Bras and the Conflict Between Being an Emma Goldman or an Evelyn Nesbit
From: Nell Minow
To: Jodi KantorPosted Monday, Jan. 28, 2002, at 11:18 AM ET
Who are these people?
This week's reading.
Buy the book.
Dear Jodi,
I liked finding out in Uplift: The Bra in America that describing a woman as "loose" is a reference to her lack of corset as evidence of a lack of moral character. It inspired me to get out my favorite passage from E.L. Doctorow's Ragtime. In a fictional scene with real-life characters, radical reformer Emma Goldman puts her hand on the laced-up torso of notorious showgirl Evelyn Nesbit and says: "My God, stays like steel. Your waist is pinched tighter than a purse string. … It is ironic that you are thought of in homes all over America as a shameless licentious wanton." Goldman gives Nesbit a glimpse of unimagined freedom: "Look at me, even with my figure I have not one foundation garment, I wear everything loose and free-flowing, I give my body the freedom to breathe and to be."
Doctorow describes Goldman helping Nesbit out of the various contraptions, pulling out laces and unbuckling straps. "Marks of the stays ran vertically like welts around Nesbit's waist." At last, Nesbit takes deep, uncorseted breaths, and as Goldman massages her, her body finds "its own natural rosy white being and (begins) to stir with self-perception."
That scene brilliantly illuminates the moment in which American women loosened their stays literally and metaphorically. Uplift is about what happened next. It documents the history of the bra in the 20th century.
It's a great topic. Bras exist at the collision point of health, fashion, commerce, culture, gender studies, and history. They are marvels of both engineering and artistry. For historians, they are "a material and social artifact." For economists, they are a multibillion-dollar industry. For women, they are, like all of fashion, "entertainment, self-creation, and everyday art." And they are fun, with that naughty frisson of the secret and the hidden.
My favorite part of the book was seeing the way that bra manufacturers responded to the world around them. Bras minimized bust size for flapper fashion in the 1920s and maximized bust size for a perfectly torpedo-shaped sweater silhouette in the 1950s. They took advantage of the latest technological developments in synthetics and manufacturing. They found innovative ways to replace restricted materials during World War II, and they even used their expertise in fitting the female curves to design a special top-secret vest for carrier pigeons so that paratroopers could carry them safely. When home washing machines arrived, bras evolved to improve their survival rate.
Bra manufacturers reflected and even influenced the revolutionary concept of marketing to teen-agers and of youth as style-setters. Ads told teens that bras would make them look older. At the same time, they told women that the right bras would make them look younger, "uplift" itself signaling a bosom that has not yet felt the pull of gravity.
As fashion demanded rigidity or softness, there were bras to deliver whichever the customer wanted. As times, tastes, and fashions changed, bras came in psychedelic colors and natural fabrics, made from one wisp of fabric or 22 meticulously assembled pieces. In the 1960s, there were even bras that "fake[ed] the braless look." Instead of the personal being political, firms like Maidenform tied the physical to the political, describing itself as "the company that understands and supports women," with ads that looked like posters for what we used to call a women's lib rap session.
There were corsets that produced the pigeon-breasted "monobosom" of the Victorian era and plastic protective bras issued to Riveting Rosies during World War II. There were strapless bras, backless bras, push-up bras, bras with secret pockets to hide money, inflatable bras, nursing bras for women with babies, and bras with prosthetics for women who had mastectomies. And there were tantalizing brand names: Girlish Form (and the flapper-era Boyishform), Glamorise, Sweet Nothings, Heaventeen, Sensuous Solution, Daisyfresh, Jezebel, and today's designer names like Donna Karan and Liz Claiborne.
And here we are, exactly one century after the first bras were sold in a retail store. According to Uplift, today's top sellers are the exercise-friendly sports bra and the hey-look-at-me Wonderbra. I'll bet many women have one of each. So it seems to me that the conflict between Emma Goldman and Evelyn Nesbit—and women who want to be both—goes on.
Yours in sisterhood, uplift, and support,
Nell
Bras and the Conflict Between Being an Emma Goldman or an Evelyn Nesbit
From: Nell Minow
To: Jodi KantorPosted Monday, Jan. 28, 2002, at 11:18 AM ETJodi Kantor is
Slate's New York editor. Nell Minow is the editor of the
Corporate Library, which covers corporate governance and performance, and writer of
Movie Mom, reviews of films and videos.
To the 500-plus Slate readers who entered "The Book Club" contest: We're reading as fast as we can. Results soon, we promise, and thanks for being patient.
Notes From The Fray Editor:
Bill Lax writes that his mother Leona was one of the great bra designers, and that it was she who alphabetized cup sizes. Dan Golub speaks out for toothpicks here. Chas Valentine looks at fake bra history. Joan has the excellent theory that "Bra names also relected the mood of the times… The no nonsense, hard driven, 'get out of my way,' workaholic woman of the '80s was offered support and comfort from the 'Eighteen Hour Bra.'" Kathleen Ely says she is, like Emma Goldman, "politically uncorseted," but she still likes the comfort and "joys of a great fitting bra." We also liked Kate Powers' detailed personal account below—we'd hoped for more posts like this, but apparently only women called Kate and Kathleen wanted to share. There were many posts of a kind that we expected but didn't particularly want to read. And Mike Oxbigg is back with his breast nicknames. This feature was first spotted a year ago following this article on Mardi Gras, and as we said then, at least he's on-topic.
Special note: The authors of Uplift, Colleen Gau and Jane Farrell-Beck, are looking for Slate readers who know about bras. They are "very much hoping to hear from readers directly who may have additional information, corrections, and personal experience or connections with the bra industry that could add to the story." Read Gau's post here: it includes an email address.
Reader Comments From The Fray:
So goes the nation….can't help but imagine the parallel of the dot com boom of the nineties and the rise in popularity of the pushup, air pump, and water padded bras. Under the bountiful exhibit of substance that meets the eye lies... well, nothing.
--Jackie
(To find or answer this post, click here.)
I wonder if the bra helped to promote the breast as the most attractive part of the woman. It accentuated the shape of the breast far better than the petticoat, which flattered the waist, ever could. Women's fashion, because of technology or morality, tried to create big, false forms of feminity; the bra simply did what it could with what was there.
--BML
(To find or answer this post, click here.)
The combination of breast and bra is, along with lips and mouth, the most obvious sexual feature of a woman that may be observed in daily life, at the office, a cafe or club, and no wonder the care, thought, expense and effort that goes into presentation is substantial--it is a powerful cue and one that every woman I've been close to is intensely conscious of. I would say that the bra is the most important clothing item used because so many mannerisms and implications flow from it…
--Gregory M. Patchen
(To find or answer this post, click here.)
I'd like to skim Uplift to discover whether the authors have noticed how bra manufacturers have begun to focus on fabric and neglect actual design. This is, naturally, a matter that concerns the well-endowed more than other consumers, but I have to say that the recent switch to heavily lycra-filled fabrics (since, say, the early '90s) strikes me as an attempt at planned obsolescence. Although, yes, much more comfortable than less stretchy fabrics, when bras made largely of spandex wear out, they wear out so completely as to be entirely pointless. On the other hand, a less stretchy bra (these days likely to be much more expensive and made by a European company like La Perla) will still deliver a few years of weekend and emergency service long after it has lost its initial vim and vigor.
It also hasn't escaped my notice that these stretch fabrics have the added virtue of not requiring careful tailoring techniques. A really great (read: supportive, well-shaped and comfortable) bra will typically have a seam that runs right over the nipple; placing this seam and making it low-profile enough not to draw attention under clothing or chafe is no easy feat and must consume many manhours, both in the design and manufacturing stages. (Here I'm speaking with some experience, since I just had a dress made with just such a seam and the dressmaker, though gifted, struggled with it for quite a while before getting it right.) How much easier to give women a couple triangles of spandex and call it a day? And too bad for chesty individuals who would like to have discrete, organic-looking geometric forms under their clothes, rather than oddly-shaped bags of flesh. It is their misfortune to have been born with the genes for a womanly figure but neither the inclination for surgery nor the funds. Thus does the ill-clothed heavy set figure become a symbol of belonging to a low-income or low-status demographic, while the wealthy can afford trim, well-tailored forms. Not that I'm bitter.:-)
--Kate Powers
(To find or answer this post, click here.)
(1/30)
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Notes From The Fray Editor:
Bill Lax writes that his mother Leona was one of the great bra designers, and that it was she who alphabetized cup sizes. Dan Golub speaks out for toothpicks here. Chas Valentine looks at fake bra history. Joan has the excellent theory that "Bra names also relected the mood of the times… The no nonsense, hard driven, 'get out of my way,' workaholic woman of the '80s was offered support and comfort from the 'Eighteen Hour Bra.'" Kathleen Ely says she is, like Emma Goldman, "politically uncorseted," but she still likes the comfort and "joys of a great fitting bra." We also liked Kate Powers' detailed personal account below—we'd hoped for more posts like this, but apparently only women called Kate and Kathleen wanted to share. There were many posts of a kind that we expected but didn't particularly want to read. And Mike Oxbigg is back with his breast nicknames. This feature was first spotted a year ago following this article on Mardi Gras, and as we said then, at least he's on-topic.
Special note: The authors of Uplift, Colleen Gau and Jane Farrell-Beck, are looking for Slate readers who know about bras. They are "very much hoping to hear from readers directly who may have additional information, corrections, and personal experience or connections with the bra industry that could add to the story." Read Gau's post here: it includes an email address.
Reader Comments From The Fray:
So goes the nation….can't help but imagine the parallel of the dot com boom of the nineties and the rise in popularity of the pushup, air pump, and water padded bras. Under the bountiful exhibit of substance that meets the eye lies... well, nothing.
--Jackie
(To find or answer this post, click here.)
I wonder if the bra helped to promote the breast as the most attractive part of the woman. It accentuated the shape of the breast far better than the petticoat, which flattered the waist, ever could. Women's fashion, because of technology or morality, tried to create big, false forms of feminity; the bra simply did what it could with what was there.
--BML
(To find or answer this post, click here.)
The combination of breast and bra is, along with lips and mouth, the most obvious sexual feature of a woman that may be observed in daily life, at the office, a cafe or club, and no wonder the care, thought, expense and effort that goes into presentation is substantial--it is a powerful cue and one that every woman I've been close to is intensely conscious of. I would say that the bra is the most important clothing item used because so many mannerisms and implications flow from it…
--Gregory M. Patchen
(To find or answer this post, click here.)
I'd like to skim Uplift to discover whether the authors have noticed how bra manufacturers have begun to focus on fabric and neglect actual design. This is, naturally, a matter that concerns the well-endowed more than other consumers, but I have to say that the recent switch to heavily lycra-filled fabrics (since, say, the early '90s) strikes me as an attempt at planned obsolescence. Although, yes, much more comfortable than less stretchy fabrics, when bras made largely of spandex wear out, they wear out so completely as to be entirely pointless. On the other hand, a less stretchy bra (these days likely to be much more expensive and made by a European company like La Perla) will still deliver a few years of weekend and emergency service long after it has lost its initial vim and vigor.
It also hasn't escaped my notice that these stretch fabrics have the added virtue of not requiring careful tailoring techniques. A really great (read: supportive, well-shaped and comfortable) bra will typically have a seam that runs right over the nipple; placing this seam and making it low-profile enough not to draw attention under clothing or chafe is no easy feat and must consume many manhours, both in the design and manufacturing stages. (Here I'm speaking with some experience, since I just had a dress made with just such a seam and the dressmaker, though gifted, struggled with it for quite a while before getting it right.) How much easier to give women a couple triangles of spandex and call it a day? And too bad for chesty individuals who would like to have discrete, organic-looking geometric forms under their clothes, rather than oddly-shaped bags of flesh. It is their misfortune to have been born with the genes for a womanly figure but neither the inclination for surgery nor the funds. Thus does the ill-clothed heavy set figure become a symbol of belonging to a low-income or low-status demographic, while the wealthy can afford trim, well-tailored forms. Not that I'm bitter.:-)
--Kate Powers
(To find or answer this post, click here.)
(1/30)