Support For Women
Posted on October 2, 2008
Filed Under Women Leaders | 9 Comments
Few people would attribute the story of the bra to Cretan times, thousands of years ago when the Minoans were at the height of their civilisation in ancient Crete. The French word for ‘support’ is ‘brassiere’ and this was the name given to the support garment that made its initial debut in American, in a copy of Vogue magazine published in the US in 1907. Prior to this Vogue advertisement, bust improvers were already being manufactured in England, becoming generalized undergarments which, by 1905 had become known as BBs. It wasn’t until 1914, however, that the first brassiere was patented by an American woman, Mary Phelps-Jacobs. While she may not have actually invented the bra, Mary Phelps-Jacobs is attributed with the credit due to the patent being awarded to her. The name she patented the first bra under was Caresse Crosby, the actual design being attributed to the ideas provided by either her French maid or one of her seamstresses.
This original design was notable in its sheer simplicity: two silk handkerchiefs were simply tied together, ribbon was threaded through to provide straps and a seam joined one side of the two handkerchiefs together, creating a stitched seam down the centre front. Due to lack of interest in the design and low sales, Mary Phelps-Jacobs sold the patent rights to Warners for $1,500. This coincided with the fashion trend, from 1910 onwards, for lighter corsets, cut much lower, leaving less support for the bust. Within just a few years that original $1500 investment by Warners had escalated and was valued at $15 million as women started to accept the idea of wearing a bra with a separate, shorter corset. It further coincided with women being requested to free up the metal being used in corsets for the war effort, at the request of the US War Industries’ Board. The amount of metal saved from corset production was estimated at 28,000 tons, considered sufficient for the production of two battleships.
This was the start of Warners involvement in the manufacture of ladies’ undergarments: they have continued to be involved in the lingerie business from then on. They clearly bought the patent at the right time, as World War 1 effectively altered women’s roles, with many of them taking employment away from the home, on such a large scale, for the first time in history. This single factor has also been attributed to public opinion being changed towards women wearing corsets, and the whole social fabric being altered so that, even when WW1 ended, women’s roles in society had changed irrevocably. From 1918 onwards, the bra was on display openly in department stores and advertising the shape of the ‘new bust’ was having an effect on evolving <a rel=”external nofollow” target=”_blank” href="http://fashionzona.com/"> fashions. </a> As a result, bra sales were increasing. During the 1930s homemade brassieres started to lose out to commercially produced garments and the term ‘brassiere’ was popularly shortened to become known as a ‘bra’ – predominantly by younger women who were attending college.
The ‘Alphabet Bra’ was designed by Warners in 1935, when the actual cup sizes were being made in accordance to the different proportions of women’s busts. Although women in the UK did not respond to this sizing until the 1950s, from then to the present day bras have been manufactured in different cup sizes, featuring A, B, or C cups. Nowadays, cup sizes extend to J or more, with double sizing, such as AA, BB, CC, quite usual. A stretchy fabric, called lycra, was being developed by the Warner-Dupont partnership in 1959, designed to make bras more comfortable and more resilient. This innovation heralded in the 1960s when liberation became a by-word and feminism reared its head. These feminists were objecting to being treated as ‘sex objects’ and, in some quarters [although, by no means all], bra-burning and no-bras became the order of the day.
Despite the widespread protests, they eventually died away as women began to frequent the many gyms that were opening and, with exercising came a need for women’s breasts to be comfortably supported. From this point on, especially as the exercise culture developed and remained in the fore, sales of bras increased. From the 1990s onwards, new bra designs and innovations were brought onto the market and welcomed by women everywhere. Bras such as the Wonderbra which provided all women with the cleavage many desired, especially if they wanted to look good in the plunging necklines that were
becoming fashionable, a trend started by many of the celebrities but which has now continued amongst women’s fashion generally. There are now many designs, from padded to soft cups, fishnet, sexy, push-up, and underwired. There are bras specifically designed for breast-feeding mothers to sleep bras for pregnant mothers; there are also training bras for the pre-teens and sports’ bras for maximum support. The styles and designs are endless and a major industry has grown up around the design and manufacture of the bra, with new designs continuously evolving to become ever better at supporting the changing figure of women as they move through their adult lives.
Watch the video related to notable women history
Kate Winslet has been named one of the finest actresses of her generation. This is a short speech about her honorable career and astonishing personal life. This presentation was made for my public speaking class, based on the following requirements. 1. Must be about a Notable Woman. 2. 8 – 10 Slides (PowerPoint) 3. 3:00 – 3:30 minutes. (Not including Works Cited) I hope you like it!
Help answer the question about notable women history
Did any notable events in women's history occur in 1998?About Author
Alisa has a popular lingerie store, and writing a lot of interesting and helpful articles on her lingerie blog.
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9 Responses to “Support For Women”
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Life coaching for women who have been battered is a great idea and awesome that you want to volunteer in that capacity! Here's a (long) list of over 150 agencies that specialize in domestic violence services in California:
http://www.safenetwork.net/directory.cfm
and a list of California domestic violence shelters:
http://www.divorcesource.com/shelters/california.shtml
You don't give married women enough credit for learning from experience. If they vote more like their husbands, it might just happen to be the case that a committed relationship has taught them that conventional academic wisdom was wrong about men, and that parenting has taught them that caring about the welfare of loved ones can be more fulfilling than obsessing on self-indulgence and self-righteousness. Parenting places an undisputably and entirely innocent being in one's care, and there are very few people so selfish that they don't grow somewhat in this position of responsibility. This isn't to say that all single women are self-absorbed, but only that marriage and parenting force responsibilities onto people that can be avoided by singles, and thereby force them to consider values that singles don't have to think about.
___Maybe a better approach would be to raise the voting age. At least that would be a fair way to minimize the "immaturity" vote.
These are patriotic men who are upstanding citizens. A whole dollar can buy a waitress who works at Hooters a whole candy bar at the ol' 99 cents store. Hooters and feminism goes together like Coco Puffs and milk!
The same way they are pro-choice, but anti-prostitution. If a women is smart enough to choose to have an abortion, then she should be able to choose who she sleeps with too, right??? Why are women only allowed to use their vagina's to kill babies and not to make money?????
I have two views on this.
Women wanted equality. They got it. And have to take the good and the bad that goes with it.
However, "giving" in a relationship can be so much more than financial support. In my household, I'm the main bread winner and earn way more than my partner (who works very hard), but more than that, he provides me with so much stuff that money simply can't buy.
You may be unwell, and you may not be able to contribute in certain ways to a relationship, but have a good look at yourself and work out what you can provide, and then major on them.
Good luck
(ps, I'm a firm believer that there is someone for everyone. It just takes some of us longer than others)
It's clear from your question that you don't really know any feminists, sir.
You are so silly.
Obama didn't attack Hillary, he disagreed with her on a number of key governing issues, including her vote to go to war and her ideas about health care. His supporters may have been more harsh, but name me one candidate who has run a campaign where his or her supporters didn't attack the opposition. That is called politics. Just because you are a woman doesn't mean that you cannot be challenged.
Both Obama and Biden have come out against these personnal attacks on Gov. Palin. Saying that this campaign is spewing evil against women is a flat out lie.
Palin is the one who believes that women that get raped should not have the right to have an abortion. Supporting the ban of a women's right to choose is evil as far as i'm concerned.
Well… if they kill the enemy of course I will back them up.