![]() |
(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.
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(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.
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(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.
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(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.








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