October 3, 2026 • 53 mins
Bras are loved and hated, sometimes at the same time. But as difficult and restrictive as they can be, they rescued women from a much cruel contraption: corsets. The question remains, though, do women need bras at all? Listen to this classic episode to find out.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey everybody, it's Josh. And yeah, we did an episode
on bras. What of it? Yeah, we're two dudes. But
we're carrying on a long-standing tradition, we found out. Because
it turns out that just about every bra in history,
and then go back pretty far, was invented by a man.
And that includes the guy who filed the patent for
the first modern bra. This also explains why, until very recently,
(00:23):
bras were profoundly uncomfortable and usually had some sort of
lace or something. And maybe were see-through. That's neither here
nor there, though, because in this episode, we cover everything
there is to know about bras, and I feel like
we came out of it as better people. I'll leave
it to you to decide how we did. Either way,
enjoy this episode from 2020 on bras. Welcome to Stuff
(00:50):
You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey, and welcome
to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W.
Chuck Bryant. And it's just us again.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
It's just us.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
We've lost Jerry.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
I'm in the studio like I was on the last one,
but it's still a ghost studio. There's no one here. Sure.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Except for Tommy Chong and the radio, or the record player, right?
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Sure.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Good. We'll just leave it at that. We said that
we have somebody poised to, like, scratch the needle off
the record several episodes ago. Yeah, I remember that. And
that it was Tommy Chong whose job it was to
do that now.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
That's right. Good callback.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Thank you. Should we talk bras? Yeah, we're talking bras, man,
which I appreciate it when we do stuff like this,
episodes like this, because we have to try harder because
we're men, you know? Sure.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Sure.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
The usual.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
It's the only time we have to try harder in life.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Sadly, that is kind of true. But we haven't shied
away from topics that have very little to do with us,
like corsets. We did one on how corsets work. Do
you remember that? We totally did. A whole episode on corsets.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Jeez.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
We did one on female puberty.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Yeah. Foot binding.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Yeah. We've done a lot of them. So this is just—
One in the same. A three is a lot when
it comes to this kind of stuff.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
Yeah. No, I'm just kidding. And we did mention doing
one on menstruation not too long ago. And we got
a bunch of supportive emails saying like, yes, guys, please,
please do that. Like, there's no reason why you shouldn't.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
I've been menstruating for 50 years and I still don't
understand it. Please explain.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
So actually, we have not gotten that email, although we
wouldn't know if we had, you know.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Yeah, because our email server's down. Sorry if you've been bounced, everyone.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
Yeah, we're working on it. Yep. So we're talking bras,
which is short for brassiere, which doesn't have a definite
origin as far as we know. We think that it
came about in the 20th century, early 20th century. I
think it first appeared in print in 1907 or something
like that. And in French, it means one of two things.
(03:20):
It means either arm covering, which is, I think, derived
from medieval armor, French medieval armor. Don't know. And then
the other thing I saw was a child's vest, which
that to me is just lovely. If that's what they're
trying to say with the bra, that it's like a
child-sized vest that you wear over your breasts, I love
(03:43):
that idea.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
You want to know something funny? Yes. For the first
10 minutes researching this, this was put together by our
pal Dave Ruse. I kept thinking, why is Ruse, why
does he keep talking about brasseries? Why does he keep
talking about quaint little French restaurants?
Speaker 1 (04:00):
That's funny.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
It's very close. It looks like brassiere.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
It does. Well, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it does. I think
if that I was just a little further toward the end,
we would be talking about casual French restaurants. The TGI
Fridays of France. Well, that's better than my experience. For
the first 30 minutes, I was researching nothing but car bras.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Oh, God. The LeBras. Remember those? No.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
I remember the car.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
I think there was a LeBras, which was one of
the big popular models at the time for like Porsches
and stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
I don't remember that at all.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
You know, my dad very stupidly bought a Porsche when
I was in high school.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Oh, no, with that food truck money?
Speaker 2 (04:46):
With that big public school teacher money. He went out
and bought a Porsche and surprised my mom and the
rest of the family with a sweet Porsche 911.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
Like a new one?
Speaker 2 (05:00):
That no one was allowed to, like, breathe on. No,
it wasn't new.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
Doesn't matter.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
But he very quickly went out, and this is very
my dad, And like the next week he had like
the Porsche eyes odd, the Porsche glasses, the Porsche hat. And, uh,
we didn't have that for very long. I think I
drove it one time, like around the block and he
was like, and it was, they were not fun cars
to drive. They were very difficult to drive.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Yeah. Yeah. They're all about being in as one with
the road. And if the road's not so great, then
it's not, not very fun.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Yeah. But I will say piggybacking on this story. Um,
I've been watching the TV show Red Oaks. Have you
ever seen it?
Speaker 1 (05:41):
I have never even heard of it.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
I hadn't either. It was an Amazon show that ran
for three seasons about sort of like Caddyshacky. It's a
kid who works at a tennis club in the 80s.
And a very, very 80s show. And the drug dealer
drives this really sweet Porsche 928. Remember those?
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Is that the pointy one? It looks kind of like
a Lotus Esprit.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Yeah, well, it's, yeah, the risky business car.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
Okay. I never saw that movie.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Oh, really?
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Oh, dude, you need to see Risky Business. Great movie.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
I've got a list going.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
It's really good. But anyway, the 9-11 gets all the headlines,
but that 9-28 was so sweet, and I was like, man,
I wonder what you could get an 80s 9-28 for.
I bet it's not that much. Oh, yeah. And I
looked it up.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
How much?
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Well, there was a range. Like, you can get one
that's in not great shape for, like, $ 12, 000 or up
to $ 60, 000 for a cherry low mileage one.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
Right. I think that's pretty much the same with all
vintage cars. I was looking at Pinto station wagons.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
And we're at different ends of the spectrum.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
There's about four or five mint condition Pinto station wagons
in existence that are really expensive. The rest are exactly
what you would expect.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
That's funny.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
So we're talking bras today, obviously. We just wanted to
get rid of anybody who might benefit from listening to this.
So we talked about Porsches and stuff.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Yeah. So the bras, the modern bra has only been
around for about 150 years. And Dave makes a really
good point of the fact that this thing that's only
been around for 150 years has been one of the
most complicated garments in the history of the world, I think.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Yeah, not necessarily in its design or manufacture, but in
Its relation to society as a whole, right? Yeah, totally.
So you've got apparently a complete and utter lack of bras.
But as women started to play sports a little more,
it was okay for them to wear bras, I think,
(07:53):
in the 20th century. And in fact, it was a
woman who invented the sports bra. Two women, actually, I
think in 1977.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Of course.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
They invented what was called the jog bra from two
jock straps that they put together. But, you know, it's
kind of a funny, cute little origin story. But they
ended up like revolutionizing sports. Like women were allowed to
play sports. I think Title IX had been passed a
couple of years before this. But the fact is you
(08:26):
couldn't play sports because there wasn't much support out there
for you. So to invent the sports bra... was tantamount
to introducing women in practice into sports. It's pretty huge.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Yeah, it is. And the history of the bra also
incorporates fashion. It incorporates societal norms and how they change.
So did the bra. How women changed over the years
and their own rights over their own comfort and their
own fashion. Taking that back. And it really kind of
(09:01):
everything in between. The bra is a very complicated garment
and undergarment.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
It is. It is very complicated. What I was heartened
to see, though, is that today, apparently, and for the
last several years, it's been all about comfort and realness
and finding like a bra that fits. And apparently, I
was very surprised to find this, that that has not
been the norm, that especially in america at least bra
(09:31):
makers have made like x number of sizes and if
your breast didn't happen to fit that bra that was
on you there's something wrong with your body because these
are the standard sizes and this is what we're selling
and so women have for a very long time had
a lot of women have had bras that just do
not fit them because they just can't find them in
(09:52):
america and that's kind of led to this revolution in
bra making and also bra sizing that has allowed for
women to have much better, much more comfortable fits with bras.
And I'm just glad for that.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
Yeah, me too. The average American woman supposedly owns six bras.
There are officially, there are 20 different styles of bras
that you can buy. And there's this great quote here.
It's from a book called Uplift, colon, The Bra in
America by Jane Farrell Beck and Colleen Gao. And this
(10:32):
sort of really pinpoints what you're trying to do with
a bra and why it's so tough to get a
great fit and one that really works for everybody. Brasseries, oh, wait.
Braziers must do more than fit a multitude of bodies.
They must accommodate the same body as it changes through
(10:52):
the monthly cycle and the life cycle. They must provide
for movement of the torso and arms in many directions
without chafing or binding, without slipping out of position. And
as if that were not enough, braziers must retain their
own structure throughout multiple wearings and launderings, must not abrade
in contact with clothing, must remain as a rule inconspicuous
(11:13):
beneath the outer clothing while harmonizing with the desired silhouette,
and must be priced to sell to many customers, it's
no wonder that hundreds of attempts have been made to
design the ideal breast supporter over the past 140 years. Yeah.
It says it all.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
It really does. It is a lot more complicated than, say,
boxer shorts.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Yeah, those are easy.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
So there's also a lot of money to be made
in it. I saw just the sports bra industry alone
is worth like $ 7 billion a year. There's a lot
of money made from bras. And so as a result,
about 600 million of them are made every year. There's
about 26,000 different bra patterns in existence. When you said
(11:56):
20 different styles, that's like racerback or demicup, that like
large category of bra. As far as like different patterns
and types of bras, there's tens of thousands of them.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Oh, sure.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
And each one has a lot of different moving parts.
I saw 40 different parts from straps, clasps, underwire, all
that stuff. And that it takes months and months of
dozens of people working together to create a new bra.
It's not just like a new thing. So there's a
lot of thought and time and effort and money going
(12:32):
into bra production. And then from what I've seen, there's
virtually an equal amount of time and effort and thought
going into bra purchasing too. From what I'm seeing, it's
like not the easiest thing in the world to buy
a bra if you want the bra to be one
that is your new favorite.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Yeah. Did you have any flashbacks of young Josh while
you were researching this? Like Sears catalog type of stuff?
Speaker 1 (12:58):
Sure. Practicing unhooking bras by wearing them myself.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Or simply, you know, the 80s was a generally more
naive moment in time before the internet. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Oh, yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
Seeing a lady in a bra leaning against a tree
was a pretty big deal.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
Yes, it really was.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
In 1983. Yeah. Should we take a break and then
dive into the history?
Speaker 1 (13:21):
Yeah, let's. I think it's a good idea. Okay.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
We'll be right back with the history of the Brasserie
right after this. We'll be right back.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
Well now when you're on the road driving in your
truck why not learn a thing or two from josh
and chuck it's stuff you should.
Speaker 4 (13:54):
Know all right okay so as everybody knows there was
a battle between auto von titzling and philippe brazier over
who invented the bra and as um The great Bette
Midler instructed all of us.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
We know who won that battle because you wear a brassiere,
not a tisling.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
Was that a Bette Midler bit?
Speaker 1 (14:23):
It was from Beaches.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
Oh, I saw that in the 80s when it came
out and not since then.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
I don't think I've seen it since the 80s either,
but I guess that little part really stuck with me, yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
So the real first patent for the bra was filed
in 1863.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
Brazier, the word, it wasn't coined until the 20th century.
But that wasn't the first bra. Dave sent us even
a photo with this research, which is pretty great, of
a Sicilian mosaic called Bikini Girls. And if you look
up Bikini Girls, well, you're going to get a lot
of results. But if you look up Sicilian mosaic Bikini Girls,
(15:03):
you will see a mosaic from about 400 to 300
BCE that shows these Young athletic women wearing bikinis, clearly
wearing what looks like a bra or bikini top.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
It's basically exactly what pro beach volleyball players wear today. Like,
no joke. It looks exactly like it.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
But strapless. Right.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
Yeah, I think a lot of them wear strapless stuff, too.
And also very short shorts. Like, even with the butterfly cut,
if you look closely, they have, like, that cut on
the side. I mean, like, they look exactly like pro
volleyball players. And this is... 2,400 years ago. So it
seems like they were wearing what's called an epidesmy or strophium,
(15:49):
depending on whether you speak the Greek or the Latin.
But it's basically like a cloth wrapped around and then
knotted in front to provide support during athletics.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
That's right. Boom. So medieval times come along. There were
European physicians who were writing about something called breast bags.
And there was a medical text from 1300, the royal
surgeon in France, Henri de Mondeville, said, some women insert
two bags in their dresses, adjusted to the breasts fitting tight,
(16:25):
and they put them into them every morning and fasten
them when possible with a matching band.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Not a marching band.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
No, that's sort of a bra, a built-in bra.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
Sure, or a breast bag.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
Right, just don't say that ever again.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
Okay, agreed. So that's from 1300, right? And then you
would think, okay, well, things kind of started hard and
fast from that point on. And as far as history
is concerned, no. Like about 100 years later, all bra
technology was abandoned in favor of the corset. And that's
(17:06):
what we thought for a very long time until there
was a discovery in 2008, but it wasn't publicized until
I think 2012 or 15, that an archaeologist from the
University of Innsbruck, Beatrix Newts, I guarantee that's how her
name is spelled or said. She was excavating an Austrian castle,
(17:27):
Langberg Castle, and she found four medieval bras that were
600 to 700 years old, made of linen. Do you
remember when this was news, this made the rounds?
Speaker 2 (17:38):
I do.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
When you looked at this garment, you're like, that is
a bra. It doesn't matter what context you have. It
doesn't matter. You just show somebody a picture of this
without any prep or anything like that and say, what
is this? They would say, well, that's a bra. You'd say,
that's right. It's a 700-year-old bra that we didn't know existed.
Like that whole design, we had no idea that it
existed because we thought everything had gone basically from, I'm
(18:03):
sorry to say this one more time, breast bags to corsets.
And that there was no transition. But in fact, there
was a transition to the modern bra that was abandoned
in favor of the corset. Quite unfortunately, really.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Yeah, and they even found a picture there of a
13-year-old boy with a bra on his head saying he
was Mickey Mouse.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
So that was proof. So we covered the corset, like
you said, in our full-length episode, so you can go
listen to that. But very briefly, corset, the word means
corpus in Latin for body. And women would wear these
corsets that were– they had wood or bone. Later on,
that had steel. And it would basically shape their torso.
(18:49):
It would cinch that waist in, and it would flatten
their breast. And they were very restrictive. They were very painful.
And they did actual real damage to their bodies at times.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
Oh, yeah. Like they had trouble digesting, had trouble breathing.
You remember you could train your waist to stay that small.
We talked a lot about this in the corset episode.
But the big problem with corsets aside from all that
is that they supported the breasts from the bottom up.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
And the thing that really differentiated bras from everything else
up to that point was that they went the other way.
They harnessed the power of the shoulder to hold the
breasts up from beneath. Not push them up, but hold them,
suspend them, almost like a pair of breast bags hanging
down over your shoulder.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
There you go again.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
I can't help myself now. I've been told not to
do something.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
These are the great episodes where I just sometimes like
to sit back and... watch you dig into a big
giant hole.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
Turn into a 13-year-old boy with a Sears catalog.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
So this was going on. The corsets were terrible. Women
hated them. And by the mid-19th century, like you said,
they said, you've got these strong shoulders. Why don't we
use those? Like an ox. That's right. And the first
modern bra patent was filed in 1863 by a guy
named Lumen Chapman. And he was from– or he was
(20:18):
living at least in Camden, New Jersey. And he had
this very first over-the-shoulder design. And it was tightened in
the back like a corset, but it was softer. It
was made of stretchy fabric. And it had these cups.
They were called breast puffs in the patent for the
extra support and comfort, I think.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
That is radically– better than breast bags.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
You said it again.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
So Lumen Chapman, strangely enough, his design did not take off,
although he does have the first patent. But a woman
named Hermione Cadol, great name, she created something that was
basically like a corset, but it was a corset cut
in two. And the top half very strongly resembled a
modern bra. And she called it the Le Bien-être or
(21:06):
Well-Being And her stuff still didn't quite take off. I
think because she was married to the corset still, the
general corset design, which made sense because at the time,
up until the early 20th century. If you didn't wear
a corset, you were basically advertising that you had loose morals.
(21:26):
So the corset was just it. Whether you hated corsets
with all of your might, and a lot of women did,
you still had to wear them just to be socially acceptable.
So it would take, as far as legend goes, a
very free-spirited, very wealthy socialite named Mary Phelps Jacobs to
basically say, nuts to that. I'm tired of these corsets.
(21:50):
those whalebone stays are protruding through this kind of sheer
dress that I want to wear to this dance. Let
me try something else. And she apparently instructed one of
her maids, because again, she was a wealthy socialite, to
make what we would consider the first modern bra out
of some silk handkerchiefs and ribbon.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Yeah, she was only 19. We should point out she
moved to Paris later on and changed her name to,
is it Caressa Crosby?
Speaker 1 (22:19):
I think so.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
Or Caress. I'm not sure if you pronounce that last E.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
I'm not sure either.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
But that was her final name. So Crosby had this
idea when she was 19, and it was before an
event that she was going to, a debutante ball. And
she called it the Backless Brassiere. And people at the
party loved it. I imagine women especially loved it. And
she got a patent for this thing in 1914. And
(22:45):
very unwisely sold the idea for a mere $ 1, 500 to
Warner Brothers Corset Company.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
Yeah, who turned around in the next 30 years, made
10,000 times that amount from that patent.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
Oh, yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
So it's about $ 38, 000 that she was paid today for
the patent, and they made about $ 225 million in today's
money off of it.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
But she was rich anyway, right?
Speaker 1 (23:09):
In bed. Yeah, she was rich anyway. And she was
a super interesting person from what I saw. She basically
any famous author today that was writing in the 20s,
she was like real good friends with. And she herself wrote, too.
I think she had a publishing house called Black Sun.
But she wrote for a while pornography on commission from
(23:32):
an Oklahoma oil man who couldn't get enough of her stuff.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Like, that was just one of the many— Brought me
another sexist story.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
That was one of the many things that she did
in her life. She wrote pornography.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
Amazing. Yeah. So World War I turns out to be
a good thing if you're a woman because steel is
in short supply. The U.S. joins the war and says,
you know what? We got to have all the steel
in this country go toward war munitions and battleships and stuff.
And American women said, oh, great, because you know what
has steel? My corset. Let's get rid of it and
(24:06):
ditch these things for good. And elastic fabric started coming
into the market. Latex came into the market. And so
all of a sudden American women could finally get rid
of the corset in favor of this new invention called
the brassiere. And, of course, we don't want you to
be too comfortable, ladies. You might want to at least
put a girdle on just to keep everything nice and
(24:29):
cinched in.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
Which is basically like Hermione Cadell's two-piece corset. corset, but whatever. Yeah.
Patriotism freed them from that social expectation of having to
wear a corset, which is pretty great. But I saw
that the steel that the corsets freed up equaled 28,000 tons,
(24:51):
enough to make two battleships in World War I.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
That's awesome.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
That's a lot of corset steel.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
So this led to like a complete revolution in undergarments
for women right so in the 20s um the the
the one of the first bras was basically there was
a company called boish form which held the breasts down
and back back and to the left.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
Wait, what was it called?
Speaker 1 (25:25):
Boyish form, B-O-Y-S-H form. And from what I can tell,
they were basically saying boyish form.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
Okay, that's what I was about to say.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
But they shortened it by removing the I and changed
it to boyish form.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
They're like, they'll never know.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
Right. No one will ever get this trickery. But it
was because of that flapper style was very much slight
and boyish. But then along came a company in the
late 20s called Maidenform. And they named themselves Maidenform to
kind of contradict boyish form because one of their big
things was, hey, man, let's not be ashamed of these
(26:01):
boobs and try to hide them. Let's accentuate these things.
And boy, did they ever.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
Yeah. I mean, in the World War II, in the
age of the big buxom Hollywood bombshell era, people like
Jane Russell, then in the 50s with Marilyn Monroe. And
it's all this, you know, sort of male ideal at
the time is what we're getting at is the bras
sort of followed suit. But when these women came on
the scene, that's when if you look at TV shows
(26:27):
from back then or advertisements, you see these bras that
were very pointy. And I think they even called them
bullet bras or torpedo bras.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
And that was sort of all the rage just because
the sort of, I mean, Hollywood's always sort of driving
fashion in that way, and it certainly did back then,
because Twiggy coming along in the 60s with her very
sort of slim androgynous look, all of a sudden in
the 60s, bras were being thrown in the trash can.
They're like, we don't need bras at all.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
Yeah, and then there was a guy, a designer, who
was an avant-garde designer named Rudy Gernreich, and he came
up with the no bra in 1964, which is basically
like what you would consider a bra today. It's meant
to just kind of be there and be supportive, but
also kind of fade into the background, which.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
Is the antithesis. Like a nice quiet friend.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
Huh?
Speaker 2 (27:20):
Like a quiet friend. Exactly.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
But that's like the antithesis of the torpedo or bullet bra,
which would take your eye clean out if you got
too close to it. But this is– you can kind
of see, like, we've gone from 20s where boy form was–
or boyish form was all the rage to the exact opposite,
to back to the 20s. And then it kind of
swung back toward, you know, large, busty, popping out kind
(27:49):
of thing, even more than before. Because now it's not
covered by a sweater. With torpedoes, it was all about
accentuating the boobs upward and to the left. And then
the Wonder Bra kind of really helped move that along.
And what was really interesting is I remember when the
Wonder Bra came out in America. It was in the 90s.
(28:10):
But it turns out that in the far off land
of Canada, it had been invented 30 years before. It
just took 30 years to get down to America and
become popular.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
That's pretty funny.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
Isn't that weird?
Speaker 2 (28:23):
Yeah, that is totally weird.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
And Canadians are too nice to insist. Like, by the way,
we have a better bra up here.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
Right. And then now things have swum back again to
where they're like, do you even need a bra? And
a lot of people are like, I don't think you do.
It's kind of a personal preference.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
Yeah. It certainly can be, but I also think there's
still very much a stigma.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. It's true. There's just no arguing
that right now.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
No, I mean, if you're a woman and you go
waltzing into a conference meeting at your business and you're
not wearing a bra, then someone's going to say something.
I guarantee you.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
Exactly, yes. But I think also even if somebody didn't
say something or it was okay with everybody else, from
what I can tell, there's a certain psychological– security blanket
aspect to wearing a bra if that's what you've been
raised to do to wear a bra oh for sure
and to not do that would take a real psychological
(29:26):
shift in how you feel and how how secure you
feel without it and i was reading about training bras
because i didn't feel like i was enough of a
creep as.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
It is you're like oh boy.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
But from what i was reading about training bras, even
if the girl doesn't need a bra yet for any
real purpose, it provides like some kind of psychological thing
that they're like, okay, I'm keeping up with my peers
who actually do need a bra. Or I'm going to
like the eighth grade dance or something. probably say sixth
(30:01):
grade dance or something. And I want to wear this dress,
but it's going to look weird if I'm not wearing
a bra. So I need a bra. So, so, and
I think that kind of psychology continues on well into
adulthood too, so that it would be weird or feel
weird to not wear a bra if that's what you've
done your whole life. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
And I think it also has to do with your
comfort level with your, with your breast size. Sure. You know,
not to get too personal, but like, If I had
a dime for every time Emily was like, you got
to go get the delivery food at the door because
I'm not wearing a bra.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
Sure.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
And, you know, Emily has bigger boobs. So there, I
said it. She might be more comfortable if she had
smaller breasts. But I don't know. I'm going to go
home and ask her, though. Okay.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
I feel like we should sit in silence for five minutes.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
So you mentioned Maidenform. We'll get to this later, but
they were founded in 1929 by William and Ida Rosenthal,
who invented or introduced at least the letter-based cup sizing system.
Speaker 3 (31:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
But we'll get to that weird bit of voodoo in
a minute because I still have no idea what's going
on there. But in– actually, it wasn't in a year.
From 1949 to 1963– They had a very, very successful
print ad campaign called I Dream, which you can go
look up online. And these ads, which were very racy
(31:35):
at the time, of course, were women doing things topless
with just their bra on. They would have on like
a regular skirt that you would wear in that era,
but no top, no blouse. And they were dreaming. One
lady was dreaming of being a firefighter, and she was
fighting a fire with no shirt on. Or I dreamed
(31:57):
I went back to school in my maiden form bra.
And it's a woman in her bra at a grammar
school desk. Or I dreamed I won the election in
my maiden form bra.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
Man, that's a face palm.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
She's taking the stage on election night. And beyond these being,
and old advertisements are all funny and awful in every way.
But beyond this being funny and awful, it truly is
kind of gross that what they're showing are things that
are dreams for these women like, having a regular job
and things that they may not have been allowed to
(32:29):
do at the time.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
Yeah. So but in at the time, like, yes, they
were trying to sell their bras. And yes, there was
like a certain amount of sex appeal to the whole campaign.
But in their defense, like this is a very like progressive,
liberating ad campaign. It was conceived by three women. Yeah.
And on one hand. And also, it's not like they
(32:51):
were like, ha ha, you couldn't possibly hold public office
because you're a woman. It was like like it was
showing that women dream of this kind of stuff, that
they want to do this kind of thing. And that
at least in their dreams, they're capable of doing this
rather than we can't even talk about that. It's so preposterous.
We couldn't even possibly create an ad campaign. So it
was kind of like. progressive in that sense it's in
(33:14):
retrospect that it's really cringy but really what you're cringing
it's not like maiden form was making fun of women
for not being able to to do these things it's
more an indictment of society for them being restricted from
these things at the time.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
Yeah that's this is one of these definitely where you
could come at it from a lot of angles sure
and have opinions about it um but we should read
they had a contest in 1955 with the public about
new dream ideas. And the winner from 1957, and Dave,
God bless you for finding this, was I dreamed I
danced the hornpipe with Sinbad the Sailor. Don't even know
(33:53):
what that means.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
That's another thing you can approach from a bunch of
different angles.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
I think we should approach a message break, and then
we'll talk about the wacky world of bra sizing right
after this. Well, now, when you're.
Speaker 3 (34:24):
On the road, driving in your truck, why not learn
a thing or two from Josh and Chuck?
Speaker 4 (34:31):
It's Stuff You Should Know.
Speaker 3 (34:33):
Stuff You Should Know.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
All right.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
All right, Chuck. So one thing that I've read is
that American bras don't fit and that there's a reason
for that. Something like there's a statistic that 80% of women,
American women at least, are wearing bras that don't fit.
And supposedly that's kind of made up and based on
anecdotal evidence, but it's been bandied about for so long
(35:00):
that people take it as gospel. But regardless of whatever
the statistic may or may not be, American bras are
known for not fitting. And it's because American bra manufacturers
have basically said, we've created this standard measuring scale. And
it just is economically efficient for us to mass produce,
(35:21):
you know, this size to this size. And if you
happen to fall outside of that size, you're SOL. And
it's your fault. There's something wrong with your body for
not adhering to the standard norm, body size norm. This
is largely becoming a relic of the past, but it's still,
from what I can tell, very much present when you
(35:43):
go bra shopping.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
Yeah. And, you know, I've heard this complaint from Emily
over the years and a lot of women that, yeah,
it's tough to find a bra that really fits well
and feels good and does everything it's supposed to do.
And that's why when you find one, you know, you
order like six of them.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
But there are these days before we get into the
sizing that is changing some now with these more bespoke
companies that have a more custom custom made tailored to
your size kind of things. And I wonder why it
took that long for someone to think outside the box
and challenge challenge a big brassiere and say, hey, you're
(36:24):
doing it wrong. I bet there's a lot of money
to be made from bespoke brassieres.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
Yeah, from what I understand, there is. And although it's
just now happening in the U.S., apparently it happened, I believe,
back in the 90s in the U.K. with a movement
called bra fitting, one word, where it's basically like, look,
two measurements is not enough to create a perfect bra.
You need a bunch of different measurements under different conditions.
(36:51):
You need to take your shirt and bra all the
way off. We need to get in there. But when
we're done, you're going to have a well-fitting bra, and
it's just now catching on in the United States. And
what's surprising is that, you know, it's just now catching on,
but this technique and the sizing standard that we use
here in the United States goes back to the, I think,
(37:15):
the 20s, if not the 30s.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
Yeah. Yeah, 1929 is when they founded Maidenform and introduced
this cup sizing technique. And I'm not going to pretend
to fully understand this.
Speaker 1 (37:27):
I got it.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
But I can read. Oh, you got it? Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
You go ahead, though. I want to hear your attempt.
Speaker 2 (37:31):
No, no, no. Because what will happen is I'll read
and then you'll do it again in your own words.
And then this episode is 15 minutes longer than it
should be.
Speaker 1 (37:41):
All right. You got my number. And my number happens
to be 34C. So the cup system is what it's called.
It consists of two measurements and the difference between them.
So the first measurement is the overbust, which is the
circumference of your chest all the way around your body
(38:06):
across the nipples. That's your overbust measurement, right?
Speaker 2 (38:09):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
Now, if you'll also measure right below the breasts all
the way around your body, that's your underbust. And if
you subtract those two, you're going to come up with
a difference in inches or centimeters, depending on where you
are in the world. And you can use that as
part of a handy table to say, oh, there's a
three-inch difference. That means that I'm a C cup, right? Right.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
That's where the lettering comes from.
Speaker 1 (38:34):
Right. The difference between your underbust and your overbust generates
some knowledge about the volume that your breasts are going
to take up, which is your cup size. Got it?
Speaker 2 (38:43):
It generates knowledge?
Speaker 3 (38:45):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
So that underbust measurement is also used and that's the
number that comes before it. So if you're a 34C,
that means your chest is 34 inches around at the
rib cage under your breasts. And then if you're a C,
that means that there's a three inch difference. That means
that you are 37 inches around your chest at the nipples.
(39:10):
And so you'd be a 34C. And that those two
measurements are supposedly like all you need to come up
with a fitting bra. But apparently that's just not true.
Speaker 2 (39:21):
Yeah, I mean, that all makes sense. I think the
thing that confused me is the sister sizing.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
I understand that too.
Speaker 2 (39:29):
Thing. so if you have a 36C and a 34C
brassiere that's not the same cup size because a 34C
is the only true C yeah so if you want
to go up a band size but not the cup
size you buy a 36B or a 38A so the
volume of the cup size is relative to the circumference
of the band Yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:50):
I mean, it's as simple as that. I think the problem,
the breakdown is, is that this sister sizing thing has
not been widely publicized to women. And so that they
think like, well, if the band is a little tight
and I'm a 36C, then I need to go up
to a 38C. And that's just not the case. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:10):
In music, you want a tight band. In brassieres, you don't.
Speaker 1 (40:14):
Well, supposedly part of that bra fitting trend that started
in the UK is that suggests that a tight band
is the key to a good fitting bra, that that's
where most of your support comes and that most women
opt for a band size that's a little too loose.
But the point is, is your cup volume does not
go up when you go up a band size. It
(40:35):
doesn't have to. So that means that a 34C, if
you go down in band size, you would go up
in cup size and your cup size would stay the same.
So a 34C is the same as a 32D. And
then the other way, a 34C is the same as
a 36B. And once you understand the sister sizing thing,
then you can actually use this two measurement standard to
(40:58):
find a bra that actually fits better.
Speaker 2 (41:01):
That's right. And if you're wondering how this all works,
it works with bra fitting models. There are women that
get paid money to go in and get fit for
thousands and thousands of bras and to give feedback. And
this all start, well, it didn't completely start there. But
in the 1970s, there was a singer named Dorothy Galligan
(41:24):
from New York answered an ad for a bra fitting model.
And they said, you know what? I know this sounds sexist,
and we probably, even though it's the 70s, shouldn't be
saying this in an office, but you have the perfect 34Bs,
and that's the standard size which we're designing our bras on.
So for almost 20 years, Dorothy Galligan was the model
(41:46):
in New York in the lingerie district that would work 10, 11,
12-hour days trying on thousands and thousands of bras and
giving her feedback. So they could go back to the
sewing machine and redo it.
Speaker 1 (41:59):
Yeah, because that's the other part of the problem with
bras that don't necessarily fit. In addition to not making
larger sizes in cup volumes and smaller sizes in cup volumes,
like they're based around one woman's pair of breasts and
her breasts became the standard for the bra industry in
the 20th century so that. if you could create a
(42:19):
bra that fit Dorothy Galligan correctly as a 34B, you
could use that to basically grow out from either way.
Speaker 2 (42:27):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (42:28):
So that's a real problem for women who have different
shapes and sizes. And it's really sad to me to
think that they were told for decades that, you know,
if your bra doesn't fit, something's wrong with your body.
You must acquit. Exactly.
Speaker 2 (42:42):
Well, and here's the thing, too. It's not just breast size.
It's You know, how big your back is and how, like,
the bra, it holds the breasts, the cups do, but,
you know, it has to do with your shoulders and
your back and your armpits and everything else. Like, there's
so many nuances to everybody's body, men and women, that,
(43:04):
I mean, I think until recently they were trying to
do the best they could. But it was pretty narrow,
the options that women had.
Speaker 1 (43:12):
Yeah, I get the impression that they were not trying
to do the best that they could, that they basically
said when we release a new bra, it comes in
these sizes.
Speaker 2 (43:19):
Well, doing the best they could for a huge industry
that had to satisfy, you know, tens of millions of
different kind of bodies. Like they were kind of hamstrung.
You can't have. 450 bra sizes and manufacture on that scale.
Speaker 1 (43:33):
Yeah, you can't mass manufacture, but I think that's what's
being proven, like you were saying, by this new bespoke revolution.
Speaker 4 (43:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:40):
You can't get that big, although now you can get
that big because it's bespoke and because you can say, hey,
download our app and take these measurements using your phone
and upload it, and then we'll just custom make some
bras for you. And I also read that Poland– makes really,
really good-fitting bras as well. I think it was a
(44:02):
New York Times article about it. And the author traveled
to Poland to verify this herself, and she said she
didn't find the perfect bra, but she came away with
like four or five bras that were awfully close, way
closer than she'd ever had before.
Speaker 2 (44:16):
It's funny. After all these years, I still remember to
not put a bra in a dryer because of the
movie Hedwig and the Angry Inch.
Speaker 1 (44:25):
I don't remember that part. No, I never saw it.
That's why I don't remember that part.
Speaker 2 (44:28):
It's great. John Cameron Mitchell, who also a friend of
Movie Crush, he's a friend of Noel's. He played Hedwig
and created the character and directed the film. But there's
a scene where he's screaming, do not put a bra
in a dryer. It warps. And I guess that's true
because ever since then I've been like, I don't know
(44:50):
if I'm doing laundry. I should not put a bra
in a dryer.
Speaker 1 (44:53):
It does do some weird things to it, although you
can also put it in a laundry bag, and I
think that keeps it from wrapping around stuff, which makes
it last longer. You can't put it in a dryer.
Speaker 2 (45:05):
Oh, right. Yeah, like when a bra collects everything else
in its wake.
Speaker 1 (45:09):
Exactly. Yeah. So I don't think we can not talk
about Victoria's Secret.
Speaker 2 (45:18):
Man, if I had a dime for every time you
said that to me. Or as many dumb, dumb guys
call it, Victoria's Secrets.
Speaker 1 (45:24):
Yeah, dummies. So Victoria's Secret actually started out, husband and
wife founded it in the 70s in the San Francisco
area because the husband had gone to like the department
store to buy lingerie for his wife and was treated
like a scale for it, right?
Speaker 2 (45:42):
Even in San Francisco in the 70s?
Speaker 1 (45:43):
I guess so. All right. Department stores have always been
a certain way no matter where you are.
Speaker 2 (45:48):
I think.
Speaker 1 (45:49):
Right. So he said, well, we need to create like
a lingerie store that's made for men to go buy
for women. And that's what they created was Victoria's Secret.
And it was semi-successful. And then they sold to a
guy named Leslie Wexman. I believe it was Wexman who
had founded The Limited. And he took it— I think he
(46:11):
bought it for a million dollars. And within two decades,
it was worth $ 2 billion. And the guy who founded
it with his wife, they ended up getting divorced. And
he died broke and jumped from the Golden Gate Bridge,
sadly enough.
Speaker 2 (46:26):
Oh, wow.
Speaker 1 (46:27):
But Victoria's Secret dominated the— the bra industry in the
United States for many, many decades until very recently when
it was overthrown by women who said, enough.
Speaker 2 (46:40):
Yeah. Well, it's funny. You know, Roy Raymond said, you
know what we need is a store where men can
go in and buy sexy lingerie for their wives. And
what he failed to hear was the sound of tens
of millions of women across the country saying, No, you don't.
Speaker 1 (46:55):
Right. Well, that's what that's what Leslie, I think it's Wexman.
That's what he figured out was that this this thing
was a good idea, but they had missed the mark
and that they were marketing toward men and they were
completely isolating women. Because he said, like these Victoria's Secret
stores were lit with like, you know, weird kind of
reddish lighting and there were velvet couches and oriental rugs.
(47:17):
And he said that.
Speaker 2 (47:17):
I've walked by them in the mall very slowly.
Speaker 1 (47:20):
This was like in the early 70s or late 70s
and early 80s.
Speaker 2 (47:25):
Yeah, that's what I'm talking. Okay.
Speaker 1 (47:26):
All right. So he said, man, I would have loved
to have seen this. He said they were Victorian, not
like a Victorian foyer. They were like a Victorian brothel, basically.
And it was like just chasing women away, attracting men.
But women buy, you know, underwear for themselves way more
than their husbands do. And so he kind of revamped
(47:47):
it a little bit and turned it into something that
women felt comfortable and actually wanted to go into.
Speaker 2 (47:52):
Yeah, it's interesting. According to that book Uplift that we
mentioned earlier, despite Victoria's Secret and its history, women have
really been key to the development of bras in the
United States. I think over 1,200 U.S. patents have been
awarded for bras between 1863 and 1969, and half of
(48:14):
those have been held by women. And in the industry,
they have always held pretty important positions and been well-regarded
designers and managers, specialists, merchandising, promotional product managers. It is
one industry where it seems that has not been, here's
a product for women run entirely by men.
Speaker 1 (48:37):
Right. And rightfully so, I would say.
Speaker 2 (48:40):
Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (48:41):
So there is also a very famous legend as far
as bras go, which is the burning of bras at
a 1968 demonstration.
Speaker 2 (48:51):
Yeah, not true, apparently.
Speaker 1 (48:52):
No, it's a myth. There was, in fact, a demonstration
outside of Miss America pageant in Atlantic City in 1968.
It was the brainchild of Carol Hanisch, who helped basically
at this moment give birth to second wave feminism. And
they actually had a trash can that said freedom trash can.
(49:13):
And women threw stuff into it that they considered like
shackles of the patriarchy, like false eyelashes, bras. lingerie that
kind of stuff but there was no burning that came
from a reporter who suggested that they burn it as
a nod to the burning of draft cards but no
one actually burned this stuff but it became kind of
(49:33):
set in stone as true even though it really wasn't that's.
Speaker 2 (49:37):
Right big fat lie And.
Speaker 1 (49:40):
Then lastly, Chuck, I've got one extra thing. You ready?
Speaker 2 (49:43):
Ready.
Speaker 1 (49:44):
Do you have anything else?
Speaker 2 (49:46):
I don't.
Speaker 1 (49:47):
Do you need to wear a bra? It's a longstanding question.
And apparently the answer is no, at least as far
as a study in France, a 15-year study of 300 women.
I think they're aged 18 to 35. And this study
found that women who did not wear bras developed more
(50:09):
muscle tissue in their breasts, ostensibly to provide support that
the bra wasn't there to provide. And that by proxy,
if you did wear a bra, the muscles in your
breasts were less prone to develop, and thus you would
have more likely to have breasts that sag or pendular
(50:31):
breasts than you would have if you didn't wear a bra.
Kind of like you're making your breasts sink or swim
by not wearing a bra.
Speaker 2 (50:39):
Makes sense.
Speaker 1 (50:40):
It's just one study, but it is pretty surprising that
they found basically the opposite of conventional wisdom. Because most
people say, oh, if you don't wear a bra, your
breasts will get saggy. And that's apparently not true.
Speaker 2 (50:52):
Interesting.
Speaker 1 (50:53):
And I also ran across a weird question on Google.
You know, it has like suggested searches. What happens if
we squeeze breasts?
Speaker 2 (51:04):
Uh, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (51:06):
I didn't even bother to look. Just the question itself
was good enough.
Speaker 2 (51:11):
Oh, man.
Speaker 1 (51:12):
You got anything else?
Speaker 2 (51:13):
I got nothing else.
Speaker 1 (51:14):
What about the bro or the man's ear?
Speaker 2 (51:17):
Oh, yeah. Can't forget the bro.
Speaker 1 (51:19):
Well, since we said bro, it's time for listener mail, everybody.
Speaker 2 (51:25):
I'm going to call this more on bidets. Hey, guys.
Love the show. Thanks for all you do. It's especially
meaningful in these crazy times. I'm currently hanging out in
northern Japan on a trip that changed from a between-jobs
snowboarding sabbatical in December to, well, I guess I live
here for now. So you're not a bad place to be,
I would imagine. So good for you, Adam. I'm sure
(51:47):
you guys got a ton of similar emails to this,
but in the bidets episode, you mentioned a type of
toilet with a sink sprayer attachment nearby. In my experience,
this is a super common thing in households and many
lower-budget hotel accommodations in the Philippines. and other Southeast Asian countries.
It is awesome and commonly referred to as the bum
gun by foreign travelers and expats. I don't know the
(52:11):
etymology of bum gun, so I'm not sure if that
term has been adopted domestically in various bum gun enthusiast countries.
But like One Ring or Spidey's abilities, it has great
power and must be wielded carefully. So bum gun wisely,
my friends. That is from Adam.
Speaker 1 (52:28):
Thanks a lot, Adam. And best of luck to you
in your new home. Hang tight, buddy. Things will pass eventually.
If you want to get in touch with us like
Adam did and talk about bum guns or bras or
what have you, you can email. Send us an email
to stuffpodcasts at iheartradio.com.
Speaker 2 (52:50):
Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1 (52:53):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hey everybody, it's Josh. And yeah, we did an episode
on bras. What of it? Yeah, we're two dudes. But
we're carrying on a long-standing tradition, we found out. Because
it turns out that just about every bra in history,
and then go back pretty far, was invented by a man.
And that includes the guy who filed the patent for
the first modern bra. This also explains why, until very recently,
(00:23):
bras were profoundly uncomfortable and usually had some sort of
lace or something. And maybe were see-through. That's neither here
nor there, though, because in this episode, we cover everything
there is to know about bras, and I feel like
we came out of it as better people. I'll leave
it to you to decide how we did. Either way,
enjoy this episode from 2020 on bras. Welcome to Stuff
(00:50):
You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey, and welcome
to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W.
Chuck Bryant. And it's just us again.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
It's just us.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
We've lost Jerry.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
I'm in the studio like I was on the last one,
but it's still a ghost studio. There's no one here. Sure.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Except for Tommy Chong and the radio, or the record player, right?
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Sure.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Good. We'll just leave it at that. We said that
we have somebody poised to, like, scratch the needle off
the record several episodes ago. Yeah, I remember that. And
that it was Tommy Chong whose job it was to
do that now.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
That's right. Good callback.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Thank you. Should we talk bras? Yeah, we're talking bras, man,
which I appreciate it when we do stuff like this,
episodes like this, because we have to try harder because
we're men, you know? Sure.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Sure.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
The usual.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
It's the only time we have to try harder in life.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Sadly, that is kind of true. But we haven't shied
away from topics that have very little to do with us,
like corsets. We did one on how corsets work. Do
you remember that? We totally did. A whole episode on corsets.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Jeez.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
We did one on female puberty.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Yeah. Foot binding.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Yeah. We've done a lot of them. So this is just—
One in the same. A three is a lot when
it comes to this kind of stuff.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
Yeah. No, I'm just kidding. And we did mention doing
one on menstruation not too long ago. And we got
a bunch of supportive emails saying like, yes, guys, please,
please do that. Like, there's no reason why you shouldn't.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
I've been menstruating for 50 years and I still don't
understand it. Please explain.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
So actually, we have not gotten that email, although we
wouldn't know if we had, you know.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Yeah, because our email server's down. Sorry if you've been bounced, everyone.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
Yeah, we're working on it. Yep. So we're talking bras,
which is short for brassiere, which doesn't have a definite
origin as far as we know. We think that it
came about in the 20th century, early 20th century. I
think it first appeared in print in 1907 or something
like that. And in French, it means one of two things.
(03:20):
It means either arm covering, which is, I think, derived
from medieval armor, French medieval armor. Don't know. And then
the other thing I saw was a child's vest, which
that to me is just lovely. If that's what they're
trying to say with the bra, that it's like a
child-sized vest that you wear over your breasts, I love
(03:43):
that idea.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
You want to know something funny? Yes. For the first
10 minutes researching this, this was put together by our
pal Dave Ruse. I kept thinking, why is Ruse, why
does he keep talking about brasseries? Why does he keep
talking about quaint little French restaurants?
Speaker 1 (04:00):
That's funny.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
It's very close. It looks like brassiere.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
It does. Well, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it does. I think
if that I was just a little further toward the end,
we would be talking about casual French restaurants. The TGI
Fridays of France. Well, that's better than my experience. For
the first 30 minutes, I was researching nothing but car bras.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Oh, God. The LeBras. Remember those? No.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
I remember the car.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
I think there was a LeBras, which was one of
the big popular models at the time for like Porsches
and stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
I don't remember that at all.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
You know, my dad very stupidly bought a Porsche when
I was in high school.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Oh, no, with that food truck money?
Speaker 2 (04:46):
With that big public school teacher money. He went out
and bought a Porsche and surprised my mom and the
rest of the family with a sweet Porsche 911.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
Like a new one?
Speaker 2 (05:00):
That no one was allowed to, like, breathe on. No,
it wasn't new.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
Doesn't matter.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
But he very quickly went out, and this is very
my dad, And like the next week he had like
the Porsche eyes odd, the Porsche glasses, the Porsche hat. And, uh,
we didn't have that for very long. I think I
drove it one time, like around the block and he
was like, and it was, they were not fun cars
to drive. They were very difficult to drive.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Yeah. Yeah. They're all about being in as one with
the road. And if the road's not so great, then
it's not, not very fun.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Yeah. But I will say piggybacking on this story. Um,
I've been watching the TV show Red Oaks. Have you
ever seen it?
Speaker 1 (05:41):
I have never even heard of it.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
I hadn't either. It was an Amazon show that ran
for three seasons about sort of like Caddyshacky. It's a
kid who works at a tennis club in the 80s.
And a very, very 80s show. And the drug dealer
drives this really sweet Porsche 928. Remember those?
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Is that the pointy one? It looks kind of like
a Lotus Esprit.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Yeah, well, it's, yeah, the risky business car.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
Okay. I never saw that movie.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Oh, really?
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Oh, dude, you need to see Risky Business. Great movie.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
I've got a list going.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
It's really good. But anyway, the 9-11 gets all the headlines,
but that 9-28 was so sweet, and I was like, man,
I wonder what you could get an 80s 9-28 for.
I bet it's not that much. Oh, yeah. And I
looked it up.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
How much?
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Well, there was a range. Like, you can get one
that's in not great shape for, like, $ 12, 000 or up
to $ 60, 000 for a cherry low mileage one.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
Right. I think that's pretty much the same with all
vintage cars. I was looking at Pinto station wagons.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
And we're at different ends of the spectrum.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
There's about four or five mint condition Pinto station wagons
in existence that are really expensive. The rest are exactly
what you would expect.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
That's funny.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
So we're talking bras today, obviously. We just wanted to
get rid of anybody who might benefit from listening to this.
So we talked about Porsches and stuff.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Yeah. So the bras, the modern bra has only been
around for about 150 years. And Dave makes a really
good point of the fact that this thing that's only
been around for 150 years has been one of the
most complicated garments in the history of the world, I think.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Yeah, not necessarily in its design or manufacture, but in
Its relation to society as a whole, right? Yeah, totally.
So you've got apparently a complete and utter lack of bras.
But as women started to play sports a little more,
it was okay for them to wear bras, I think,
(07:53):
in the 20th century. And in fact, it was a
woman who invented the sports bra. Two women, actually, I
think in 1977.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Of course.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
They invented what was called the jog bra from two
jock straps that they put together. But, you know, it's
kind of a funny, cute little origin story. But they
ended up like revolutionizing sports. Like women were allowed to
play sports. I think Title IX had been passed a
couple of years before this. But the fact is you
(08:26):
couldn't play sports because there wasn't much support out there
for you. So to invent the sports bra... was tantamount
to introducing women in practice into sports. It's pretty huge.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Yeah, it is. And the history of the bra also
incorporates fashion. It incorporates societal norms and how they change.
So did the bra. How women changed over the years
and their own rights over their own comfort and their
own fashion. Taking that back. And it really kind of
(09:01):
everything in between. The bra is a very complicated garment
and undergarment.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
It is. It is very complicated. What I was heartened
to see, though, is that today, apparently, and for the
last several years, it's been all about comfort and realness
and finding like a bra that fits. And apparently, I
was very surprised to find this, that that has not
been the norm, that especially in america at least bra
(09:31):
makers have made like x number of sizes and if
your breast didn't happen to fit that bra that was
on you there's something wrong with your body because these
are the standard sizes and this is what we're selling
and so women have for a very long time had
a lot of women have had bras that just do
not fit them because they just can't find them in
(09:52):
america and that's kind of led to this revolution in
bra making and also bra sizing that has allowed for
women to have much better, much more comfortable fits with bras.
And I'm just glad for that.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
Yeah, me too. The average American woman supposedly owns six bras.
There are officially, there are 20 different styles of bras
that you can buy. And there's this great quote here.
It's from a book called Uplift, colon, The Bra in
America by Jane Farrell Beck and Colleen Gao. And this
(10:32):
sort of really pinpoints what you're trying to do with
a bra and why it's so tough to get a
great fit and one that really works for everybody. Brasseries, oh, wait.
Braziers must do more than fit a multitude of bodies.
They must accommodate the same body as it changes through
(10:52):
the monthly cycle and the life cycle. They must provide
for movement of the torso and arms in many directions
without chafing or binding, without slipping out of position. And
as if that were not enough, braziers must retain their
own structure throughout multiple wearings and launderings, must not abrade
in contact with clothing, must remain as a rule inconspicuous
(11:13):
beneath the outer clothing while harmonizing with the desired silhouette,
and must be priced to sell to many customers, it's
no wonder that hundreds of attempts have been made to
design the ideal breast supporter over the past 140 years. Yeah.
It says it all.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
It really does. It is a lot more complicated than, say,
boxer shorts.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Yeah, those are easy.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
So there's also a lot of money to be made
in it. I saw just the sports bra industry alone
is worth like $ 7 billion a year. There's a lot
of money made from bras. And so as a result,
about 600 million of them are made every year. There's
about 26,000 different bra patterns in existence. When you said
(11:56):
20 different styles, that's like racerback or demicup, that like
large category of bra. As far as like different patterns
and types of bras, there's tens of thousands of them.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Oh, sure.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
And each one has a lot of different moving parts.
I saw 40 different parts from straps, clasps, underwire, all
that stuff. And that it takes months and months of
dozens of people working together to create a new bra.
It's not just like a new thing. So there's a
lot of thought and time and effort and money going
(12:32):
into bra production. And then from what I've seen, there's
virtually an equal amount of time and effort and thought
going into bra purchasing too. From what I'm seeing, it's
like not the easiest thing in the world to buy
a bra if you want the bra to be one
that is your new favorite.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Yeah. Did you have any flashbacks of young Josh while
you were researching this? Like Sears catalog type of stuff?
Speaker 1 (12:58):
Sure. Practicing unhooking bras by wearing them myself.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Or simply, you know, the 80s was a generally more
naive moment in time before the internet. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Oh, yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
Seeing a lady in a bra leaning against a tree
was a pretty big deal.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
Yes, it really was.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
In 1983. Yeah. Should we take a break and then
dive into the history?
Speaker 1 (13:21):
Yeah, let's. I think it's a good idea. Okay.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
We'll be right back with the history of the Brasserie
right after this. We'll be right back.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
Well now when you're on the road driving in your
truck why not learn a thing or two from josh
and chuck it's stuff you should.
Speaker 4 (13:54):
Know all right okay so as everybody knows there was
a battle between auto von titzling and philippe brazier over
who invented the bra and as um The great Bette
Midler instructed all of us.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
We know who won that battle because you wear a brassiere,
not a tisling.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
Was that a Bette Midler bit?
Speaker 1 (14:23):
It was from Beaches.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
Oh, I saw that in the 80s when it came
out and not since then.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
I don't think I've seen it since the 80s either,
but I guess that little part really stuck with me, yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
So the real first patent for the bra was filed
in 1863.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
Brazier, the word, it wasn't coined until the 20th century.
But that wasn't the first bra. Dave sent us even
a photo with this research, which is pretty great, of
a Sicilian mosaic called Bikini Girls. And if you look
up Bikini Girls, well, you're going to get a lot
of results. But if you look up Sicilian mosaic Bikini Girls,
(15:03):
you will see a mosaic from about 400 to 300
BCE that shows these Young athletic women wearing bikinis, clearly
wearing what looks like a bra or bikini top.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
It's basically exactly what pro beach volleyball players wear today. Like,
no joke. It looks exactly like it.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
But strapless. Right.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
Yeah, I think a lot of them wear strapless stuff, too.
And also very short shorts. Like, even with the butterfly cut,
if you look closely, they have, like, that cut on
the side. I mean, like, they look exactly like pro
volleyball players. And this is... 2,400 years ago. So it
seems like they were wearing what's called an epidesmy or strophium,
(15:49):
depending on whether you speak the Greek or the Latin.
But it's basically like a cloth wrapped around and then
knotted in front to provide support during athletics.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
That's right. Boom. So medieval times come along. There were
European physicians who were writing about something called breast bags.
And there was a medical text from 1300, the royal
surgeon in France, Henri de Mondeville, said, some women insert
two bags in their dresses, adjusted to the breasts fitting tight,
(16:25):
and they put them into them every morning and fasten
them when possible with a matching band.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Not a marching band.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
No, that's sort of a bra, a built-in bra.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
Sure, or a breast bag.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
Right, just don't say that ever again.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
Okay, agreed. So that's from 1300, right? And then you
would think, okay, well, things kind of started hard and
fast from that point on. And as far as history
is concerned, no. Like about 100 years later, all bra
technology was abandoned in favor of the corset. And that's
(17:06):
what we thought for a very long time until there
was a discovery in 2008, but it wasn't publicized until
I think 2012 or 15, that an archaeologist from the
University of Innsbruck, Beatrix Newts, I guarantee that's how her
name is spelled or said. She was excavating an Austrian castle,
(17:27):
Langberg Castle, and she found four medieval bras that were
600 to 700 years old, made of linen. Do you
remember when this was news, this made the rounds?
Speaker 2 (17:38):
I do.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
When you looked at this garment, you're like, that is
a bra. It doesn't matter what context you have. It
doesn't matter. You just show somebody a picture of this
without any prep or anything like that and say, what
is this? They would say, well, that's a bra. You'd say,
that's right. It's a 700-year-old bra that we didn't know existed.
Like that whole design, we had no idea that it
existed because we thought everything had gone basically from, I'm
(18:03):
sorry to say this one more time, breast bags to corsets.
And that there was no transition. But in fact, there
was a transition to the modern bra that was abandoned
in favor of the corset. Quite unfortunately, really.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Yeah, and they even found a picture there of a
13-year-old boy with a bra on his head saying he
was Mickey Mouse.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
So that was proof. So we covered the corset, like
you said, in our full-length episode, so you can go
listen to that. But very briefly, corset, the word means
corpus in Latin for body. And women would wear these
corsets that were– they had wood or bone. Later on,
that had steel. And it would basically shape their torso.
(18:49):
It would cinch that waist in, and it would flatten
their breast. And they were very restrictive. They were very painful.
And they did actual real damage to their bodies at times.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
Oh, yeah. Like they had trouble digesting, had trouble breathing.
You remember you could train your waist to stay that small.
We talked a lot about this in the corset episode.
But the big problem with corsets aside from all that
is that they supported the breasts from the bottom up.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
And the thing that really differentiated bras from everything else
up to that point was that they went the other way.
They harnessed the power of the shoulder to hold the
breasts up from beneath. Not push them up, but hold them,
suspend them, almost like a pair of breast bags hanging
down over your shoulder.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
There you go again.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
I can't help myself now. I've been told not to
do something.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
These are the great episodes where I just sometimes like
to sit back and... watch you dig into a big
giant hole.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
Turn into a 13-year-old boy with a Sears catalog.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
So this was going on. The corsets were terrible. Women
hated them. And by the mid-19th century, like you said,
they said, you've got these strong shoulders. Why don't we
use those? Like an ox. That's right. And the first
modern bra patent was filed in 1863 by a guy
named Lumen Chapman. And he was from– or he was
(20:18):
living at least in Camden, New Jersey. And he had
this very first over-the-shoulder design. And it was tightened in
the back like a corset, but it was softer. It
was made of stretchy fabric. And it had these cups.
They were called breast puffs in the patent for the
extra support and comfort, I think.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
That is radically– better than breast bags.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
You said it again.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
So Lumen Chapman, strangely enough, his design did not take off,
although he does have the first patent. But a woman
named Hermione Cadol, great name, she created something that was
basically like a corset, but it was a corset cut
in two. And the top half very strongly resembled a
modern bra. And she called it the Le Bien-être or
(21:06):
Well-Being And her stuff still didn't quite take off. I
think because she was married to the corset still, the
general corset design, which made sense because at the time,
up until the early 20th century. If you didn't wear
a corset, you were basically advertising that you had loose morals.
(21:26):
So the corset was just it. Whether you hated corsets
with all of your might, and a lot of women did,
you still had to wear them just to be socially acceptable.
So it would take, as far as legend goes, a
very free-spirited, very wealthy socialite named Mary Phelps Jacobs to
basically say, nuts to that. I'm tired of these corsets.
(21:50):
those whalebone stays are protruding through this kind of sheer
dress that I want to wear to this dance. Let
me try something else. And she apparently instructed one of
her maids, because again, she was a wealthy socialite, to
make what we would consider the first modern bra out
of some silk handkerchiefs and ribbon.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Yeah, she was only 19. We should point out she
moved to Paris later on and changed her name to,
is it Caressa Crosby?
Speaker 1 (22:19):
I think so.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
Or Caress. I'm not sure if you pronounce that last E.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
I'm not sure either.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
But that was her final name. So Crosby had this
idea when she was 19, and it was before an
event that she was going to, a debutante ball. And
she called it the Backless Brassiere. And people at the
party loved it. I imagine women especially loved it. And
she got a patent for this thing in 1914. And
(22:45):
very unwisely sold the idea for a mere $ 1, 500 to
Warner Brothers Corset Company.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
Yeah, who turned around in the next 30 years, made
10,000 times that amount from that patent.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
Oh, yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
So it's about $ 38, 000 that she was paid today for
the patent, and they made about $ 225 million in today's
money off of it.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
But she was rich anyway, right?
Speaker 1 (23:09):
In bed. Yeah, she was rich anyway. And she was
a super interesting person from what I saw. She basically
any famous author today that was writing in the 20s,
she was like real good friends with. And she herself wrote, too.
I think she had a publishing house called Black Sun.
But she wrote for a while pornography on commission from
(23:32):
an Oklahoma oil man who couldn't get enough of her stuff.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Like, that was just one of the many— Brought me
another sexist story.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
That was one of the many things that she did
in her life. She wrote pornography.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
Amazing. Yeah. So World War I turns out to be
a good thing if you're a woman because steel is
in short supply. The U.S. joins the war and says,
you know what? We got to have all the steel
in this country go toward war munitions and battleships and stuff.
And American women said, oh, great, because you know what
has steel? My corset. Let's get rid of it and
(24:06):
ditch these things for good. And elastic fabric started coming
into the market. Latex came into the market. And so
all of a sudden American women could finally get rid
of the corset in favor of this new invention called
the brassiere. And, of course, we don't want you to
be too comfortable, ladies. You might want to at least
put a girdle on just to keep everything nice and
(24:29):
cinched in.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
Which is basically like Hermione Cadell's two-piece corset. corset, but whatever. Yeah.
Patriotism freed them from that social expectation of having to
wear a corset, which is pretty great. But I saw
that the steel that the corsets freed up equaled 28,000 tons,
(24:51):
enough to make two battleships in World War I.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
That's awesome.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
That's a lot of corset steel.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
So this led to like a complete revolution in undergarments
for women right so in the 20s um the the
the one of the first bras was basically there was
a company called boish form which held the breasts down
and back back and to the left.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
Wait, what was it called?
Speaker 1 (25:25):
Boyish form, B-O-Y-S-H form. And from what I can tell,
they were basically saying boyish form.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
Okay, that's what I was about to say.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
But they shortened it by removing the I and changed
it to boyish form.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
They're like, they'll never know.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
Right. No one will ever get this trickery. But it
was because of that flapper style was very much slight
and boyish. But then along came a company in the
late 20s called Maidenform. And they named themselves Maidenform to
kind of contradict boyish form because one of their big
things was, hey, man, let's not be ashamed of these
(26:01):
boobs and try to hide them. Let's accentuate these things.
And boy, did they ever.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
Yeah. I mean, in the World War II, in the
age of the big buxom Hollywood bombshell era, people like
Jane Russell, then in the 50s with Marilyn Monroe. And
it's all this, you know, sort of male ideal at
the time is what we're getting at is the bras
sort of followed suit. But when these women came on
the scene, that's when if you look at TV shows
(26:27):
from back then or advertisements, you see these bras that
were very pointy. And I think they even called them
bullet bras or torpedo bras.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
And that was sort of all the rage just because
the sort of, I mean, Hollywood's always sort of driving
fashion in that way, and it certainly did back then,
because Twiggy coming along in the 60s with her very
sort of slim androgynous look, all of a sudden in
the 60s, bras were being thrown in the trash can.
They're like, we don't need bras at all.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
Yeah, and then there was a guy, a designer, who
was an avant-garde designer named Rudy Gernreich, and he came
up with the no bra in 1964, which is basically
like what you would consider a bra today. It's meant
to just kind of be there and be supportive, but
also kind of fade into the background, which.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
Is the antithesis. Like a nice quiet friend.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
Huh?
Speaker 2 (27:20):
Like a quiet friend. Exactly.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
But that's like the antithesis of the torpedo or bullet bra,
which would take your eye clean out if you got
too close to it. But this is– you can kind
of see, like, we've gone from 20s where boy form was–
or boyish form was all the rage to the exact opposite,
to back to the 20s. And then it kind of
swung back toward, you know, large, busty, popping out kind
(27:49):
of thing, even more than before. Because now it's not
covered by a sweater. With torpedoes, it was all about
accentuating the boobs upward and to the left. And then
the Wonder Bra kind of really helped move that along.
And what was really interesting is I remember when the
Wonder Bra came out in America. It was in the 90s.
(28:10):
But it turns out that in the far off land
of Canada, it had been invented 30 years before. It
just took 30 years to get down to America and
become popular.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
That's pretty funny.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
Isn't that weird?
Speaker 2 (28:23):
Yeah, that is totally weird.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
And Canadians are too nice to insist. Like, by the way,
we have a better bra up here.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
Right. And then now things have swum back again to
where they're like, do you even need a bra? And
a lot of people are like, I don't think you do.
It's kind of a personal preference.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
Yeah. It certainly can be, but I also think there's
still very much a stigma.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. It's true. There's just no arguing
that right now.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
No, I mean, if you're a woman and you go
waltzing into a conference meeting at your business and you're
not wearing a bra, then someone's going to say something.
I guarantee you.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
Exactly, yes. But I think also even if somebody didn't
say something or it was okay with everybody else, from
what I can tell, there's a certain psychological– security blanket
aspect to wearing a bra if that's what you've been
raised to do to wear a bra oh for sure
and to not do that would take a real psychological
(29:26):
shift in how you feel and how how secure you
feel without it and i was reading about training bras
because i didn't feel like i was enough of a
creep as.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
It is you're like oh boy.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
But from what i was reading about training bras, even
if the girl doesn't need a bra yet for any
real purpose, it provides like some kind of psychological thing
that they're like, okay, I'm keeping up with my peers
who actually do need a bra. Or I'm going to
like the eighth grade dance or something. probably say sixth
(30:01):
grade dance or something. And I want to wear this dress,
but it's going to look weird if I'm not wearing
a bra. So I need a bra. So, so, and
I think that kind of psychology continues on well into
adulthood too, so that it would be weird or feel
weird to not wear a bra if that's what you've
done your whole life. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
And I think it also has to do with your
comfort level with your, with your breast size. Sure. You know,
not to get too personal, but like, If I had
a dime for every time Emily was like, you got
to go get the delivery food at the door because
I'm not wearing a bra.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
Sure.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
And, you know, Emily has bigger boobs. So there, I
said it. She might be more comfortable if she had
smaller breasts. But I don't know. I'm going to go
home and ask her, though. Okay.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
I feel like we should sit in silence for five minutes.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
So you mentioned Maidenform. We'll get to this later, but
they were founded in 1929 by William and Ida Rosenthal,
who invented or introduced at least the letter-based cup sizing system.
Speaker 3 (31:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
But we'll get to that weird bit of voodoo in
a minute because I still have no idea what's going
on there. But in– actually, it wasn't in a year.
From 1949 to 1963– They had a very, very successful
print ad campaign called I Dream, which you can go
look up online. And these ads, which were very racy
(31:35):
at the time, of course, were women doing things topless
with just their bra on. They would have on like
a regular skirt that you would wear in that era,
but no top, no blouse. And they were dreaming. One
lady was dreaming of being a firefighter, and she was
fighting a fire with no shirt on. Or I dreamed
(31:57):
I went back to school in my maiden form bra.
And it's a woman in her bra at a grammar
school desk. Or I dreamed I won the election in
my maiden form bra.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
Man, that's a face palm.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
She's taking the stage on election night. And beyond these being,
and old advertisements are all funny and awful in every way.
But beyond this being funny and awful, it truly is
kind of gross that what they're showing are things that
are dreams for these women like, having a regular job
and things that they may not have been allowed to
(32:29):
do at the time.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
Yeah. So but in at the time, like, yes, they
were trying to sell their bras. And yes, there was
like a certain amount of sex appeal to the whole campaign.
But in their defense, like this is a very like progressive,
liberating ad campaign. It was conceived by three women. Yeah.
And on one hand. And also, it's not like they
(32:51):
were like, ha ha, you couldn't possibly hold public office
because you're a woman. It was like like it was
showing that women dream of this kind of stuff, that
they want to do this kind of thing. And that
at least in their dreams, they're capable of doing this
rather than we can't even talk about that. It's so preposterous.
We couldn't even possibly create an ad campaign. So it
was kind of like. progressive in that sense it's in
(33:14):
retrospect that it's really cringy but really what you're cringing
it's not like maiden form was making fun of women
for not being able to to do these things it's
more an indictment of society for them being restricted from
these things at the time.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
Yeah that's this is one of these definitely where you
could come at it from a lot of angles sure
and have opinions about it um but we should read
they had a contest in 1955 with the public about
new dream ideas. And the winner from 1957, and Dave,
God bless you for finding this, was I dreamed I
danced the hornpipe with Sinbad the Sailor. Don't even know
(33:53):
what that means.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
That's another thing you can approach from a bunch of
different angles.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
I think we should approach a message break, and then
we'll talk about the wacky world of bra sizing right
after this. Well, now, when you're.
Speaker 3 (34:24):
On the road, driving in your truck, why not learn
a thing or two from Josh and Chuck?
Speaker 4 (34:31):
It's Stuff You Should Know.
Speaker 3 (34:33):
Stuff You Should Know.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
All right.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
All right, Chuck. So one thing that I've read is
that American bras don't fit and that there's a reason
for that. Something like there's a statistic that 80% of women,
American women at least, are wearing bras that don't fit.
And supposedly that's kind of made up and based on
anecdotal evidence, but it's been bandied about for so long
(35:00):
that people take it as gospel. But regardless of whatever
the statistic may or may not be, American bras are
known for not fitting. And it's because American bra manufacturers
have basically said, we've created this standard measuring scale. And
it just is economically efficient for us to mass produce,
(35:21):
you know, this size to this size. And if you
happen to fall outside of that size, you're SOL. And
it's your fault. There's something wrong with your body for
not adhering to the standard norm, body size norm. This
is largely becoming a relic of the past, but it's still,
from what I can tell, very much present when you
(35:43):
go bra shopping.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
Yeah. And, you know, I've heard this complaint from Emily
over the years and a lot of women that, yeah,
it's tough to find a bra that really fits well
and feels good and does everything it's supposed to do.
And that's why when you find one, you know, you
order like six of them.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
But there are these days before we get into the
sizing that is changing some now with these more bespoke
companies that have a more custom custom made tailored to
your size kind of things. And I wonder why it
took that long for someone to think outside the box
and challenge challenge a big brassiere and say, hey, you're
(36:24):
doing it wrong. I bet there's a lot of money
to be made from bespoke brassieres.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
Yeah, from what I understand, there is. And although it's
just now happening in the U.S., apparently it happened, I believe,
back in the 90s in the U.K. with a movement
called bra fitting, one word, where it's basically like, look,
two measurements is not enough to create a perfect bra.
You need a bunch of different measurements under different conditions.
(36:51):
You need to take your shirt and bra all the
way off. We need to get in there. But when
we're done, you're going to have a well-fitting bra, and
it's just now catching on in the United States. And
what's surprising is that, you know, it's just now catching on,
but this technique and the sizing standard that we use
here in the United States goes back to the, I think,
(37:15):
the 20s, if not the 30s.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
Yeah. Yeah, 1929 is when they founded Maidenform and introduced
this cup sizing technique. And I'm not going to pretend
to fully understand this.
Speaker 1 (37:27):
I got it.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
But I can read. Oh, you got it? Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
You go ahead, though. I want to hear your attempt.
Speaker 2 (37:31):
No, no, no. Because what will happen is I'll read
and then you'll do it again in your own words.
And then this episode is 15 minutes longer than it
should be.
Speaker 1 (37:41):
All right. You got my number. And my number happens
to be 34C. So the cup system is what it's called.
It consists of two measurements and the difference between them.
So the first measurement is the overbust, which is the
circumference of your chest all the way around your body
(38:06):
across the nipples. That's your overbust measurement, right?
Speaker 2 (38:09):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
Now, if you'll also measure right below the breasts all
the way around your body, that's your underbust. And if
you subtract those two, you're going to come up with
a difference in inches or centimeters, depending on where you
are in the world. And you can use that as
part of a handy table to say, oh, there's a
three-inch difference. That means that I'm a C cup, right? Right.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
That's where the lettering comes from.
Speaker 1 (38:34):
Right. The difference between your underbust and your overbust generates
some knowledge about the volume that your breasts are going
to take up, which is your cup size. Got it?
Speaker 2 (38:43):
It generates knowledge?
Speaker 3 (38:45):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
So that underbust measurement is also used and that's the
number that comes before it. So if you're a 34C,
that means your chest is 34 inches around at the
rib cage under your breasts. And then if you're a C,
that means that there's a three inch difference. That means
that you are 37 inches around your chest at the nipples.
(39:10):
And so you'd be a 34C. And that those two
measurements are supposedly like all you need to come up
with a fitting bra. But apparently that's just not true.
Speaker 2 (39:21):
Yeah, I mean, that all makes sense. I think the
thing that confused me is the sister sizing.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
I understand that too.
Speaker 2 (39:29):
Thing. so if you have a 36C and a 34C
brassiere that's not the same cup size because a 34C
is the only true C yeah so if you want
to go up a band size but not the cup
size you buy a 36B or a 38A so the
volume of the cup size is relative to the circumference
of the band Yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:50):
I mean, it's as simple as that. I think the problem,
the breakdown is, is that this sister sizing thing has
not been widely publicized to women. And so that they
think like, well, if the band is a little tight
and I'm a 36C, then I need to go up
to a 38C. And that's just not the case. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:10):
In music, you want a tight band. In brassieres, you don't.
Speaker 1 (40:14):
Well, supposedly part of that bra fitting trend that started
in the UK is that suggests that a tight band
is the key to a good fitting bra, that that's
where most of your support comes and that most women
opt for a band size that's a little too loose.
But the point is, is your cup volume does not
go up when you go up a band size. It
(40:35):
doesn't have to. So that means that a 34C, if
you go down in band size, you would go up
in cup size and your cup size would stay the same.
So a 34C is the same as a 32D. And
then the other way, a 34C is the same as
a 36B. And once you understand the sister sizing thing,
then you can actually use this two measurement standard to
(40:58):
find a bra that actually fits better.
Speaker 2 (41:01):
That's right. And if you're wondering how this all works,
it works with bra fitting models. There are women that
get paid money to go in and get fit for
thousands and thousands of bras and to give feedback. And
this all start, well, it didn't completely start there. But
in the 1970s, there was a singer named Dorothy Galligan
(41:24):
from New York answered an ad for a bra fitting model.
And they said, you know what? I know this sounds sexist,
and we probably, even though it's the 70s, shouldn't be
saying this in an office, but you have the perfect 34Bs,
and that's the standard size which we're designing our bras on.
So for almost 20 years, Dorothy Galligan was the model
(41:46):
in New York in the lingerie district that would work 10, 11,
12-hour days trying on thousands and thousands of bras and
giving her feedback. So they could go back to the
sewing machine and redo it.
Speaker 1 (41:59):
Yeah, because that's the other part of the problem with
bras that don't necessarily fit. In addition to not making
larger sizes in cup volumes and smaller sizes in cup volumes,
like they're based around one woman's pair of breasts and
her breasts became the standard for the bra industry in
the 20th century so that. if you could create a
(42:19):
bra that fit Dorothy Galligan correctly as a 34B, you
could use that to basically grow out from either way.
Speaker 2 (42:27):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (42:28):
So that's a real problem for women who have different
shapes and sizes. And it's really sad to me to
think that they were told for decades that, you know,
if your bra doesn't fit, something's wrong with your body.
You must acquit. Exactly.
Speaker 2 (42:42):
Well, and here's the thing, too. It's not just breast size.
It's You know, how big your back is and how, like,
the bra, it holds the breasts, the cups do, but,
you know, it has to do with your shoulders and
your back and your armpits and everything else. Like, there's
so many nuances to everybody's body, men and women, that,
(43:04):
I mean, I think until recently they were trying to
do the best they could. But it was pretty narrow,
the options that women had.
Speaker 1 (43:12):
Yeah, I get the impression that they were not trying
to do the best that they could, that they basically
said when we release a new bra, it comes in
these sizes.
Speaker 2 (43:19):
Well, doing the best they could for a huge industry
that had to satisfy, you know, tens of millions of
different kind of bodies. Like they were kind of hamstrung.
You can't have. 450 bra sizes and manufacture on that scale.
Speaker 1 (43:33):
Yeah, you can't mass manufacture, but I think that's what's
being proven, like you were saying, by this new bespoke revolution.
Speaker 4 (43:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:40):
You can't get that big, although now you can get
that big because it's bespoke and because you can say, hey,
download our app and take these measurements using your phone
and upload it, and then we'll just custom make some
bras for you. And I also read that Poland– makes really,
really good-fitting bras as well. I think it was a
(44:02):
New York Times article about it. And the author traveled
to Poland to verify this herself, and she said she
didn't find the perfect bra, but she came away with
like four or five bras that were awfully close, way
closer than she'd ever had before.
Speaker 2 (44:16):
It's funny. After all these years, I still remember to
not put a bra in a dryer because of the
movie Hedwig and the Angry Inch.
Speaker 1 (44:25):
I don't remember that part. No, I never saw it.
That's why I don't remember that part.
Speaker 2 (44:28):
It's great. John Cameron Mitchell, who also a friend of
Movie Crush, he's a friend of Noel's. He played Hedwig
and created the character and directed the film. But there's
a scene where he's screaming, do not put a bra
in a dryer. It warps. And I guess that's true
because ever since then I've been like, I don't know
(44:50):
if I'm doing laundry. I should not put a bra
in a dryer.
Speaker 1 (44:53):
It does do some weird things to it, although you
can also put it in a laundry bag, and I
think that keeps it from wrapping around stuff, which makes
it last longer. You can't put it in a dryer.
Speaker 2 (45:05):
Oh, right. Yeah, like when a bra collects everything else
in its wake.
Speaker 1 (45:09):
Exactly. Yeah. So I don't think we can not talk
about Victoria's Secret.
Speaker 2 (45:18):
Man, if I had a dime for every time you
said that to me. Or as many dumb, dumb guys
call it, Victoria's Secrets.
Speaker 1 (45:24):
Yeah, dummies. So Victoria's Secret actually started out, husband and
wife founded it in the 70s in the San Francisco
area because the husband had gone to like the department
store to buy lingerie for his wife and was treated
like a scale for it, right?
Speaker 2 (45:42):
Even in San Francisco in the 70s?
Speaker 1 (45:43):
I guess so. All right. Department stores have always been
a certain way no matter where you are.
Speaker 2 (45:48):
I think.
Speaker 1 (45:49):
Right. So he said, well, we need to create like
a lingerie store that's made for men to go buy
for women. And that's what they created was Victoria's Secret.
And it was semi-successful. And then they sold to a
guy named Leslie Wexman. I believe it was Wexman who
had founded The Limited. And he took it— I think he
(46:11):
bought it for a million dollars. And within two decades,
it was worth $ 2 billion. And the guy who founded
it with his wife, they ended up getting divorced. And
he died broke and jumped from the Golden Gate Bridge,
sadly enough.
Speaker 2 (46:26):
Oh, wow.
Speaker 1 (46:27):
But Victoria's Secret dominated the— the bra industry in the
United States for many, many decades until very recently when
it was overthrown by women who said, enough.
Speaker 2 (46:40):
Yeah. Well, it's funny. You know, Roy Raymond said, you
know what we need is a store where men can
go in and buy sexy lingerie for their wives. And
what he failed to hear was the sound of tens
of millions of women across the country saying, No, you don't.
Speaker 1 (46:55):
Right. Well, that's what that's what Leslie, I think it's Wexman.
That's what he figured out was that this this thing
was a good idea, but they had missed the mark
and that they were marketing toward men and they were
completely isolating women. Because he said, like these Victoria's Secret
stores were lit with like, you know, weird kind of
reddish lighting and there were velvet couches and oriental rugs.
(47:17):
And he said that.
Speaker 2 (47:17):
I've walked by them in the mall very slowly.
Speaker 1 (47:20):
This was like in the early 70s or late 70s
and early 80s.
Speaker 2 (47:25):
Yeah, that's what I'm talking. Okay.
Speaker 1 (47:26):
All right. So he said, man, I would have loved
to have seen this. He said they were Victorian, not
like a Victorian foyer. They were like a Victorian brothel, basically.
And it was like just chasing women away, attracting men.
But women buy, you know, underwear for themselves way more
than their husbands do. And so he kind of revamped
(47:47):
it a little bit and turned it into something that
women felt comfortable and actually wanted to go into.
Speaker 2 (47:52):
Yeah, it's interesting. According to that book Uplift that we
mentioned earlier, despite Victoria's Secret and its history, women have
really been key to the development of bras in the
United States. I think over 1,200 U.S. patents have been
awarded for bras between 1863 and 1969, and half of
(48:14):
those have been held by women. And in the industry,
they have always held pretty important positions and been well-regarded
designers and managers, specialists, merchandising, promotional product managers. It is
one industry where it seems that has not been, here's
a product for women run entirely by men.
Speaker 1 (48:37):
Right. And rightfully so, I would say.
Speaker 2 (48:40):
Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (48:41):
So there is also a very famous legend as far
as bras go, which is the burning of bras at
a 1968 demonstration.
Speaker 2 (48:51):
Yeah, not true, apparently.
Speaker 1 (48:52):
No, it's a myth. There was, in fact, a demonstration
outside of Miss America pageant in Atlantic City in 1968.
It was the brainchild of Carol Hanisch, who helped basically
at this moment give birth to second wave feminism. And
they actually had a trash can that said freedom trash can.
(49:13):
And women threw stuff into it that they considered like
shackles of the patriarchy, like false eyelashes, bras. lingerie that
kind of stuff but there was no burning that came
from a reporter who suggested that they burn it as
a nod to the burning of draft cards but no
one actually burned this stuff but it became kind of
(49:33):
set in stone as true even though it really wasn't that's.
Speaker 2 (49:37):
Right big fat lie And.
Speaker 1 (49:40):
Then lastly, Chuck, I've got one extra thing. You ready?
Speaker 2 (49:43):
Ready.
Speaker 1 (49:44):
Do you have anything else?
Speaker 2 (49:46):
I don't.
Speaker 1 (49:47):
Do you need to wear a bra? It's a longstanding question.
And apparently the answer is no, at least as far
as a study in France, a 15-year study of 300 women.
I think they're aged 18 to 35. And this study
found that women who did not wear bras developed more
(50:09):
muscle tissue in their breasts, ostensibly to provide support that
the bra wasn't there to provide. And that by proxy,
if you did wear a bra, the muscles in your
breasts were less prone to develop, and thus you would
have more likely to have breasts that sag or pendular
(50:31):
breasts than you would have if you didn't wear a bra.
Kind of like you're making your breasts sink or swim
by not wearing a bra.
Speaker 2 (50:39):
Makes sense.
Speaker 1 (50:40):
It's just one study, but it is pretty surprising that
they found basically the opposite of conventional wisdom. Because most
people say, oh, if you don't wear a bra, your
breasts will get saggy. And that's apparently not true.
Speaker 2 (50:52):
Interesting.
Speaker 1 (50:53):
And I also ran across a weird question on Google.
You know, it has like suggested searches. What happens if
we squeeze breasts?
Speaker 2 (51:04):
Uh, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (51:06):
I didn't even bother to look. Just the question itself
was good enough.
Speaker 2 (51:11):
Oh, man.
Speaker 1 (51:12):
You got anything else?
Speaker 2 (51:13):
I got nothing else.
Speaker 1 (51:14):
What about the bro or the man's ear?
Speaker 2 (51:17):
Oh, yeah. Can't forget the bro.
Speaker 1 (51:19):
Well, since we said bro, it's time for listener mail, everybody.
Speaker 2 (51:25):
I'm going to call this more on bidets. Hey, guys.
Love the show. Thanks for all you do. It's especially
meaningful in these crazy times. I'm currently hanging out in
northern Japan on a trip that changed from a between-jobs
snowboarding sabbatical in December to, well, I guess I live
here for now. So you're not a bad place to be,
I would imagine. So good for you, Adam. I'm sure
(51:47):
you guys got a ton of similar emails to this,
but in the bidets episode, you mentioned a type of
toilet with a sink sprayer attachment nearby. In my experience,
this is a super common thing in households and many
lower-budget hotel accommodations in the Philippines. and other Southeast Asian countries.
It is awesome and commonly referred to as the bum
gun by foreign travelers and expats. I don't know the
(52:11):
etymology of bum gun, so I'm not sure if that
term has been adopted domestically in various bum gun enthusiast countries.
But like One Ring or Spidey's abilities, it has great
power and must be wielded carefully. So bum gun wisely,
my friends. That is from Adam.
Speaker 1 (52:28):
Thanks a lot, Adam. And best of luck to you
in your new home. Hang tight, buddy. Things will pass eventually.
If you want to get in touch with us like
Adam did and talk about bum guns or bras or
what have you, you can email. Send us an email
to stuffpodcasts at iheartradio.com.
Speaker 2 (52:50):
Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1 (52:53):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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