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Selects: How Bras Work · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey everybody, it's Josh. And yeah, we did an episode
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: on bras. What of it? Yeah, we're two dudes. But
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: we're carrying on a long-standing tradition, we found out. Because
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: it turns out that just about every bra in history,
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: and then go back pretty far, was invented by a man.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: And that includes the guy who filed the patent for
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: the first modern bra. This also explains why, until very recently,
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: bras were profoundly uncomfortable and usually had some sort of
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: lace or something. And maybe were see-through. That's neither here
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: nor there, though, because in this episode, we cover everything
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: there is to know about bras, and I feel like
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: we came out of it as better people. I'll leave
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: it to you to decide how we did. Either way,
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: enjoy this episode from 2020 on bras. Welcome to Stuff
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey, and welcome
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: Chuck Bryant. And it's just us again.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: It's just us.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: We've lost Jerry.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: I'm in the studio like I was on the last one,
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: but it's still a ghost studio. There's no one here. Sure.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: Except for Tommy Chong and the radio, or the record player, right?
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: Good. We'll just leave it at that. We said that
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: we have somebody poised to, like, scratch the needle off
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: the record several episodes ago. Yeah, I remember that. And
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: that it was Tommy Chong whose job it was to
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: do that now.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: That's right. Good callback.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: Thank you. Should we talk bras? Yeah, we're talking bras, man,
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: which I appreciate it when we do stuff like this,
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: episodes like this, because we have to try harder because
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: we're men, you know? Sure.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: The usual.
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: It's the only time we have to try harder in life.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: Sadly, that is kind of true. But we haven't shied
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: away from topics that have very little to do with us,
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: like corsets. We did one on how corsets work. Do
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: you remember that? We totally did. A whole episode on corsets.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: Jeez.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: We did one on female puberty.
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Foot binding.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah. We've done a lot of them. So this is just—
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: One in the same. A three is a lot when
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: it comes to this kind of stuff.
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah. No, I'm just kidding. And we did mention doing
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: one on menstruation not too long ago. And we got
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: a bunch of supportive emails saying like, yes, guys, please,
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: please do that. Like, there's no reason why you shouldn't.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: I've been menstruating for 50 years and I still don't
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: understand it. Please explain.
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: So actually, we have not gotten that email, although we
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: wouldn't know if we had, you know.
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because our email server's down. Sorry if you've been bounced, everyone.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we're working on it. Yep. So we're talking bras,
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: which is short for brassiere, which doesn't have a definite
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: origin as far as we know. We think that it
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: came about in the 20th century, early 20th century. I
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: think it first appeared in print in 1907 or something
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: like that. And in French, it means one of two things.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: It means either arm covering, which is, I think, derived
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: from medieval armor, French medieval armor. Don't know. And then
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: the other thing I saw was a child's vest, which
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: that to me is just lovely. If that's what they're
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: trying to say with the bra, that it's like a
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: child-sized vest that you wear over your breasts, I love
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: that idea.
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: You want to know something funny? Yes. For the first
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: 10 minutes researching this, this was put together by our
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: pal Dave Ruse. I kept thinking, why is Ruse, why
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: does he keep talking about brasseries? Why does he keep
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: talking about quaint little French restaurants?
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: That's funny.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: It's very close. It looks like brassiere.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: It does. Well, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it does. I think
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: if that I was just a little further toward the end,
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: we would be talking about casual French restaurants. The TGI
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: Fridays of France. Well, that's better than my experience. For
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: the first 30 minutes, I was researching nothing but car bras.
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: Oh, God. The LeBras. Remember those? No.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: I remember the car.
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: I think there was a LeBras, which was one of
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: the big popular models at the time for like Porsches
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: and stuff like that.
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: I don't remember that at all.
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: You know, my dad very stupidly bought a Porsche when
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: I was in high school.
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: Oh, no, with that food truck money?
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: With that big public school teacher money. He went out
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: and bought a Porsche and surprised my mom and the
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: rest of the family with a sweet Porsche 911.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: Like a new one?
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: That no one was allowed to, like, breathe on. No,
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: it wasn't new.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: Doesn't matter.
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: But he very quickly went out, and this is very
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: my dad, And like the next week he had like
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: the Porsche eyes odd, the Porsche glasses, the Porsche hat. And, uh,
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: we didn't have that for very long. I think I
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: drove it one time, like around the block and he
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: was like, and it was, they were not fun cars
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: to drive. They were very difficult to drive.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. They're all about being in as one with
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: the road. And if the road's not so great, then
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: it's not, not very fun.
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah. But I will say piggybacking on this story. Um,
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: I've been watching the TV show Red Oaks. Have you
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: ever seen it?
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: I have never even heard of it.
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: I hadn't either. It was an Amazon show that ran
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: for three seasons about sort of like Caddyshacky. It's a
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: kid who works at a tennis club in the 80s.
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: And a very, very 80s show. And the drug dealer
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: drives this really sweet Porsche 928. Remember those?
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: Is that the pointy one? It looks kind of like
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: a Lotus Esprit.
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, it's, yeah, the risky business car.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: Okay. I never saw that movie.
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: Oh, really?
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: Oh, dude, you need to see Risky Business. Great movie.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: I've got a list going.
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: It's really good. But anyway, the 9-11 gets all the headlines,
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: but that 9-28 was so sweet, and I was like, man,
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: I wonder what you could get an 80s 9-28 for.
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: I bet it's not that much. Oh, yeah. And I
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: looked it up.
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: How much?
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: Well, there was a range. Like, you can get one
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: that's in not great shape for, like, $ 12, 000 or up
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: to $ 60, 000 for a cherry low mileage one.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: Right. I think that's pretty much the same with all
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: vintage cars. I was looking at Pinto station wagons.
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: And we're at different ends of the spectrum.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: There's about four or five mint condition Pinto station wagons
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: in existence that are really expensive. The rest are exactly
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: what you would expect.
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: That's funny.
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: So we're talking bras today, obviously. We just wanted to
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: get rid of anybody who might benefit from listening to this.
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: So we talked about Porsches and stuff.
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So the bras, the modern bra has only been
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: around for about 150 years. And Dave makes a really
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: good point of the fact that this thing that's only
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: been around for 150 years has been one of the
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: most complicated garments in the history of the world, I think.
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, not necessarily in its design or manufacture, but in
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: Its relation to society as a whole, right? Yeah, totally.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: So you've got apparently a complete and utter lack of bras.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: But as women started to play sports a little more,
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: it was okay for them to wear bras, I think,
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: in the 20th century. And in fact, it was a
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: woman who invented the sports bra. Two women, actually, I
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: think in 1977.
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: Of course.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: They invented what was called the jog bra from two
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: jock straps that they put together. But, you know, it's
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: kind of a funny, cute little origin story. But they
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: ended up like revolutionizing sports. Like women were allowed to
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: play sports. I think Title IX had been passed a
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: couple of years before this. But the fact is you
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: couldn't play sports because there wasn't much support out there
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: for you. So to invent the sports bra... was tantamount
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: to introducing women in practice into sports. It's pretty huge.
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it is. And the history of the bra also
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: incorporates fashion. It incorporates societal norms and how they change.
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: So did the bra. How women changed over the years
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: and their own rights over their own comfort and their
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: own fashion. Taking that back. And it really kind of
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: everything in between. The bra is a very complicated garment
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: and undergarment.
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: It is. It is very complicated. What I was heartened
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: to see, though, is that today, apparently, and for the
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: last several years, it's been all about comfort and realness
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: and finding like a bra that fits. And apparently, I
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: was very surprised to find this, that that has not
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: been the norm, that especially in america at least bra
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: makers have made like x number of sizes and if
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: your breast didn't happen to fit that bra that was
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: on you there's something wrong with your body because these
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: are the standard sizes and this is what we're selling
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: and so women have for a very long time had
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: a lot of women have had bras that just do
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: not fit them because they just can't find them in
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: america and that's kind of led to this revolution in
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: bra making and also bra sizing that has allowed for
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: women to have much better, much more comfortable fits with bras.
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: And I'm just glad for that.
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, me too. The average American woman supposedly owns six bras.
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: There are officially, there are 20 different styles of bras
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: that you can buy. And there's this great quote here.
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: It's from a book called Uplift, colon, The Bra in
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: America by Jane Farrell Beck and Colleen Gao. And this
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: sort of really pinpoints what you're trying to do with
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: a bra and why it's so tough to get a
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: great fit and one that really works for everybody. Brasseries, oh, wait.
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: Braziers must do more than fit a multitude of bodies.
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: They must accommodate the same body as it changes through
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: the monthly cycle and the life cycle. They must provide
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: for movement of the torso and arms in many directions
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: without chafing or binding, without slipping out of position. And
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: as if that were not enough, braziers must retain their
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: own structure throughout multiple wearings and launderings, must not abrade
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: in contact with clothing, must remain as a rule inconspicuous
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: beneath the outer clothing while harmonizing with the desired silhouette,
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: and must be priced to sell to many customers, it's
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: no wonder that hundreds of attempts have been made to
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: design the ideal breast supporter over the past 140 years. Yeah.
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: It says it all.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: It really does. It is a lot more complicated than, say,
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: boxer shorts.
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, those are easy.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: So there's also a lot of money to be made
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: in it. I saw just the sports bra industry alone
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: is worth like $ 7 billion a year. There's a lot
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: of money made from bras. And so as a result,
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: about 600 million of them are made every year. There's
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: about 26,000 different bra patterns in existence. When you said
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: 20 different styles, that's like racerback or demicup, that like
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: large category of bra. As far as like different patterns
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: and types of bras, there's tens of thousands of them.
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: Oh, sure.
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: And each one has a lot of different moving parts.
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: I saw 40 different parts from straps, clasps, underwire, all
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: that stuff. And that it takes months and months of
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: dozens of people working together to create a new bra.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: It's not just like a new thing. So there's a
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: lot of thought and time and effort and money going
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: into bra production. And then from what I've seen, there's
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: virtually an equal amount of time and effort and thought
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: going into bra purchasing too. From what I'm seeing, it's
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: like not the easiest thing in the world to buy
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: a bra if you want the bra to be one
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: that is your new favorite.
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Did you have any flashbacks of young Josh while
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: you were researching this? Like Sears catalog type of stuff?
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: Sure. Practicing unhooking bras by wearing them myself.
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: Or simply, you know, the 80s was a generally more
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: naive moment in time before the internet. Yeah.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: Seeing a lady in a bra leaning against a tree
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: was a pretty big deal.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: Yes, it really was.
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: In 1983. Yeah. Should we take a break and then
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: dive into the history?
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, let's. I think it's a good idea. Okay.
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back with the history of the Brasserie
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: right after this. We'll be right back.
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: Well now when you're on the road driving in your
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: truck why not learn a thing or two from josh
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: and chuck it's stuff you should.
• 13:54
  Speaker 4: Know all right okay so as everybody knows there was
• 14:03
  Speaker 4: a battle between auto von titzling and philippe brazier over
• 14:08
  Speaker 4: who invented the bra and as um The great Bette
• 14:13
  Speaker 4: Midler instructed all of us.
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: We know who won that battle because you wear a brassiere,
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: not a tisling.
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: Was that a Bette Midler bit?
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: It was from Beaches.
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: Oh, I saw that in the 80s when it came
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: out and not since then.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: I don't think I've seen it since the 80s either,
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: but I guess that little part really stuck with me, yeah.
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: So the real first patent for the bra was filed
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: in 1863.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: Brazier, the word, it wasn't coined until the 20th century.
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: But that wasn't the first bra. Dave sent us even
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: a photo with this research, which is pretty great, of
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: a Sicilian mosaic called Bikini Girls. And if you look
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: up Bikini Girls, well, you're going to get a lot
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: of results. But if you look up Sicilian mosaic Bikini Girls,
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: you will see a mosaic from about 400 to 300
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: BCE that shows these Young athletic women wearing bikinis, clearly
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: wearing what looks like a bra or bikini top.
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: It's basically exactly what pro beach volleyball players wear today. Like,
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: no joke. It looks exactly like it.
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: But strapless. Right.
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think a lot of them wear strapless stuff, too.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: And also very short shorts. Like, even with the butterfly cut,
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: if you look closely, they have, like, that cut on
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: the side. I mean, like, they look exactly like pro
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: volleyball players. And this is... 2,400 years ago. So it
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: seems like they were wearing what's called an epidesmy or strophium,
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: depending on whether you speak the Greek or the Latin.
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: But it's basically like a cloth wrapped around and then
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: knotted in front to provide support during athletics.
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: That's right. Boom. So medieval times come along. There were
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: European physicians who were writing about something called breast bags.
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: And there was a medical text from 1300, the royal
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: surgeon in France, Henri de Mondeville, said, some women insert
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: two bags in their dresses, adjusted to the breasts fitting tight,
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: and they put them into them every morning and fasten
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: them when possible with a matching band.
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: Not a marching band.
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: No, that's sort of a bra, a built-in bra.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: Sure, or a breast bag.
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: Right, just don't say that ever again.
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: Okay, agreed. So that's from 1300, right? And then you
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: would think, okay, well, things kind of started hard and
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: fast from that point on. And as far as history
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: is concerned, no. Like about 100 years later, all bra
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: technology was abandoned in favor of the corset. And that's
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: what we thought for a very long time until there
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: was a discovery in 2008, but it wasn't publicized until
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: I think 2012 or 15, that an archaeologist from the
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: University of Innsbruck, Beatrix Newts, I guarantee that's how her
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: name is spelled or said. She was excavating an Austrian castle,
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: Langberg Castle, and she found four medieval bras that were
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: 600 to 700 years old, made of linen. Do you
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: remember when this was news, this made the rounds?
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: I do.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: When you looked at this garment, you're like, that is
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: a bra. It doesn't matter what context you have. It
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: doesn't matter. You just show somebody a picture of this
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: without any prep or anything like that and say, what
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: is this? They would say, well, that's a bra. You'd say,
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: that's right. It's a 700-year-old bra that we didn't know existed.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: Like that whole design, we had no idea that it
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: existed because we thought everything had gone basically from, I'm
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: sorry to say this one more time, breast bags to corsets.
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: And that there was no transition. But in fact, there
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: was a transition to the modern bra that was abandoned
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: in favor of the corset. Quite unfortunately, really.
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and they even found a picture there of a
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: 13-year-old boy with a bra on his head saying he
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: was Mickey Mouse.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: So that was proof. So we covered the corset, like
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: you said, in our full-length episode, so you can go
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: listen to that. But very briefly, corset, the word means
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: corpus in Latin for body. And women would wear these
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: corsets that were– they had wood or bone. Later on,
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: that had steel. And it would basically shape their torso.
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: It would cinch that waist in, and it would flatten
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: their breast. And they were very restrictive. They were very painful.
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: And they did actual real damage to their bodies at times.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah. Like they had trouble digesting, had trouble breathing.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: You remember you could train your waist to stay that small.
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: We talked a lot about this in the corset episode.
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: But the big problem with corsets aside from all that
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: is that they supported the breasts from the bottom up.
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: And the thing that really differentiated bras from everything else
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: up to that point was that they went the other way.
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: They harnessed the power of the shoulder to hold the
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: breasts up from beneath. Not push them up, but hold them,
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: suspend them, almost like a pair of breast bags hanging
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: down over your shoulder.
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: There you go again.
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: I can't help myself now. I've been told not to
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: do something.
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: These are the great episodes where I just sometimes like
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: to sit back and... watch you dig into a big
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: giant hole.
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: Turn into a 13-year-old boy with a Sears catalog.
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: So this was going on. The corsets were terrible. Women
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: hated them. And by the mid-19th century, like you said,
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: they said, you've got these strong shoulders. Why don't we
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: use those? Like an ox. That's right. And the first
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: modern bra patent was filed in 1863 by a guy
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: named Lumen Chapman. And he was from– or he was
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: living at least in Camden, New Jersey. And he had
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: this very first over-the-shoulder design. And it was tightened in
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: the back like a corset, but it was softer. It
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: was made of stretchy fabric. And it had these cups.
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: They were called breast puffs in the patent for the
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: extra support and comfort, I think.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: That is radically– better than breast bags.
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: You said it again.
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: So Lumen Chapman, strangely enough, his design did not take off,
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: although he does have the first patent. But a woman
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: named Hermione Cadol, great name, she created something that was
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: basically like a corset, but it was a corset cut
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: in two. And the top half very strongly resembled a
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: modern bra. And she called it the Le Bien-être or
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: Well-Being And her stuff still didn't quite take off. I
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: think because she was married to the corset still, the
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: general corset design, which made sense because at the time,
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: up until the early 20th century. If you didn't wear
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: a corset, you were basically advertising that you had loose morals.
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: So the corset was just it. Whether you hated corsets
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: with all of your might, and a lot of women did,
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: you still had to wear them just to be socially acceptable.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: So it would take, as far as legend goes, a
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: very free-spirited, very wealthy socialite named Mary Phelps Jacobs to
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: basically say, nuts to that. I'm tired of these corsets.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: those whalebone stays are protruding through this kind of sheer
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: dress that I want to wear to this dance. Let
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: me try something else. And she apparently instructed one of
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: her maids, because again, she was a wealthy socialite, to
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: make what we would consider the first modern bra out
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: of some silk handkerchiefs and ribbon.
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, she was only 19. We should point out she
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: moved to Paris later on and changed her name to,
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: is it Caressa Crosby?
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: I think so.
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: Or Caress. I'm not sure if you pronounce that last E.
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure either.
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: But that was her final name. So Crosby had this
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: idea when she was 19, and it was before an
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: event that she was going to, a debutante ball. And
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: she called it the Backless Brassiere. And people at the
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: party loved it. I imagine women especially loved it. And
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: she got a patent for this thing in 1914. And
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: very unwisely sold the idea for a mere $ 1, 500 to
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: Warner Brothers Corset Company.
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, who turned around in the next 30 years, made
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: 10,000 times that amount from that patent.
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah.
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: So it's about $ 38, 000 that she was paid today for
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: the patent, and they made about $ 225 million in today's
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: money off of it.
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: But she was rich anyway, right?
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: In bed. Yeah, she was rich anyway. And she was
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: a super interesting person from what I saw. She basically
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: any famous author today that was writing in the 20s,
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: she was like real good friends with. And she herself wrote, too.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: I think she had a publishing house called Black Sun.
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: But she wrote for a while pornography on commission from
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: an Oklahoma oil man who couldn't get enough of her stuff.
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: Like, that was just one of the many— Brought me
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: another sexist story.
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: That was one of the many things that she did
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: in her life. She wrote pornography.
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: Amazing. Yeah. So World War I turns out to be
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: a good thing if you're a woman because steel is
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: in short supply. The U.S. joins the war and says,
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: you know what? We got to have all the steel
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: in this country go toward war munitions and battleships and stuff.
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: And American women said, oh, great, because you know what
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: has steel? My corset. Let's get rid of it and
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: ditch these things for good. And elastic fabric started coming
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: into the market. Latex came into the market. And so
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: all of a sudden American women could finally get rid
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: of the corset in favor of this new invention called
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: the brassiere. And, of course, we don't want you to
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: be too comfortable, ladies. You might want to at least
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: put a girdle on just to keep everything nice and
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: cinched in.
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: Which is basically like Hermione Cadell's two-piece corset. corset, but whatever. Yeah.
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: Patriotism freed them from that social expectation of having to
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: wear a corset, which is pretty great. But I saw
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: that the steel that the corsets freed up equaled 28,000 tons,
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: enough to make two battleships in World War I.
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: That's awesome.
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: That's a lot of corset steel.
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: So this led to like a complete revolution in undergarments
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: for women right so in the 20s um the the
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: the one of the first bras was basically there was
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: a company called boish form which held the breasts down
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: and back back and to the left.
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: Wait, what was it called?
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: Boyish form, B-O-Y-S-H form. And from what I can tell,
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: they were basically saying boyish form.
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: Okay, that's what I was about to say.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: But they shortened it by removing the I and changed
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: it to boyish form.
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: They're like, they'll never know.
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: Right. No one will ever get this trickery. But it
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: was because of that flapper style was very much slight
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: and boyish. But then along came a company in the
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: late 20s called Maidenform. And they named themselves Maidenform to
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: kind of contradict boyish form because one of their big
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: things was, hey, man, let's not be ashamed of these
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: boobs and try to hide them. Let's accentuate these things.
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: And boy, did they ever.
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, in the World War II, in the
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: age of the big buxom Hollywood bombshell era, people like
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: Jane Russell, then in the 50s with Marilyn Monroe. And
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: it's all this, you know, sort of male ideal at
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: the time is what we're getting at is the bras
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: sort of followed suit. But when these women came on
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: the scene, that's when if you look at TV shows
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: from back then or advertisements, you see these bras that
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: were very pointy. And I think they even called them
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: bullet bras or torpedo bras.
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: And that was sort of all the rage just because
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: the sort of, I mean, Hollywood's always sort of driving
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: fashion in that way, and it certainly did back then,
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: because Twiggy coming along in the 60s with her very
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: sort of slim androgynous look, all of a sudden in
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: the 60s, bras were being thrown in the trash can.
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: They're like, we don't need bras at all.
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and then there was a guy, a designer, who
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: was an avant-garde designer named Rudy Gernreich, and he came
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: up with the no bra in 1964, which is basically
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: like what you would consider a bra today. It's meant
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: to just kind of be there and be supportive, but
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: also kind of fade into the background, which.
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: Is the antithesis. Like a nice quiet friend.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: Huh?
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: Like a quiet friend. Exactly.
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: But that's like the antithesis of the torpedo or bullet bra,
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: which would take your eye clean out if you got
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: too close to it. But this is– you can kind
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: of see, like, we've gone from 20s where boy form was–
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: or boyish form was all the rage to the exact opposite,
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: to back to the 20s. And then it kind of
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: swung back toward, you know, large, busty, popping out kind
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: of thing, even more than before. Because now it's not
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: covered by a sweater. With torpedoes, it was all about
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: accentuating the boobs upward and to the left. And then
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: the Wonder Bra kind of really helped move that along.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: And what was really interesting is I remember when the
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: Wonder Bra came out in America. It was in the 90s.
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: But it turns out that in the far off land
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: of Canada, it had been invented 30 years before. It
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: just took 30 years to get down to America and
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: become popular.
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: That's pretty funny.
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: Isn't that weird?
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that is totally weird.
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: And Canadians are too nice to insist. Like, by the way,
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: we have a better bra up here.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: Right. And then now things have swum back again to
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: where they're like, do you even need a bra? And
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: a lot of people are like, I don't think you do.
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: It's kind of a personal preference.
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It certainly can be, but I also think there's
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: still very much a stigma.
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. It's true. There's just no arguing
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: that right now.
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: No, I mean, if you're a woman and you go
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: waltzing into a conference meeting at your business and you're
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: not wearing a bra, then someone's going to say something.
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: I guarantee you.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: Exactly, yes. But I think also even if somebody didn't
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: say something or it was okay with everybody else, from
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: what I can tell, there's a certain psychological– security blanket
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: aspect to wearing a bra if that's what you've been
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: raised to do to wear a bra oh for sure
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: and to not do that would take a real psychological
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: shift in how you feel and how how secure you
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: feel without it and i was reading about training bras
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: because i didn't feel like i was enough of a
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: creep as.
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: It is you're like oh boy.
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: But from what i was reading about training bras, even
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: if the girl doesn't need a bra yet for any
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: real purpose, it provides like some kind of psychological thing
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: that they're like, okay, I'm keeping up with my peers
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: who actually do need a bra. Or I'm going to
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: like the eighth grade dance or something. probably say sixth
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: grade dance or something. And I want to wear this dress,
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: but it's going to look weird if I'm not wearing
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: a bra. So I need a bra. So, so, and
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: I think that kind of psychology continues on well into
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: adulthood too, so that it would be weird or feel
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: weird to not wear a bra if that's what you've
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: done your whole life. Yeah.
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: And I think it also has to do with your
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: comfort level with your, with your breast size. Sure. You know,
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: not to get too personal, but like, If I had
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: a dime for every time Emily was like, you got
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: to go get the delivery food at the door because
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: I'm not wearing a bra.
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: And, you know, Emily has bigger boobs. So there, I
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: said it. She might be more comfortable if she had
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: smaller breasts. But I don't know. I'm going to go
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: home and ask her, though. Okay.
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: I feel like we should sit in silence for five minutes.
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: So you mentioned Maidenform. We'll get to this later, but
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: they were founded in 1929 by William and Ida Rosenthal,
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: who invented or introduced at least the letter-based cup sizing system.
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: But we'll get to that weird bit of voodoo in
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: a minute because I still have no idea what's going
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: on there. But in– actually, it wasn't in a year.
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: From 1949 to 1963– They had a very, very successful
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: print ad campaign called I Dream, which you can go
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: look up online. And these ads, which were very racy
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: at the time, of course, were women doing things topless
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: with just their bra on. They would have on like
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: a regular skirt that you would wear in that era,
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: but no top, no blouse. And they were dreaming. One
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: lady was dreaming of being a firefighter, and she was
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: fighting a fire with no shirt on. Or I dreamed
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: I went back to school in my maiden form bra.
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: And it's a woman in her bra at a grammar
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: school desk. Or I dreamed I won the election in
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: my maiden form bra.
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: Man, that's a face palm.
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: She's taking the stage on election night. And beyond these being,
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: and old advertisements are all funny and awful in every way.
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: But beyond this being funny and awful, it truly is
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: kind of gross that what they're showing are things that
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: are dreams for these women like, having a regular job
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: and things that they may not have been allowed to
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: do at the time.
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So but in at the time, like, yes, they
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: were trying to sell their bras. And yes, there was
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: like a certain amount of sex appeal to the whole campaign.
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: But in their defense, like this is a very like progressive,
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: liberating ad campaign. It was conceived by three women. Yeah.
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: And on one hand. And also, it's not like they
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: were like, ha ha, you couldn't possibly hold public office
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: because you're a woman. It was like like it was
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: showing that women dream of this kind of stuff, that
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: they want to do this kind of thing. And that
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: at least in their dreams, they're capable of doing this
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: rather than we can't even talk about that. It's so preposterous.
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: We couldn't even possibly create an ad campaign. So it
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: was kind of like. progressive in that sense it's in
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: retrospect that it's really cringy but really what you're cringing
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: it's not like maiden form was making fun of women
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: for not being able to to do these things it's
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: more an indictment of society for them being restricted from
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: these things at the time.
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah that's this is one of these definitely where you
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: could come at it from a lot of angles sure
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: and have opinions about it um but we should read
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: they had a contest in 1955 with the public about
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: new dream ideas. And the winner from 1957, and Dave,
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: God bless you for finding this, was I dreamed I
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: danced the hornpipe with Sinbad the Sailor. Don't even know
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: what that means.
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: That's another thing you can approach from a bunch of
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: different angles.
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: I think we should approach a message break, and then
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: we'll talk about the wacky world of bra sizing right
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: after this. Well, now, when you're.
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: On the road, driving in your truck, why not learn
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: a thing or two from Josh and Chuck?
• 34:31
  Speaker 4: It's Stuff You Should Know.
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: Stuff You Should Know.
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: All right, Chuck. So one thing that I've read is
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: that American bras don't fit and that there's a reason
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: for that. Something like there's a statistic that 80% of women,
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: American women at least, are wearing bras that don't fit.
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: And supposedly that's kind of made up and based on
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: anecdotal evidence, but it's been bandied about for so long
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: that people take it as gospel. But regardless of whatever
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: the statistic may or may not be, American bras are
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: known for not fitting. And it's because American bra manufacturers
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: have basically said, we've created this standard measuring scale. And
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: it just is economically efficient for us to mass produce,
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: you know, this size to this size. And if you
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: happen to fall outside of that size, you're SOL. And
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: it's your fault. There's something wrong with your body for
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: not adhering to the standard norm, body size norm. This
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: is largely becoming a relic of the past, but it's still,
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: from what I can tell, very much present when you
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: go bra shopping.
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And, you know, I've heard this complaint from Emily
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: over the years and a lot of women that, yeah,
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: it's tough to find a bra that really fits well
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: and feels good and does everything it's supposed to do.
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: And that's why when you find one, you know, you
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: order like six of them.
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: But there are these days before we get into the
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: sizing that is changing some now with these more bespoke
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: companies that have a more custom custom made tailored to
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: your size kind of things. And I wonder why it
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: took that long for someone to think outside the box
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: and challenge challenge a big brassiere and say, hey, you're
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: doing it wrong. I bet there's a lot of money
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: to be made from bespoke brassieres.
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, from what I understand, there is. And although it's
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: just now happening in the U.S., apparently it happened, I believe,
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: back in the 90s in the U.K. with a movement
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: called bra fitting, one word, where it's basically like, look,
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: two measurements is not enough to create a perfect bra.
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: You need a bunch of different measurements under different conditions.
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: You need to take your shirt and bra all the
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: way off. We need to get in there. But when
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: we're done, you're going to have a well-fitting bra, and
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: it's just now catching on in the United States. And
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: what's surprising is that, you know, it's just now catching on,
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: but this technique and the sizing standard that we use
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: here in the United States goes back to the, I think,
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: the 20s, if not the 30s.
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, 1929 is when they founded Maidenform and introduced
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: this cup sizing technique. And I'm not going to pretend
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: to fully understand this.
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: I got it.
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: But I can read. Oh, you got it? Yeah, yeah.
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: You go ahead, though. I want to hear your attempt.
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: No, no, no. Because what will happen is I'll read
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: and then you'll do it again in your own words.
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: And then this episode is 15 minutes longer than it
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: should be.
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: All right. You got my number. And my number happens
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: to be 34C. So the cup system is what it's called.
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: It consists of two measurements and the difference between them.
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: So the first measurement is the overbust, which is the
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: circumference of your chest all the way around your body
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: across the nipples. That's your overbust measurement, right?
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: Now, if you'll also measure right below the breasts all
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: the way around your body, that's your underbust. And if
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: you subtract those two, you're going to come up with
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: a difference in inches or centimeters, depending on where you
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: are in the world. And you can use that as
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: part of a handy table to say, oh, there's a
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: three-inch difference. That means that I'm a C cup, right? Right.
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: That's where the lettering comes from.
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: Right. The difference between your underbust and your overbust generates
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: some knowledge about the volume that your breasts are going
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: to take up, which is your cup size. Got it?
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: It generates knowledge?
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: So that underbust measurement is also used and that's the
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: number that comes before it. So if you're a 34C,
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: that means your chest is 34 inches around at the
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: rib cage under your breasts. And then if you're a C,
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: that means that there's a three inch difference. That means
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: that you are 37 inches around your chest at the nipples.
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: And so you'd be a 34C. And that those two
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: measurements are supposedly like all you need to come up
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: with a fitting bra. But apparently that's just not true.
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, that all makes sense. I think the
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: thing that confused me is the sister sizing.
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: I understand that too.
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: Thing. so if you have a 36C and a 34C
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: brassiere that's not the same cup size because a 34C
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: is the only true C yeah so if you want
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: to go up a band size but not the cup
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: size you buy a 36B or a 38A so the
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: volume of the cup size is relative to the circumference
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: of the band Yeah.
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's as simple as that. I think the problem,
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: the breakdown is, is that this sister sizing thing has
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: not been widely publicized to women. And so that they
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: think like, well, if the band is a little tight
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: and I'm a 36C, then I need to go up
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: to a 38C. And that's just not the case. Yeah.
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: In music, you want a tight band. In brassieres, you don't.
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: Well, supposedly part of that bra fitting trend that started
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: in the UK is that suggests that a tight band
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: is the key to a good fitting bra, that that's
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: where most of your support comes and that most women
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: opt for a band size that's a little too loose.
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: But the point is, is your cup volume does not
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: go up when you go up a band size. It
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: doesn't have to. So that means that a 34C, if
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: you go down in band size, you would go up
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: in cup size and your cup size would stay the same.
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: So a 34C is the same as a 32D. And
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: then the other way, a 34C is the same as
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: a 36B. And once you understand the sister sizing thing,
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: then you can actually use this two measurement standard to
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: find a bra that actually fits better.
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: That's right. And if you're wondering how this all works,
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: it works with bra fitting models. There are women that
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: get paid money to go in and get fit for
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: thousands and thousands of bras and to give feedback. And
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: this all start, well, it didn't completely start there. But
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: in the 1970s, there was a singer named Dorothy Galligan
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: from New York answered an ad for a bra fitting model.
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: And they said, you know what? I know this sounds sexist,
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: and we probably, even though it's the 70s, shouldn't be
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: saying this in an office, but you have the perfect 34Bs,
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: and that's the standard size which we're designing our bras on.
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: So for almost 20 years, Dorothy Galligan was the model
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: in New York in the lingerie district that would work 10, 11,
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: 12-hour days trying on thousands and thousands of bras and
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: giving her feedback. So they could go back to the
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: sewing machine and redo it.
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because that's the other part of the problem with
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: bras that don't necessarily fit. In addition to not making
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: larger sizes in cup volumes and smaller sizes in cup volumes,
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: like they're based around one woman's pair of breasts and
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: her breasts became the standard for the bra industry in
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: the 20th century so that. if you could create a
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: bra that fit Dorothy Galligan correctly as a 34B, you
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: could use that to basically grow out from either way.
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: So that's a real problem for women who have different
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: shapes and sizes. And it's really sad to me to
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: think that they were told for decades that, you know,
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: if your bra doesn't fit, something's wrong with your body.
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: You must acquit. Exactly.
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: Well, and here's the thing, too. It's not just breast size.
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: It's You know, how big your back is and how, like,
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: the bra, it holds the breasts, the cups do, but,
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: you know, it has to do with your shoulders and
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: your back and your armpits and everything else. Like, there's
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: so many nuances to everybody's body, men and women, that,
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think until recently they were trying to
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: do the best they could. But it was pretty narrow,
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: the options that women had.
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I get the impression that they were not trying
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: to do the best that they could, that they basically
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: said when we release a new bra, it comes in
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: these sizes.
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: Well, doing the best they could for a huge industry
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: that had to satisfy, you know, tens of millions of
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: different kind of bodies. Like they were kind of hamstrung.
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: You can't have. 450 bra sizes and manufacture on that scale.
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you can't mass manufacture, but I think that's what's
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: being proven, like you were saying, by this new bespoke revolution.
• 43:39
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: You can't get that big, although now you can get
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: that big because it's bespoke and because you can say, hey,
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: download our app and take these measurements using your phone
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: and upload it, and then we'll just custom make some
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: bras for you. And I also read that Poland– makes really,
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: really good-fitting bras as well. I think it was a
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: New York Times article about it. And the author traveled
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: to Poland to verify this herself, and she said she
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: didn't find the perfect bra, but she came away with
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: like four or five bras that were awfully close, way
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: closer than she'd ever had before.
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: It's funny. After all these years, I still remember to
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: not put a bra in a dryer because of the
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: movie Hedwig and the Angry Inch.
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: I don't remember that part. No, I never saw it.
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: That's why I don't remember that part.
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: It's great. John Cameron Mitchell, who also a friend of
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: Movie Crush, he's a friend of Noel's. He played Hedwig
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: and created the character and directed the film. But there's
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: a scene where he's screaming, do not put a bra
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: in a dryer. It warps. And I guess that's true
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: because ever since then I've been like, I don't know
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: if I'm doing laundry. I should not put a bra
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: in a dryer.
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: It does do some weird things to it, although you
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: can also put it in a laundry bag, and I
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: think that keeps it from wrapping around stuff, which makes
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: it last longer. You can't put it in a dryer.
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: Oh, right. Yeah, like when a bra collects everything else
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: in its wake.
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Yeah. So I don't think we can not talk
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: about Victoria's Secret.
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: Man, if I had a dime for every time you
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: said that to me. Or as many dumb, dumb guys
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: call it, Victoria's Secrets.
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, dummies. So Victoria's Secret actually started out, husband and
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: wife founded it in the 70s in the San Francisco
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: area because the husband had gone to like the department
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: store to buy lingerie for his wife and was treated
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: like a scale for it, right?
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: Even in San Francisco in the 70s?
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: I guess so. All right. Department stores have always been
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: a certain way no matter where you are.
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: I think.
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: Right. So he said, well, we need to create like
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: a lingerie store that's made for men to go buy
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: for women. And that's what they created was Victoria's Secret.
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: And it was semi-successful. And then they sold to a
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: guy named Leslie Wexman. I believe it was Wexman who
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: had founded The Limited. And he took it— I think he
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: bought it for a million dollars. And within two decades,
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: it was worth $ 2 billion. And the guy who founded
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: it with his wife, they ended up getting divorced. And
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: he died broke and jumped from the Golden Gate Bridge,
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: sadly enough.
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: Oh, wow.
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: But Victoria's Secret dominated the— the bra industry in the
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: United States for many, many decades until very recently when
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: it was overthrown by women who said, enough.
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, it's funny. You know, Roy Raymond said, you
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: know what we need is a store where men can
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: go in and buy sexy lingerie for their wives. And
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: what he failed to hear was the sound of tens
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: of millions of women across the country saying, No, you don't.
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: Right. Well, that's what that's what Leslie, I think it's Wexman.
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: That's what he figured out was that this this thing
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: was a good idea, but they had missed the mark
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: and that they were marketing toward men and they were
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: completely isolating women. Because he said, like these Victoria's Secret
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: stores were lit with like, you know, weird kind of
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: reddish lighting and there were velvet couches and oriental rugs.
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: And he said that.
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: I've walked by them in the mall very slowly.
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: This was like in the early 70s or late 70s
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: and early 80s.
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what I'm talking. Okay.
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: All right. So he said, man, I would have loved
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: to have seen this. He said they were Victorian, not
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: like a Victorian foyer. They were like a Victorian brothel, basically.
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: And it was like just chasing women away, attracting men.
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: But women buy, you know, underwear for themselves way more
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: than their husbands do. And so he kind of revamped
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: it a little bit and turned it into something that
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: women felt comfortable and actually wanted to go into.
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's interesting. According to that book Uplift that we
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: mentioned earlier, despite Victoria's Secret and its history, women have
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: really been key to the development of bras in the
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: United States. I think over 1,200 U.S. patents have been
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: awarded for bras between 1863 and 1969, and half of
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: those have been held by women. And in the industry,
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: they have always held pretty important positions and been well-regarded
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: designers and managers, specialists, merchandising, promotional product managers. It is
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: one industry where it seems that has not been, here's
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: a product for women run entirely by men.
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: Right. And rightfully so, I would say.
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely.
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: So there is also a very famous legend as far
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: as bras go, which is the burning of bras at
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: a 1968 demonstration.
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, not true, apparently.
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: No, it's a myth. There was, in fact, a demonstration
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: outside of Miss America pageant in Atlantic City in 1968.
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: It was the brainchild of Carol Hanisch, who helped basically
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: at this moment give birth to second wave feminism. And
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: they actually had a trash can that said freedom trash can.
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: And women threw stuff into it that they considered like
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: shackles of the patriarchy, like false eyelashes, bras. lingerie that
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: kind of stuff but there was no burning that came
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: from a reporter who suggested that they burn it as
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: a nod to the burning of draft cards but no
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: one actually burned this stuff but it became kind of
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: set in stone as true even though it really wasn't that's.
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: Right big fat lie And.
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: Then lastly, Chuck, I've got one extra thing. You ready?
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: Ready.
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: Do you have anything else?
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: I don't.
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: Do you need to wear a bra? It's a longstanding question.
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: And apparently the answer is no, at least as far
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: as a study in France, a 15-year study of 300 women.
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: I think they're aged 18 to 35. And this study
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: found that women who did not wear bras developed more
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: muscle tissue in their breasts, ostensibly to provide support that
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: the bra wasn't there to provide. And that by proxy,
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: if you did wear a bra, the muscles in your
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: breasts were less prone to develop, and thus you would
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: have more likely to have breasts that sag or pendular
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: breasts than you would have if you didn't wear a bra.
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: Kind of like you're making your breasts sink or swim
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: by not wearing a bra.
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: Makes sense.
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: It's just one study, but it is pretty surprising that
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: they found basically the opposite of conventional wisdom. Because most
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: people say, oh, if you don't wear a bra, your
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: breasts will get saggy. And that's apparently not true.
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: Interesting.
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: And I also ran across a weird question on Google.
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: You know, it has like suggested searches. What happens if
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: we squeeze breasts?
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: Uh, I don't know.
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: I didn't even bother to look. Just the question itself
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: was good enough.
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: Oh, man.
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: You got anything else?
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: I got nothing else.
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: What about the bro or the man's ear?
• 51:17
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. Can't forget the bro.
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: Well, since we said bro, it's time for listener mail, everybody.
• 51:25
  Speaker 2: I'm going to call this more on bidets. Hey, guys.
• 51:29
  Speaker 2: Love the show. Thanks for all you do. It's especially
• 51:31
  Speaker 2: meaningful in these crazy times. I'm currently hanging out in
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: northern Japan on a trip that changed from a between-jobs
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: snowboarding sabbatical in December to, well, I guess I live
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: here for now. So you're not a bad place to be,
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: I would imagine. So good for you, Adam. I'm sure
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: you guys got a ton of similar emails to this,
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: but in the bidets episode, you mentioned a type of
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: toilet with a sink sprayer attachment nearby. In my experience,
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: this is a super common thing in households and many
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: lower-budget hotel accommodations in the Philippines. and other Southeast Asian countries.
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: It is awesome and commonly referred to as the bum
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: gun by foreign travelers and expats. I don't know the
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: etymology of bum gun, so I'm not sure if that
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: term has been adopted domestically in various bum gun enthusiast countries.
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: But like One Ring or Spidey's abilities, it has great
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: power and must be wielded carefully. So bum gun wisely,
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: my friends. That is from Adam.
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: Thanks a lot, Adam. And best of luck to you
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: in your new home. Hang tight, buddy. Things will pass eventually.
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: If you want to get in touch with us like
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: Adam did and talk about bum guns or bras or
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: what have you, you can email. Send us an email
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: to stuffpodcasts at iheartradio.com.
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.