This month we celebrate the 100^th birthday of the Bra! To commemorate this momentous occasion we’d like to show you the highlights during the life of this most important garment.

It all started in 1913 when Mary Phelps Jacob, a New York City socialite, was granted a patent for inventing the modern bra. She used two handkerchiefs and a pink ribbon to create the “Backless Brassiere”. Amazingly, cup sizes did not exist until the 1920s and its hard to imagine a one size fits all bra but it appears that was the case for about 10 years! The first padded bra came in 1947, created by businessman Frederick Mellinger with the first push-up bra a year later, and wallop the cleavage was born!

In 1968 feminists protest the Miss America pageant, calling bras “instruments of female torture”. Though the protesters intended to burn their bras, they were not able to because of the police. Instead, they ended up throwing them into a garbage can, but the term “bra burners” stuck.

1990 saw Madonna get her cones out in a bra designed by Jean Paul Gaultier for her Blond Ambition tour and subsequently started the trend of underwear as outerwear that is still going strong today.

In the year 2000 fashion goes too far as Giselle Bunchen goes down the Victoria Secret runway in the most expensive item of underwear ever created, the $15 million ‘Red hot fantasy bra’ made from Thai rubies & diamonds.

So here we are 100 years later, blessed to be able to choose vintage treasures from any era we like or take comfort in the latest designs, may you live another 100 years yet!