2022

Maddy Fletcher charts the highs, lows, celebrities and controversies that have come to define the brassiere

Victoria’s secret launches

Stanford business graduate Roy Raymond had an awkward experience while shopping for his wife. He decided to create a women’s underwear shop that men wouldn’t feel uncomfortable in – and so Victoria’s Secret and its mail-order catalogue was born. After the brand was purchased by Les Wexner for $1 million (£800,000) in 1982, the bras got racier – and customers loved it. By the early 90s, it was the largest lingerie brand in the US with sales of more than $1 billion (£800 million). In 1999, its famous runway show went online and attracted so many viewers that its website crashed.

material Girl

When Madonna called Jean Paul Gaultier’s team to ask if he would make a suit and cone-shaped bra for her Blonde

tour, the designer was confused. ‘I thought my assistant was joking,’ he told The New York Times. Still, he obliged, and the bra (right) is now seared into the cultural consciousness. ‘I love Madonna,’ says Gaultier. ‘She’s the only woman I ever asked to marry me. She said no, of course.’

free the nipple

The braless brigade has always had backers. Gwyneth Paltrow didn’t bother with one at the 2000 or 2002 Oscars. But things got more political in 2012 when it was revealed that Facebook and Instagram were censoring female nipples, but not male ones. Celebrities like Miley Cyrus piled in with their own topless pictures; there were braless marches and fashion brand Never Fully Dressed sold a ‘boob tee’ (as worn by Kendall Jenner) and raised £50,000 for charity.

the braless Generation

Social media censors be damned: on TikTok #NoBra has 399.4 million views and #NoBraClub a cool 102 million. And, frankly, lockdown has made many of us embrace the no-bra lifestyle. In October 2020, lingerie retailer Bravissimo reported a

30 per cent slump in revenue while in the US bra sales sagged by nine per cent the same year. The Crown’s Gillian Anderson, 54, agrees: ‘I don’t care if my breasts reach my belly button. I’m not wearing a bra – it’s just too f***ing uncomfortable.’