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How Bras Work · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of five
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark and there's Charles W Chuck Bryant and um,
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: it's just us again, it's just us. We've lost Jerry.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: I'm in the studio like I wasn't the last one,
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: but it's still a ghost studio. There's no one here
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: except for Tommy Chong and the radio or the record player. Right, sure, good,
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: let's just get that. We said that, Um, we have
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: a somebody poised to like scratch the needle off the
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: record several episodes ago, and that it was Tommy Chong
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: who who job it was to do that? Now? That's right? Good, callback,
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: Thank you. Talk bras Yeah, we're talking bras Man, which
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: I appreciate it when we do stuff like this, episodes
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: like this, because we have to try harder because we're men,
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: you know, sure the usual it's the only time we
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: have to try harder in life. Sadly that is kind
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: of true. Um, but we we haven't shied away from
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: topics that have very little to do with us, like
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: um courses. We did one on how Courset's work. Do
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: you remember totally did a whole episode on coursets. Geez.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: We did one on female puberty. Yeah, footbinding. Yeah, we've
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: done a lot of them. So this is just three
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: one and the same three is a lot when it
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: comes to this kind of stuff. Yeah, no, I'm just kidding.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: And and uh we we did mention doing one on
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: menstruation not too long ago, and we got a bunch
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: of supportive emails saying like, yes, guys, please please do that,
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: like there's no reason why you should. Please, I've been
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: menstruating for fifty years and I still don't understand it.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: Please explain, Yeah, exactly. So, actually we have not gotten
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: an email, although we wouldn't know if we had, you know,
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: uh yeah, because our email servers down. Sorry if you've
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: been bounced everyone. Yeah, we're working on it. So we're
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: talking Bras, which is short for Brazier, which doesn't have
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: a definite origin as far as we know. We think
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: that it came about in the twentieth century, early twentieth century.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: I think it first appeared in print in nine seven
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: or something like that, and that in French it means
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: one of two things. It means either arm covering, which
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: is I think derived from like medieval armor, French medieval armor,
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: I don't know. And then the other thing I saw
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: was a child's vest, which that to me is just lovely.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: If that's what they're trying to say with the bra,
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: that it's like a child size vest that you wear
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: around your over your breasts. I love that idea. You
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: want to know something funny. For the first in minutes
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: researching this, this was put together by our pal Dave
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: brus I kept thinking, why is ruse Why does he
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: keep talking about brasseries? Why does he keep talking about
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: quaint little French restaurants. That's funny, It's very close. It
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: looks like Brazier. It does well yeah, yeah, um yeah
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: it does. I think if that I was just a
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: little further towards the end, we would be talking about
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: casual French restaurants, the t g I Fridays of France. Well,
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: that's that's better than my experience. For the first thirty minutes,
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: I was researching nothing but carbraws. Oh god, the Lebras,
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: remember those? No, I think there was a Lebra, which
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: was one of the big popular models at the time
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: for like Porsches and stuff like that. I don't remember
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: that at all. You know, my dad very stupidly bought
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: a Porsche when I was in high school. Oh no,
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: with that food truck money, with that big, big public
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: school teacher money. He went out, he went out and
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: bought a Porsche, and and surprised my mom and the
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: rest of the family. They sweet Porsche nine eleven, like
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: a new one that no one was allowed to like
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: breathe on. No, it wasn't new, but he he very
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: quickly went out and this is very my dad, And
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: like the next week he had like the Porsche is sad,
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: the Porsche glasses, the Porsche hat, and uh, we didn't
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: have that for very long. I think I drove it
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: one time, like around the block, and he was like,
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: and it was. They were not fun cards to drive.
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: They were very difficult to drive. Yeah. Yeah, They're all
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: about being in as one with the road and if
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: the road is not so great, then it's not not
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: very fun. Yeah. But I will say piggybacking on this story, Um,
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: I've been watching the TV show red Oaks. Have you
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: ever seen it? I have never even heard of it.
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: I had either It's It was an Amazon show that
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: ran for three seasons about sort of like Cat Shacky.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: It's a kid who works at a tennis club in
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: the eighties and um, very very eighties show, and the
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: drug dealer drives this really sweet Porsche. Remember those? Is
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: that the one like the Lotus is free? Yeah? Well
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: it's yeah, the Risky Business car. Okay, I never saw
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: that movie. Oh really, yeah, dude, you need to see
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: Risky Business. Great movie. IM I've got a list going.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: It's really good. It's really good. But anyway, the nine
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: eleven gets all the you know, all the headlines. But
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: that was so sweet, and I was like, man, I
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: wonder what you could get eighties fo I bet it's
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: not that much. And it looked it up how much?
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: Well there was a range like you can get one
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: that's in not greater shape for like twelve thousand dollars
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: or up to sixty grand for a cherry low mileage one. Right.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: I think that's pretty much the same with all vincage cars.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: I was looking at Pinto station wagons different ends of
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: the spectrum. There's about four or five mint condition Pinto
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: station wagons in existence that are really expensive. The rest
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: are exactly what you would expect. That's funny. So we're
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: talking bras today. Obviously we just wanted to get rid
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: of anybody who might benefit from listening to this, so
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: we talked about portions and stuff. Yeah, so the bras,
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: the modern bra has only been around for about a
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: hundred and fifty years. And Dave makes a really good
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: point of the fact that this thing that's only been
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: around for a hundred and fifty years has been one
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: of the most complicated garments in the history of the world.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: I think, yeah, not necessarily in its designer manufacture, but
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: in its relation to society as a whole totally. So
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: you've got, um, apparently a completely and utter lack of bras.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: But as women's ordered to play sports a little more,
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: it was okay for them to wear bras I think
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: in the twentieth century um, And in fact, it was
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: a woman who invented the sports braw Um two women actually,
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: I think in ninth queven Um. They invented what was
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: called the jog bra from two jock straps that they
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: put together. But what's you know, it's kind of a funny,
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: cute little origin story. But they ended up like revolutionizing sports,
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: Like women were allowed to play sports. I think Title
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: nine have been passed a couple of years before this,
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: But the fact is you couldn't play sports because there
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: wasn't much support out there for you. So to invent
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: the sports brawl was tantamount to introducing women in practice
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: into sports. It's pretty huge. It is in the history
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: of the brawl also incorporates um. Fashion Um. It incorporates
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: societal norms and how they changed, so did the bra,
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: how women changed over the years and UH and their
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: own rights over their own comfort in their own fashion, um,
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: taking back back um, and it really kind of everything
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: in between. The bra is a very complicated under garment,
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: and undergarment it is. It is very complicated. UM. What
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: I was hardened to see those that today apparently and
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: for the last several years, it's been all about comfort
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: and realness and finding like a brawl that fits. And
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: apparently I was very surprised to find this that that
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: has not been the norm that especially in America at least,
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: brawl makers have made like X number of sizes. And
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: if your breast didn't happen to fit the brawl that
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: was on you, there's something wrong with your body. Because
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: these are the standard sizes and this is what we're selling.
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: And so women have for a very long time had
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: a lot of women have had braws that just do
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: not fit them because they just can't find them in America.
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: And that's kind of led to this revolution in brawl
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: making and also braw sizing that has um allowed for
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: women to have much better, much more comfortable fits with bras.
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: And I'm just glad for that. Yeah, me too. Uh.
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: The average American woman supposedly owns six bras. Um there
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: are officially there are twenty different styles of bras that
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: you can buy. And there's this great quote here. It's
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: from a from a book called Uplift Colon the Bra
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: in America by Jane Farrell Beck and Colleen Gao, And
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: this sort of really pinpoints the um what you're trying
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: to do with the bra and why it's so tough
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: to get a great fit and one that really works
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: for everybody. Uh. Brasseries, Oh wait, braziers must do more
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: than fit a multitude of bodies. They must accommodate the
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: same body as it changes through the monthly cycle and
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: the life cycle. They must provide for movement of the
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: torso and arms in many directions without chafing or binding
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: without slipping out of position. And as if that were
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: not enough, braziers must retain their own structure throughout multiple
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: wearings and launderings, must not abraid in contact with clothing,
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: must remain as a rule, inconspicuous beneath the outer clothing
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: while harmonizing with a desired silhouette, and must be priced
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: to sell to many customers. There's no wonder that hundreds
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: of attempts have been made to design the ideal breast
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: supporter over the past one hundred and forty years that
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: says at all, It really does. It is a lot
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: more complicated than say, boxer shorts. Yeah, those are easy.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: So um, there's also a lot of money to be
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: made in it. Um, just I saw just the sports
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: brawl industry alone is worth like seven billion dollars a year.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of money made from braws and so
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: as a result, about six million of them mermaid every year. Um,
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: there's about twenty six thousand different bra patterns in existence.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: When you said twenty different styles, that's like racer back
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: or demi cup. That like large category of brawl as
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: far as like different patterns and types of browsers, tens
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: of thousands of them, um, and each one has a
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: lot of different moving parts. I saw forty different parts
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: from straps, clasps, underwire, all that stuff. Um. And that
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: it takes months and months of dozens of people working
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: together to to create a new bra. It's not just
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: like a new thing. So there's a lot of thought
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: and time and effort and money going into braw production.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: And then from what I've seen, there's virtually an equal
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: amount of time and effort and thought going into braw
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: purchasing too. From what I'm seeing, it's like not the
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: easiest thing in the world to buy a bra if
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: you want the brawl to be one that is your
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: new favorite. Yeah, did you uh? Did you have any
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: flashbacks of young Josh while you were researching this? So
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: like Sears catalog type of stuff, practicing, practicing unhooking bras
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: by wearing them myself, or simply you know, the eighties
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: was a generally more naive moment in time before the internet,
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: Like se seeing a lady in a bra leaning against
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: a tree was a pretty big deal. Yes, well should
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: we should we take a break and then dive into
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: the history. Yeah, let's let's I think it's a good idea. Okay,
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: we'll be right back with the history of the brasserie
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: right after this. Well, now we're on the road, Ivan
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: in your truck. Want to learn a thing or two
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: from Josh can Chuck you should know, all right? Okay, So,
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: as everybody knows, there was a battle between Otto von
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: tits Ling and Philippe Brazier over who invented the bra
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: and is um the great Bette Midler instructed all of
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: us we know who won that battle because we all
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: you wear a Brazier, not a Titsling. Was that a
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: Bette Midler? Bit is from beaches? Oh? I saw that
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: in the eighties when it came out, and not since then.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: I don't think I've seen it since the eighties either,
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: But I guess that really really stuck with me. Yeah.
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: So the real first patents for the bra was filed
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: in eighteen sixty three. Um Brazier the the word. It
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: wasn't going till the twentieth century, But that wasn't the
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: first bra. Um Dave Sin even a photo with this research,
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: which is pretty great, of a Sicilian mosaic called bikini girls.
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: And if you look up bikini girls. Well, you're gonna
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: get a lot of results. But if you look up
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: Sicilian mosaic bikini girls, you will see a mosaic from
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: about four hundred to three hundred b C. That shows
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: these young athletic women wearing bikinis, clearly wearing what looks
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: like a bra or bikini top. But it's basically exactly
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: what pro beach volleyball players were today. Like, no joke,
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: it looks exactly like it, but strap less, right, yeah,
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: I think a lot of them were strapless stuff too.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: And also there is short shorts like even with a
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: butterfly cut. If you look closely, they have a like
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: a that cutter on the side. Um, I mean like
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: it looks exactly like pro volleyball players. And this is
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: twenty four hundred years ago, so it seems like they
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: were wearing what's called an uh epodesmi or strophium depending
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: on whether you speak the Greek or the Latin. But
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: it's basically like um, like a cloth wrapped around and
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: then nodded in front to provide support during athletics. That's right. Boom,
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: So medieval times come along. There were European physicians who
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: were writing about something called breast bags. Uh. And there
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: was a medical text from hundred the royal surgeon in France, Uh,
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: Honoree de Mondeville said, some women insert two bags in
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: their dresses, adjusted to the breasts, fitting tight, and they
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: put them into them every morning and fastened them when
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: possible with a matching band, not a marching band. No,
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: that's that's sort of a bra and built in bra
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: or breast bag. Just say that ever again, Okay, I agreed,
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: So that's from undred, right, and then you would think, okay, well,
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: the things kind of started hard and fast from that
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: point on, and as far as history is concerned, no,
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: like about a hundred years later, the like all broad
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: technology was abandoned in favor of the corset. And that's
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: what we thought for a very long time until there
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: was a discovery in two thousand and eight, but it
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: wasn't publicized until I think two thousand and twelve or
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: fifteen that an archaeologist from the University of Innsbruck, Beatrix
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: newts Um I guarantee that's how her name is spelled,
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: or said she was excavating in Austrian castle, Langberg Castle,
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: and she found four medieval brawls that were six hudred
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: to seven hundred years old, made of linen. Do you
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: remember when this like this was news, This made the
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: rounds When you looked at this, this garment, you're like,
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: that is a brawl. Like it doesn't matter what context
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: do you have, It doesn't matter. You just show somebody
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: a picture of this without any prep or anything like
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: that and say what is this. They would say, well,
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: that's a brawl. You'd say, that's right, it's a seven
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: year old brawl that we did know existed. Like that
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: whole design. We had no idea that it existed because
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: we thought everything had gone. But basically from I'm sorry
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: to say this one more time, breast bags, two corsets,
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: and that that there was no transition, but in fact,
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: there was a transition to the modern brawl that was
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: abandoned in favor of the corset. Um quite unfortunately. Really yeah,
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: and there was even that. They even found a picture
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: there of a thirteen year old boy with the brawl
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: in his head saying he was Mickey Mouse. That's right.
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: So that was proof. So we covered the corset, like
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: you said, in our full length episode, so you can
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: go listen to that. But um, very briefly, the corset.
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: The word means corpus in Latin for body, and women
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: would wear these corsets that were um, they had wood
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: or bone, later on that had steel, and it would
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: basically shape their torso it would sense that waist in
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: and it would flatten their breast. And they were very restrictive.
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: They were very painful, and they did actual real damage
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: to their bodies and at times, oh yeah, like they
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: had trouble digesting, had trouble breathing. Um, you remember, you
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: could train your waist to be to stay that small.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: We talked a lot about this in the corset episode.
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: But but the big problem with corsets, aside from all that,
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: is that they supported the breast from the bottom up.
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: And the thing that really differentiated braws from everything else
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: up to that point was that they went the other way.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: They used the They harnessed the power of the shoulder
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: to hold the breasts up from beneath, not push them up,
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: but hold them suspend them. Um, almost like a pair
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: of breast bags hanging down over your shoulder. There you
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: go again. I can't help myself now I've been told
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: not to do something. These are the great episodes where
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: I just sometimes like to sit back and watching dig
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: into a big giant hole turn into a thirteen year
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: old boy with the Sears catalog. So this was going
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: on the course. It's were terrible. Women hated them, and
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: by the mid nineteenth century, like you said, they said,
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: you got these strong shoulders, why don't we use those? Uh?
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: Like the next that's right, um. And the first modern
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: bra patent was filed in eighteen sixty three by a
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: guy named Lumen Chapman, and he was from or he
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: was living at least in Camden, New Jersey, and he
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: had this very first over the shoulder designed uh. And
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: it was tightened in the back like a corset, but
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: it was softer. It was made of stretchy fabric, and
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: it had these cups. Uh. They were called breast puffs
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: in the in the patent for the extra support and comfort.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: I think that is radically better than breast bags. He
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: said it again. So Luman Chapman. Strangely enough, his design
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: did not take off, although he does have the first patent. UM.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: But a woman named Hermany Cadole, great name. She created
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: something um that was basically like a corset, but it
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: was a corset cut in two and the top half
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: very strongly resembled a modern bra, and she called it
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: the libyan etra or well being um, and her stuff
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: still didn't quite take off, I think because she was
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: married to The corsets still the general course of design,
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: which made sense because at the time, up until the
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: early twentieth century, if you didn't wear a corset, you
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: were basically advertising that you were you had loose morals.
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: So the course it was just that whether you hated
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: courses with all of your your might, and a lot
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: of women did, you still had to wear them just
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: to be socially acceptable. So it would take, as far
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: as legend goes uh, a very um, free spirited, very
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: wealthy socialite named Mary Phelps Jacobs to basically say nuts
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: to that, I'm tired of these course it's there there
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: those whale bones stays or protruding through this kind of
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: sheer dress that I want to wear to this dance.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: Let me try something else. And she apparently instructed one
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: of her maids, because again she was a wealthy socialite,
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: to um to make what we would consider the first
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: modern brawl out of some silk handkerchiefs and ribbon. Yeah,
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: she was only nineteen. Um, we should point out she
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: moved to Paris later on and changed her name to uh,
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: is it CARESSA Crosby? I think so or Caress I'm
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: not sure if you pronounce that last either, but that
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: was her her final name. So Crosby had this idea
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: when she was nineteen, and it was before a an
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: event that she was going to a debutante ball and
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: she called it the Backless Brazier and people at the
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: party loved it. I imagine women especially loved it. And
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: she got a patent for this thing in nineteen fourteen
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: and very unwisely sold the idea for a mere fifteen
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: hundred bucks to Warner Brothers Corset Company. Yeah, who turned
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: around in the next thirty years made ten thousand times
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: that amount from that patent. So it's a about thirty
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: eight grand that she was paid today for the patent,
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: and they made about two and twenty five million dollars
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: in today's money off of it. But she was rich anyway,
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: right in bed. Yeah, she was rich anyway, And she
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: was a super interesting person from what I saw. She
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: basically any um famous author today that was writing in
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: the twenties, she was like real good friends with and
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: she herself wrote to I think she had a publishing
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: house called black son Um. But she wrote for a
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: while pornography on commission from a Oklahoma oil man who
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: couldn't get enough of her stuff. Like that was one
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: of the many things that she she did in her life.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: She wrote pornography amazing. So World War One turns out
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: to be a good thing, uh if you're a woman,
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: because steel is in short supply. The US joins the
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: war and says, you know what, we gotta have all
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: the steel in this country go toward war munitions and
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: battleships and stuff. And American women said, oh great, because
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: you know what has steel, my corset. Let's get rid
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: of it and ditch these things for good. And elastic
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: fabrics started coming into the market. Latex came into the market,
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: and so all of a sudden, American women could finally
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: get rid of the corset, uh, in favor of this
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: new uh, this new invention called the brazier. And of
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: course we don't want you to be too comfortable, ladies.
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: You might want to at least put a girdle on
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: just to keep everything nice and cinched in, which is
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: basically like Hermony Cadell's um two piece corset. But whatever,
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: patriotism freed them from that that um social expectation of
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: having to wear a corset, which is pretty great. But
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: I saw that the steel that the course it's freed
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: up equaled twenty eight thousand tons, enough to make two
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: battleships in World War One. That's a lot of corset steel. Yeah,
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: so this led to like a complete revolution in undergarments
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: for women. Right. So in the twenties, um the one
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: of the first bras was basically there was a company
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: called boische Form which held the breasts down and back
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: back into the left. Wait, what was it called boische
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: Form b o y s h Form, And from what
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: I can tell, they were basically saying boyish form, but
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: they shortened it by removing the eye and changed it
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: to boiche for like they'll never know, right, no one
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: will ever get this trickery. But there was because of
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: that flapper style was very much slight and boy ish.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: But then along came a company in the late twenties
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: called maiden Form, and they named themselves maiden Form to
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: kind of contradict boiche Form because one of their big
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: things was, hey, man, let's let's not be ashamed of
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: these boobs and try to hide them. Let's accentuate these
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: things in Boy did they ever Yeah, I mean in
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: the World War Two and the age of the big
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: buxom Hollywood bombshell era, people like Jane Russell, uh, then
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: in the fifties with Marilyn Monroe, and it's all this
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: you know, sort of male ideal at the time. Is
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: is what we're getting at is the bras sort of
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: followed suit. Um, but when these women came on the scene,
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: that's when if you look at TV shows from back
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: then or advertisements, you see these bras that were very pointy,
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: and I think they even called them bullet bras or
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: torpedo bras. And that was sort of all the rage,
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: just because the the sort of I mean, Hollywood is
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: always sort of driving fashion in that way, and it
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: certainly did back then because tweaky coming along in the
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: sixties are very sort of slim, androgynous. Look. Um, all
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: of a sudden in the sixties, bras were being thrown
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: in the trash can. They're like, we don't need bras
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: at all. Yeah, And then um, there was a guy
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: a designer who is an avant garde designer named Rudy
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: gern Reich, and he came up with um, the no
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: Bra in nineteen four, which is basically like what you
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: would consider a brawl today. It's it's meant to just
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: kind of be there and be supportive, but also kind
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: of fade into the background, which huh, like a quiet
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: friend exactly. Um. But that's like the antithesis of the
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: torpedo or bullet brawl, which was would take your eye
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: clean out if you got too close to it. But
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: this is you can kind of see like we've gone
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: from twenties where boy form was or boiche form was
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: all the rage and to the exact opposite, to back
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: to the twenties, and then it kind of swung back
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: toward you know, um, large busty, popping out kind of
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: thing even more than before. Whereas because that was not
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: covered by a sweater which torpedoes, that was all about
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: accentuating the boobs upward and to the left. Um. And
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: then the wonder Bra kind of really helped move that along.
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: And what was really interesting is I remember when the
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: Wonder Bral came out in America, it was in the nineties,
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: But it turns out that in the far off land
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: of Canada it had been invented thirty years before. It
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: just took thirty years to get down to America and
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: become poverty. Isn't that weird? Yeah, that is totally weird.
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: And Canadians are too nice to insist, like, by the way,
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: we have a better bra up here, right, And then
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: now things have swung back again to where they're like,
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: do you even need a bra? And a lot of
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: people are like, I don't think you do. It's kind
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: of a personal preference. Yeah, it certainly can be. But
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: also I think there's still very much a stigma. Yeah, yeah, absolutely,
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: it's true. There's just no arguing that right now. No.
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: I mean, if you go, if you're a woman and
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: you go waltzing into a conference meeting at your business
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: and your and you're not wearing a bra, then someone's
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: going to say something. I guarantee you exactly. Yes. But
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: I think also even if you even if somebody didn't
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: say something, or it was okay with everybody else, from
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: what I can tell, there's a certain psychological um security
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: blanket aspect to wearing a brawl. If that's what you've
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: been raised to do to wear a bra, and to
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: not do that would take a real psychological shift in
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: how you feel and how how secure you feel without it.
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: And I was reading about training bras because I didn't
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: feel like I was enough of a creep as it
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: is you're like boy. But from what I was reading
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: about training bras, they even if the the girl doesn't
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: need a brawl yet for any real purpose, it provides
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: like some kind of psychological thing that they're like, Okay,
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: I'm keeping up with my peers who actually be or
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: I'm going to like the eighth grade dance or probably
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: say sixth grade dance or something, and I want to
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: wear this dress, but it's gonna look weird if I'm
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: not wearing a bra. So I need a brawl so so.
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: And I think that kind of psychology continues on well
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: into adulthood too, so that it would be weird, feel
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: weird to not wear a bra if that's what you've
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: done your whole life. Yeah, And I think it also
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: has to do with your comfort level with your with
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: your breast siye um, you know, not to get too personal,
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: but like if I had a dime for every time
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: Emily was like, you gotta go get the delivery food
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: at the door because I'm not wearing a bra um
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: and you know, Emily has bigger boobs. So there I
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: said it. She might be more comfortable if she had
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: smaller breasts. Um, but I don't know. I'm gonna go
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: home and ask her. Though, Okay, I feel like we should,
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: um sit in silence for five minutes. So you mentioned
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: maiden form. Uh, well, we'll get to this later. But
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: they were um they were founded in nine by William
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: and Ida Rosenthal, who invented or introduced at least the
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: letter based cup sizing system. But um, we'll get to
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: that weird bit of voodoo in a minute, because I
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: still have no idea what's going on there. But in
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: actually it wasn't. In a year from nineteen sixty three
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: they had a very very successful print ad campaign called
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: I Dream, which you can go look up online, and
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: these ads which were very racy at the time. Of course,
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: we're women doing things topless with just their bra on.
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: They would have on like a regular uh skirt that
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: you would wear in that era, but no top, no blouse,
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: and that they were dreaming. One lady was dreaming of
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: being a firefighter and she was fighting fighting a fire
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: with with no shirt on. Or um I dreamed I
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: went back to school in my maiden form, Bra, and
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: it's a woman in her brought a grammar school desk.
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: Or I dreamed I won the election in my maiden
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: form Bra. She's taking the stage on election night. And
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: beyond these being and old advertisements are all funny and
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: awful in every way, but beyond this being funny and awful,
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: it truly is kind of gross that what they're showing
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: are things that are dreams for these women, like having
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: a regular job and things that they may not have
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: been allowed to do at the time. Yeah. So but
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: in at the time, like, yes, they were trying to
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: sell their brawls, and yes the there was like a
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: certain amount of sex appeal to the whole campaign. But
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: in their defense, like this is a very like progressive,
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: liberating ad campaign. It was conceived by three women. Yeah,
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: and on one hand, and also it's not like they
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: were like ha ha, you couldn't possibly hold public office
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: because you're a woman. It was like like it was
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: showing that women dream of this kind of stuff, that
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: they want to do this kind of thing, and that
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: at least in their dreams, they're capable of doing this,
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: rather than we can't even talk about that. It's so preposterous,
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: we couldn't even possibly create an ad campaign. So it
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: was kind of like progressive in that sense. It's in
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: retrospect that it's really cringe e. But really what you're cringing,
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: It's not like maiden Form was making fun of women
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: for not being able to to do these things. It's
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: more an indictment of society for them being restricted from
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: these things at the time. Yeah, that that's This is
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: one of these definitely where you could come at it
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: from a lot of angles and have opinions about it. Um,
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: but we should read they had a contest in uh
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: with the public about new dream ideas and the winner
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: from ninety seven and Dave God bless you for finding
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: this was I dreamed I danced the hornpipe with Sindbad
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: the sailor. Don't you know what that means? That's another
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: thing you can approach from a bunch of different angles.
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: I think we should approach a message break and then
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: we'll talk about the the wacky world of brass eyzing
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: right after this. Well, now we're on the road driving
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: in your Chuck, want to learn a thing or two
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: from Josh can Chuck. It's stuff you should know, all right,
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: all right, Chuck. So, one thing that I've read is
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: that American braws don't fit um and that there's a
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: reason for that, something like there's a statistic that of women,
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: American women at least are wearing brawls that don't fit.
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: And supposedly that's kind of made up and based on
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: anecdotal evidence, but it's been bandied about for so long
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: that people take it as gospel. But regardless of whatever
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: the statistic may or may not be, American braws are
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: known for not fitting. And it's because American bra manufacturers
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: have basically said, we've created this standard measuring scale and
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: it just as economically efficient for us to mass produce
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: you know, this size to this size, and if you
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: happen to fall outside of that size, your s O
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: L and it's your fault. There's something wrong with your
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: body for not adhering to the standard norm body size norm.
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: This is largely becoming a relic of the past, but
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: it's still from what I can tell, very much present.
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: When you go braw shopping. Yeah, and and you know,
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: I've I've heard this plaint from Emily over the years,
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: and uh and a lot of women that, yeah, it's
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: tough to find a braw that really fits well and
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: feels good and does everything it's supposed to do. And
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: then that's why when you find one, you know, you
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: order like six of them. But there are these days
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: before we get into the sizing. UM that is changing
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: some now with these more bespoke companies UM that have
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: more custom custom made, tailored to your size kind of things.
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: And I wonder why it took that long for someone
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: to think outside the box and challenge, challenge big brazier
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: and say, hey, you're doing it wrong. I bet there's
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: a lot of money to be made from bespoke braziers. Yeah,
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: from what I understand, there is. And although it's just
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: now happening in the US, apparently it happened I believe
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: back in the nineties in the UK with UM a
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: movement called braw fitting one word, where it's basically like, look,
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: two measurements is not enough to to create a perfect brawl.
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: You need a bunch of different measurements under different conditions.
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: You need to take your shirt and brawl all the
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: way off. We need to get in there and um,
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: but when we're done, you're going to have a well
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: fitting brawl. And it's just now catching on in the
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: United States. And what's surprising is that you know it's
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: just now catching on. But this, this technique in the
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: sizing standard that we use here in the United States,
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: goes back to the I think the twenties, if not
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: the thirties. Yeah, yeah, is when they found it made
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: in for him and introduced this cup sizing. And I'm
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: not going to pretend to fully understand this, but I
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: can read, Oh you got it. Yeah, yeah, you go ahead,
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: though I want to hear your too. No, no, no,
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: because that when what will happen is I'll read and
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: then you'll do it again in your own words. And
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: then this episode is fifteen minutes longer than it should be.
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: All Right, you got my number, and my number happens
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: to be thirty four. See. So the cup system is
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: what it's called. It consists of two measurements and the
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: difference between them. So the first measurement is the overbust,
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: which is the circumference of your chest all the way
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: around your body across the nipples. That's your overbust measurement, right, Okay, Now,
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: if you'll also measure right below the breasts all the
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: way around your body, that's your underbust. And if you
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: subtract those two, you're going to come up with a
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: difference in inches or centimeters depending on where you are
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: in the world. And you can use that as part
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: of a handy table to say, oh, there's a three
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: inch difference. That means that I'm a C cup, right,
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: because that's where the letter comes from. Right. The difference
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: between your underbust and your overbust generates some knowledge about
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: the volume that your breasts are going to take up,
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: which is your cup size. Generates knowledge exactly, so that
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: underbust measurement is also used. And the that's the number
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: that comes before it. So if you're a thirty four C,
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: that means your chest is thirty four inches around at
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: the rib cage under your breasts. And then if you're
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: a C that means that there's a three inch difference.
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: That means that you are thirty seven inches around your
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: chest at the nipples, and so you'd be a thirty
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: four C and that those two measurements are supposedly like
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: all you need to come up with a fitting braw
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: but apparently that's just not true. Yeah, I mean that
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: all makes sense. Um. I think the thing that confused
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: me is the sister sizing. I understand that too. Thing.
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: Uh So if you have a thirty six C and
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: a thirty four C brazier, that's not the same cup
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: size because a thirty four C is the only true C.
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: So if you want to go up a band size
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: but not the cup size, you buy a thirty six
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: B or thirty eight A. So the volume of the
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: cup size is relative to this or conference of the band. Yeah.
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: I mean it's as simple as that. I think the
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: problem the breakdown is is that this sister sizing thing
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: has not been widely publicized to women, and so that
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: they think like, well, if the band is a little
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: tight and I'm a thirty six C, that I need
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: to go up to a thirty eight C. And that's
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: just not the case. Yeah. In music, you want to
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: type band and braziers you don't. Well, Supposedly, part of
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: that brofitting trend that started in the UK is that
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: UM suggests that the tight band is the key to
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: a good fitting brawl, that that's where most of your
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: support comes, and that most women opt for a band
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: size that's a little too loose. But the point is
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: your cup volume does not go up when you go
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: up a band size. It doesn't have to. So that
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: means that a thirty four C, if you go down
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: and band size, you would go up and cup size
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: and your cup size would stay the same. So the
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: thirty four C is the same as the thirty two D,
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: and then the other way, a thirty four C is
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: the same as the thirty six B. And once you
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: understand the sister sizing thing, then you can actually use
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: this two measurement standard to find a brawl that actually
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: fits better. That's right. And if you're wondering how this
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: all works, it works with uh with bra fitting models.
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: There are women that get paid money to go in
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: and get fit for thousands and thousands of bras and
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: to give feedback. And this all start well, didn't completely
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: start there, but in the nineteen seventies there was a
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: singer named Dorothy Gallaghan from New York answered an ad
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: for brofitting model and they said, you know what, I
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: know this sounds sexist, and we probably even though it's
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: the seventies. Shouldn't be saying this in an office, but
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: you have the perfect thirty four B s and that's
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: the standard size which we're designing our bras on. So
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: for almost twenty years, Dorothy Gallaghan was the model in
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: New York in the Lingerie district that would work ten eleven,
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: twelve hour days trying on thousands and thousands of bras
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: and giving her feedback so they could go back to
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: the sewing machine and redo it. Yeah, because that's the
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: other part of the problem with bras that don't necessarily fit,
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: in addition to not making larger sizes and cup volumes
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: and smaller sizes and cup volumes like they're based around
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: one woman's pair of breasts, and her breasts became the
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: standard for the brawl industry in the twentieth century, so
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: that if you have if you could create a bra
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: that fit Dorothy Gallaghan correctly as a thirty or four B,
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: you could use that to basically grow out from either way.
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: That's right. So that's a that's a real problem for
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: women who have different shapes and sizes, and it's really
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: sad to me to think that they were told for
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: decades that you know, if you're broad doesn't fit, it's
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: something something's wrong with your body. Not exactly. Well, here's
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: the thing too, it's not just breast size. It's that
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: you know, how how how big your back is and
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: how like the braw it holds the breast the cups do.
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: But you know, it has to do with your shoulders
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: in your back and your armpits and everything else. Like
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: there's so many nuances to everybody's body, men and women
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: that I mean, I think until recently they were trying
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: to do the best they could, but it was pretty narrow, uh,
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: the options that women had. Yeah, I get the impression
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: that they were not trying to do the best that
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: they could. That they basically said, when we release a
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: new brawl, it comes in these sizes, Well, doing the
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: best they could for a huge industry that had to satisfy,
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: you know, tens of millions of different kind of bodies,
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: Like they were kind of hand strung. You can't have
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: FO fifty brass sizes and manufacture on that scale. Yeah,
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: you can't mask manufacture. But I think that's what's being proven,
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: Like you're saying, by this new bespoke revolution and you
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: just you can't get that big, although now you can
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: get that big because it's a bespoke and because you
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: can say, hey, uh, download our app and take these
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: measurements using your phone and upload it and then we'll
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: just custom make some braws for you. And I also
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: read that um Poland makes really really good fitting braws
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: as well. I read it. I think it was a
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: New York Times article about interesting and the author traveled
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: to Poland to verify this herself, and she said she
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: didn't find the perfect brawl, but she came away with
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: like four or five bras that were awfully close, way
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: closer than she'd ever had before. It's funny, after all
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: these years, I still remember to not put a bra
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: in a dryer because of the movie had big in
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: the angry inch. I don't remember that part now. I
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: never thought that's why I don't remember that. It's great
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: John Cameron Mitchell, who also a friend of Movie Crush.
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: He's a friend of Knowles. He played head Vig and
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: you know, created the character and directed the film. But
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: there's a scene where he's uh, he's screaming, do not
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: put a bra and a dryer. It's warps And I
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: guess that's true, because ever since then I've been like,
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: I don't know. If I'm doing laundry, I should not
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: put a braw in a dryer. It does do some
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: weird things to it. Although you can also put it
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: in a laundry bag, and I think that keeps it
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: from like wrapping around stuff, which makes it a lot
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: lasts longer. You can't put it in a dryer. Oh right, yeah,
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: like when a bra like collects everything else in its wake. Exactly. Yeah, So, um,
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: I don't think we can not talk about Victoria's Secret. Man,
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: if I had a dime for every time you said
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: that to me, or is many dumb, dumb guys call
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: it Victoria's Secrets? Yeah, dummies. So Victoria's Secret actually started
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: out husband and wife um founded it in the seventies
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: in the San Francisco area because the husband had gone
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: to like the department store to buy laundry for his
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: wife and was treated like a scale for it. Right,
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: even in San Francisco in the seventies, I guess, so,
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: all right, department stores have always been a certain way
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: no matter where you're right, So he said, well, we
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: need to create like a lingerie store that's made for
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: men to go by for women, and that's what they created,
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: was Victoria's Secret, and um it was semi successful. And
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: then they sold to a guy named Leslie Wexman. I
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: believe it was Wexman who had founded the limited and
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: um he turned he took it. I think he bought
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: it for a million dollars and within two decades it
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: was worth two billion dollars. And um, the guy who
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: founded it with his wife, they ended up getting divorced
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: and he he um died, broke and jumped from the
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: Golden gate Bridge. Sadly enough. Wow, But Victoria's Secret dominated
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: the um the braw industry in the United States for many,
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: many decades until very recently when it was overthrown by
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: women who said enough, well it's funny, you know. Roy
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: Raymond said, you know what we need is a store
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: where men can go in and buy sexy lingerie for
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: their wives. And what he failed to hear was the
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: sound of tens of millions of women across the country saying, no,
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: you don't right. Well, that's what that's what um, Leslie,
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: I think it's Wexman. That's what he figured out was
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: that this this thing was a good idea, but they
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: had missed the mark and that they were marketing towards
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: men and they were completely isolating women because he said,
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: like these Victorious secret stores were lit with like, you know,
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: weird kind of reddish lighting and there were velvet couches
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: and oriental rugs. And he said it wasn't this was
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: like in the in the early seventies and or late
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: seventies and early eighties. Yeah, that's what I'm talking, Okay,
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: all right, So he said, man, I would have loved
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: to seen this. He said, they were they were Victorian,
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: not like a Victorian um uh foyer. They were like
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: a Victorian brothel basically, and it was like just chasing
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: women away, attracting men, but women by you know, underwear
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: for themselves way more than their husbands do. And so
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: he kind of revamped it a little bit and turned
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: it into something that women felt comfortable and actually wanted
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: to go into. Yeah, it's interesting. According to that book
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: Uplift that we mentioned earlier, Uh, despite Victoria's Secret in
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: its history, UH, women have really been key to the
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: development of bras in the United States. I think over
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: twelve hundred u S patents have been awarded for braws
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: between eighteen sixty three and nineteen sixty nine, and half
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: of those have been held by women. And in the industry, uh,
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: they have always held pretty important positions and been well
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: regarded designers and managers, UM specialists, merchandizing, UM, promotional product managers.
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: It is one industry where it seems that has not
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: been Here's a product for women run entirely by men,
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: and rightfully so I would say, yeah, absolutely so. UM.
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: There is also a very famous legend as far as
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: Bras go, which is the burning of Bras at night demonstration. No,
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: it's a myth. There was. There was, in fact a
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: demonstration outside of Miss America pageant in Atlantic City in night.
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: It was the brainchild of Carol hannish Um who helped
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: basically at this moment give birth to the second wave feminism.
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: And they actually had a trash can that said freedom
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: trash can and women threw stuff into it that they
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: considered like shackles of the patriarchy, like false eyelashes, bras lingerie,
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. But there was no burning. That
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: came from a reporter who suggested that they burn it
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: as a nod to the burning of draft cards, but
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: no one actually burned this stuff, but it became kind
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: of set in stone as is true, even though it
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: really wasn't. That's right, big fat. And then lastly, chuck, i'
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: got one extra thing. You're ready? Ready? Do you have
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: anything else? I don't? Do you need to are a brawl?
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: It's a long standing question and apparently the answer is no,
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: at least as far as a study in France, a
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: fifteen year study of three women I think they are
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: aged eighteen to thirty five, and the study found that
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: women who did not wear bras developed more muscle muscle
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: tissue in their breasts, ostensibly to provide support that the
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: brawl wasn't there to provide, and that by proxy, if
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: you did wear a brawl, your muscle or the muscles
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: in your breasts were less prone to develop and thus
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: you would have um more likely to have breasts that
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: sag or pendulouar breasts than you would have if you
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: didn't wear a brawl, kind of like you're making your
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: breast sink or swim by not wearing a braw. So
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: it's just one study, but it is pretty pretty um
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: surprising that they found basically the opposite of conventional wisdom,
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: because most people say if you don't wear braw, your
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: breast will get saggy, and that's apparently not true. Interesting,
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: And I also ran across a weird question on Google.
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: You know it has like suggested searches what happens if
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: we squeeze breast? I don't know. I didn't even bother
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: to look. Just the question itself was good enough. Oh man,
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: do you got anything else? I got nothing else. What
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: about the bro or the man's ear? Oh yeah, I
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: can't forget the brou Well, since we said bro, it's
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: time for listener mail everybody. I'm gonna call this more
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: on the days. Hey, guys, love the show. Thanks for
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: all you do. It's especially meaningful in these crazy times.
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: I'm currently hanging out in northern Japan on a trip
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: that changed from a between chops snowboarding sabbatical in December. Too. Well,
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: I guess I live here for now, so you're bating.
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: This is not a bad place to be. I would
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: imagine it's good for you, Adam. I'm sure you guys
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: get a tumul got a ton of similar emails to this,
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: But in the day's episode you mentioned the type of
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: toilet with a sink sprayer attachment nearby, and my experience
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: this is a super common thing in households and many
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: lower budget hotel accommodations in the Philippines and other Southeast
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: Asian countries. It is awesome and commonly referred to as
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: the bum gun by foreign travelers and expats. I don't
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: know the etymology of bum gun, so I'm not sure
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: if that term has been adopted domestically in various bum
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: a gun enthusiast countries. But like one ring or Spidy's abilities,
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: that has great power and must be wielded carefully. So
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: bum gun wisely, my friends, that is from Adam takes
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: a lot Adam uh and best of luck to you
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: in your new home. Uh. Hang tight, buddy, things will
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: pass eventually. If you want to get in touch with
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: us like Adam did and talk about bum guns or
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: brawls or what have you, you can email send us
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: an email to stuff Podcasts How Stuff Works dot com.
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: Yo Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeart
• 52:04
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• 52:10
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