Few people would attribute the story of the bra to Cretan times, thousands of years ago when the Minoans were at the height of their civilisation in ancient Crete. The French word for ?support? is ?brassiere? and this was the name given to the support garment that made its initial debut in American, in a copy of Vogue magazine published in the US in 1907. Prior to this Vogue advertisement, bust improvers were already being manufactured in England, becoming generalized undergarments which, by 1905 had become known as BBs. It wasn't until 1914, however, that the first brassiere was patented by an American woman, Mary Phelps-Jacobs. While she may not have actually invented the bra, Mary Phelps-Jacobs is attributed with the credit due to the patent being awarded to her. The name she patented the first bra under was Caresse Crosby, the actual design being attributed to the ideas provided by either her French maid or one of her seamstresses.

This original design was notable in its sheer simplicity: two silk handkerchiefs were simply tied together, ribbon was threaded through to provide straps and a seam joined one side of the two handkerchiefs together, creating a stitched seam down the centre front. Due to lack of interest in the design and low sales, Mary Phelps-Jacobs sold the patent rights to Warners for $1,500. This coincided with the fashion trend, from 1910 onwards, for lighter corsets, cut much lower, leaving less support for the bust. Within just a few years that original $1500 investment by Warners had escalated and was valued at $15 million as women started to accept the idea of wearing a bra with a separate, shorter corset. It further coincided with women being requested to free up the metal being used in corsets for the war effort, at the request of the US War Industries? Board. The amount of metal saved from corset production was estimated at 28,000 tons, considered sufficient for the production of two battleships.

This was the start of Warners involvement in the manufacture of ladies? undergarments: they have continued to be involved in the lingerie business from then on. They clearly bought the patent at the right time, as World War 1 effectively altered women's roles, with many of them taking employment away from the home, on such a large scale, for the first time in history. This single factor has also been attributed to public opinion being changed towards women wearing corsets, and the whole social fabric being altered so that, even when WW1 ended, women's roles in society had changed irrevocably. From 1918 onwards, the bra was on display openly in department stores and advertising the shape of the ?new bust? was having an effect on evolving As a result, bra sales were increasing. During the 1930s homemade brassieres started to lose out to commercially produced garments and the term ?brassiere? was popularly shortened to become known as a ?bra? ? predominantly by younger women who were attending college.

The ?Alphabet Bra? was designed by Warners in 1935, when the actual cup sizes were being made in accordance to the different proportions of women's busts. Although women in the UK did not respond to this sizing until the 1950s, from then to the present day bras have been manufactured in different cup sizes, featuring A, B, or C cups. Nowadays, cup sizes extend to J or more, with double sizing, such as AA, BB, CC, quite usual. A stretchy fabric, called lycra, was being developed by the Warner-Dupont partnership in 1959, designed to make bras more comfortable and more resilient. This innovation heralded in the 1960s when liberation became a by-word and feminism reared its head. These feminists were objecting to being treated as ?sex objects? and, in some quarters [although, by no means all], bra-burning and no-bras became the order of the day.

Despite the widespread protests, they eventually died away as women began to frequent the many gyms that were opening and, with exercising came a need for women's breasts to be comfortably supported. From this point on, especially as the exercise culture developed and remained in the fore, sales of bras increased. From the 1990s onwards, new bra designs and innovations were brought onto the market and welcomed by women everywhere. Bras such as the Wonderbra which provided all women with the cleavage many desired, especially if they wanted to look good in the plunging necklines that were

becoming fashionable, a trend started by many of the celebrities but which has now continued amongst women's fashion generally. There are now many designs, from padded to soft cups, fishnet, sexy, push-up, and underwired. There are bras specifically designed for breast-feeding mothers to sleep bras for pregnant mothers; there are also training bras for the pre-teens and sports? bras for maximum support. The styles and designs are endless and a major industry has grown up around the design and manufacture of the bra, with new designs continuously evolving to become ever better at supporting the changing figure of women as they move through their adult lives.