(Photo: Courtesy of Conde Nast Archive/Vogue)

1907
Vogue uses the word brassiere for the first time in 1907; the OED adds it in 1912.

(Photo: Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

1914
New York socialite Mary Phelps Jacob patents the first bra, the backless brassiere, a primitive construction of two handkerchiefs and a pink ribbon. She ultimately sells the patent for $1,500.

(Photo: Gaslight Advertising Archives)

1943
Howard Hughes crafts a cantilevered bra for Jane Russell in The Outlaw. She never wears it.

(Photo: Tara Striano)

1977
Runners Hinda Miller and Lisa Lindahl create the jogbra, the first sports bra, by stitching two jockstraps together.

(Photo: Bettmann/Corbis)

1979
Women’s-liberation movements burn bras, which feminists saw as objects of oppression rather than support.

(Photo: John Roca/Rex USA)

1990
Madonna has Jean Paul Gaultier make a conical brassiere for her Blond Ambition tour.

(Photo: Rex USA)

1991
Sarah Jessica Parker shows her bra in public, a look she would revisit frequently a decade later in Sex and the City.

Time line compiled by Cheree Berry, author of Hoorah for the Bra: A Perky Peek at the History of the Brassiere.

Related:

• Archive: “Guides”
• Table of Contents: Dec 10, 2007 issue of New York | Subscribe!