Tracking 100 years of breast obsession

With 2007 marking 100 years since the invention of the brassiere, it would seem that boob obsession is alive, robust, and more pervasive than ever. We just bid farewell to a year that hailed the return of FDA-approved silicone breast implants, and, in 2005, a bra that promises a "natural cosmetically enhanced look" came onto the market. I always knew in my heart that, like tie-dye and ponchos, my God-given 32DDDs would come back into fashion (though they've never ceased to render men instantly stupid). And in the last two years as I researched my book, Stacked: A 32DDD Reports from the Front—an examination of breast obsession in our culture (to be published next month by Bloomsbury)—Google Alerts for mammary glands flooded my inbox as I listened to both women and men talk boobs with almost universal passion and enthusiasm. It's safe to speculate that breasts have captivated humankind since its inception. But beginning with freedom from crushing corsets, the last 100 years have given us Maidenform's Dreamers and Wonderbras, Jane Russell's cantilevered rack, Suzanne Somers's nipples, breast implants and breast lifts, bra-defying feminists, and the wardrobe malfunction that shook the world.

Let's take a look, shall we?

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1907 The first undergarment resembling the brassiere as we know it is born, as its name reflects, in France. An alternative to the rib-crushing, vital-organ-squishing corset, this new invention manages to lift, if not quite separate, without the use of busks or whalebone, according to noted breast historian Marilyn Yalom.

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1914 Though in the early 20th century Americans had designed "bust supporters" for special markets such as acrobats, the U.S. patent for the first all-purpose bra is secured by Mary Phelps Jacob, whose eureka moment comes, according to Yalom, while she is dressing for a dance. In a spasm of rebelliousness for which we can all be grateful, she abandons the punishing corset and has her maid fit her with two handkerchiefs and a ribbon. Jacobs's "backless brassiere" is patented under the name Caresse Crosby. The design is useless for anyone without small, firm breasts, but Jacobs eventually sells her rights to Warner Brothers Corset Company for $1,500, which makes a $15 million profit within two years.

1920s Only decades after women are freed from corset bondage, along comes the Flapper craze, with its acutely un-boob-friendly call for women to squash their breasts flat. When it comes to the female form, Flappers look to the wooden plank for inspiration. Akin to Ace bandages, their bandeau bras smash chests back to prepubescence for a more androgynous look. The most popular brand of these is called Boyshform. The breast-binding fad is so punishing that some physicians, with little, er, foundation, blame it for the mid-century rise in breast cancer.

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1925 Not all women, of course, embrace the "boysh" look. Many prefer to breathe. The rescued, uplifted breast owes perhaps its biggest debt to immigrant seamstress Ida Rosenthal, whose custom dresses include breast supports with natural contours. These are so effective that Rosenthal and business partner Enid Bissett are besieged by customers wanting to buy the undergarment separate from the dress. And so the trademark Maiden Form is born, though early advertisements touted "double support pockets," not yet "cups."

1931 With its breakthrough invention of a fabric that was elastic in both warp and woof, the Warner Company introduces the fitted bra cup—sizes A to D—and the elastic strap. Thus ending the days of nonadjustable straps and bras made of easily torn, unforgiving fabrics like crepe de chine, rayon, or silk. And beginning the era of pubescent school boys' irritating habit of snapping unsuspecting girls' bra straps.

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1938 Du Pont discovers nylon. It is strong, lightweight, stands up to repeated washings, and often doesn't need ironing. Women are wild for the stuff, according to Jane Farrell-Bech and Colleen Gau in Uplift, a social history of the bra. While a good chunk of Du Pont's nylon production is diverted for wartime uses, by late 1945 it is abundant to bra manufacturers, though Uplift's authors note that retailers had to warn women to extinguish their cigarettes before shopping—one stray ash could burn holes in the newfangled brassieres.

1943 On the set of the film The Outlaw, the heaving and bobbing of actress Jane Russell's outsized boobs pose a creative challenge to producer Howard Hughes, who in his spare time, as we know, designs airplanes. Hughes's drawing board yields a design for a cantilevered, steel-reinforced, aerodynamic bra with a shelf worthy of Russell's legendary rack.

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1951 Women have always found ways to embellish one's God-given breast size. But it isn't until the fifties that bra padding is mainstream and high-tech. There are built-in pads, removable pads, and an inflatable bra with a plastic straw for blowing it up. A 1951 advertisement in Mademoiselle features the Tres Secrete inflatable bra, which, though it appears lethally pointy, "makes all other ways to a lovely natural bustline old-fashioned!"

1953 The first issue of Playboy hits the newsstands, with Hugh Hefner's nod to every American man's fantasy, the girl next door, posing demurely topless in a pull-out centerfold. Airbrushed and implant-free, she looks positively chaste compared to today's typical ad for vacuum cleaners or investment advice.

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1962 Timmie Jean Lindsey enters a Houston, Texas, hospital to have floral tattoos removed from her breasts and, after pioneering doctors offer augmentation surgery for free, becomes the first U.S. woman to receive silicone breast implants. It will be years before breast implants come under FDA regulation.

1965 Women are besieged with full-page magazine advertisements for the "Fabulous Mark Eden Bust Developer." Accompanied by photos of buxom beauties baring their juicy cleavage, the ads feature slogans like, "A girl doesn't have to be flat-chested." The device itself resembles a giant clamshell held together by a taut spring.

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1966 Enter the Mod era, personified by the emaciated, saucer-eyed, board-flat model Twiggy. The tyranny of these Twiggy years, which have normal women cursing their pendulous breasts and ample flesh, pave the way for the birth of the women's movement, which at least in the boob department, brings a tyranny of its own.

1968 Feminists stage a mass protest at the Miss American pageant in Atlantic City. Led by writer Robin Morgan, the protestors call for women to throw away their bras, girdles, curlers, and other "mindless boob girlie symbols," writes Marilyn Yalom in A History of the Breast. Contrary to myth, bras are not burned on that day but tossed into trash cans. According to Yalom, the reporter responsible for coining the term "bra-burning" meant to associate the act with the burning of draft cards or flags.

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1975 With the debut of his movie Supervixens, famously breast-obsessed director Russ Meyer earns the title "the original king of the nudies." In Meyer's film Mamell's Story, Chesty Morgan plays a homicidal outlaw who suffocates her victims between her 79-inch breasts.

1977 The debut of Three's Company introduces Americans to Suzanne Somers, and her perpetually erect nipples.

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1983 The first Hooters opens in Clearwater, Florida, with its six co-owning friends insisting the name is inspired by a Steve Martin routine on Saturday Night Live. The first Hooters girl, Lynne Austin, is hired on a bet, when one of the "Hooters Six" catches sight of her during a Jose Cuervo bikini contest. Co-owner Ed Droste bets he can entice Austin to be the first Hooters girl. Weeks later, Austin quits her job as a telephone operator and joins, as Droste puts it, the short-shorted, tight-T-shirted "Hooters team."

1992 Pamela Anderson debuts on Baywatch. It is more like Boobwatch, with the blonde, former Playboy Playmate, and multiple-cover model mesmerizing viewers with her 36DDs over a five-year stretch.

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1994 With startling fanfare, the One and Only Wonderbra makes its U.S. debut. Touted for its precision engineering, three-part cup construction, precision angled back, removable "cookie" pads, and "gate back" design, the bras arrive in New York City in armored cars and limousines manned by "secret service" and models in Wonderbra logo jackets. In Miami, it is pink Cadillacs; in San Francisco, the bras arrive by cable car. Crowds tossing confetti greet the widely publicized stunts, and the event is covered in the national press. The original Wonderbra Push-Up Plunge Bra, from which the One and Only descends, has been popular in the UK since 1964.

1999 Pamela Anderson undergoes surgery to remove her 36DD implants ... what, those were fake? The only reason she offers is, "I just want my natural body back." Six years later she has the implants put back in, saying, "I hated being without them. I was like, 'Where are my pals?' But I could see my feet for the first time in years."

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2004 The world is shaken and stirred by a millisecond flash of Janet Jackson's right boob, the result of a now immortalized "wardrobe malfunction" while performing with Justin Timberlake during the Super Bowl half-time show. The subsequent viewer outcry includes claims that children are traumatized by the blink-and-you-missed-it bared breast ... though hours of watching hulk-sized men getting smothered or ramming each other with their heads had no such effect.

2005 The Florida-based exotic dancer known as Maxi Mounds captures the Guinness World Record for world's largest augmented breasts. How big are they? They're soooooo big (size 156MMM), says Ms. Mounds, "that if each one were a Thanksgiving turkey, it could feed twelve adults."

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2006 The federal Food and Drug Administration lifts its 14-year ban on silicone breast implants. While the implants are allowed for use in breast reconstruction after cancer or trauma, Victoria's Secret model wannabes have to settle for squishier, less lifelike saline implants. After all the legal wrangling, the jury on silicone's potential health risks is still out.