wasn't it an underwired, like, every, it's just the early 2000s where you've just got like underwires as far as the eye can see. Do you think that the brawl it might be because we all lived through that Wonderbrae pushup Hello Boys advertising campaign? Because I do remember that. Like, was it supermodel, Eva with the huge boobs?

Over her Sagova and actually That's the one, thank you very much If you look back at the Hello Boys advert And poster, her boobs are not that big And that's why she needed the Wonderbra So that's the whole story of itself The Wonderbra was not new in the 90s Despite the fact that I thought it was

Because I fell for all the marketing that said it was a new thing But actually that particular type of Wonderbra That push-up plunge bra was first released in the early 1960s. But it was for a long time, all throughout the 1980s, it was considered like a solution bra. So one of those things that you wouldn't necessarily choose unless you had small boobs and you needed to make it look bigger

or you had a low-cut top and you needed to show cleavage, you didn't really have any cleavage. So it was only when at the early 90s, plunging necklines were a bit more fashionable. And then Kate Moss said, even I get cleavage wearing Wonderbra. And everyone went, what's a Wonderbra? I need one of these. And so it became a thing.

And yeah, the reason that there was that big advertising campaign was because the manufacturer that had the license to make Wonderbra in the UK, that license expired in 1994. And the people that owned the name and the brand also owned Playtex that make underwear. So they were like, well, we're going to keep Wonderbra for ourselves. And then Gossard were like, well, we'll just make our own version then. And so the newspapers reported these bra wars because it was basically adverts for push up plunge bras as far as the eye could see in 1994. But yeah. So I think that trend for push up plunge bras and everyone wanting them, it could be that people that grew up with that were suddenly like, you know, like,

Why do boobs have to do that? Why can't we have something that's a bit more relaxed? It was like a helmet, wasn't it? It was like two helmets on either jug being like launched up your chest. At least that was my understanding of them. You have to kind of hoist everything into place when you put on one of those. Yes, you do. And it's not comfortable after an eight hour wear at the office. Let me tell you. The brawlets, when you also mentioned about brawlets not having fastenings and stuff, That's the thing that annoys me because early bras, so getting back to like kind of 1920s sort of time, they didn't have cup sizes and that meant that they didn't fit everybody. So if you measured around your boobs and you were like, I don't know, somebody at the corset tree department, because that's where they sold them at the time, it wasn't called lingerie, they were considered corsetry.

Somebody at the course of the department said you need a 32 but then because the 32 might fit you around the fullest part of your chest it might not fit underneath the kind of underband side because you couldn't get different cup sizes you basically had to either use your own sewing skills or get a seamstress to adjust it to fit you

and the reason that hook and eye fastenings or any sort of back fastening was invented was because well at the time there was no stretch fabrics but now there is you think oh yeah you could just stretch and pull it on over your head not everybody can do that not everybody is that got that much mobility in their arms and also if you've got big boobs compared to your back size pulling something on over your head is not going to fit you underneath your boobs it's not going to give you any support and then things like adjustable stretch straps were invented so that they could it could be comfortable

but also you could adjust it for the length of from between your shoulders to your your boobs because some people are taller and some people are shorter. But if you've not got any adjustable features on your straps, that also means they don't fit everybody. So the reason that these brawlets got invented was not just because it was a non-wired bra but it was also because people who realized how difficult is to make bras and how many sizes you need to make them in would like well actually if we make this thing that we call a brailer and you just pull it on and we could just make it in normal clothes size so we just make it in an 8, 10, 12, 14, 16.

I had no idea. And then in the same way that dresses and tops and jackets and just don't fit everybody because bodies are all different, bralets don't fit everybody either, whereas bras, because there are so many bra sizes and there are so many ways a bra can be adjusted, have a much better chance of fitting you well. But they're more difficult to make and more expensive to make. So brawlets, boob discrimination, quite frankly, I had absolutely no idea. And I just say this because I have such trouble finding brawlets that fit. No, say loud and proud. I've just got sort of slightly perky boob. not too big so mine are all right in a brawlett but yeah now you've said all that that's

why would they fit everybody that makes perfect sense that's why brows are made i have no idea i feel kind of guilty now no right okay what do you think is a future for bras as a final question i get asked this a lot and you'd think i would have come up with a good answer for this right now but i think the only thing that i can think of is that more and more choice is the big thing that's definitely going to keep being a thing going forward. So choice as in whether to wear a bra or not, but also choice in the type of bra that you have. As we move away from the high street,

where the options were quite limited, there's a whole internet's worth of bras available to us and lots of people talking about them as well, which makes it a bit easier to, if you find somebody like on Instagram who's quite similar size and shape to you, and they're recommending stuff, that makes it a lot easier

to find something that's going to fit you. Oh, Laurie, you have been just wonderful. And if people want to find you, where can they find you? If people listen to this and go, I need to know about the bra historian. Where can they find you? Well, I pretty much live on Instagram. So if you look up Lipstick Laurie on Instagram,

you'll find me there. I'm also on Twitter as Lipstick Laurie. And my slightly more academic side is Master of Bras. I love that. So I got that nickname and then I spoke to a friend and he was like, you should use that name everywhere.

Why have you not got a Twitter account that's Master of Bras? So now I do. Master of Bras. Oh, Lurie, you have been uplifting in so many ways. Thank you so much for joining me today. It's been a pleasure. Thank you.

I hope you've enjoyed this episode. It was such a treat to speak to Lorry. Very uplifting. what you've heard, please don't forget to like with you and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And if you've got a minute, you can support us, hey, by voting for us in the Listener's Choice Award at the British Podcast Awards

at the link below. Thank you so much. It'd be absolutely amazing. Join me again Betwixt the Sheets, the History of Sex, Scandal and Society, a podcast by History Hit. This podcast includes music by Epidemic Sounds.