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.