Thursday, January 10, 2008

The Bra is a 101 Years Old

January 2008, marks a full 101 years since the brassiere was invented and its been an eventful 101 years at the helm, as the most sexiest product that has been created. The brassiere during all these years has been an inseperable companion of the female battalion and of course, the men in an indirect way. Dalbir Bains, the owner of the chic Mumbai lingerie store Boudoir London, comments about the bra this was a product that any woman could enjoy regardless of her age or vital stats -- lingerie doesn't discriminate. It's a totally feel-good purchase.


After some research on the Internet, the major impetus for brasserie sales seems to have come in 1991, when the push-up Wonderbra became a sensation in the j, although it had been sold there since 1964 under license by the Gossard division of Courtaulds Textiles.The Sara Lee Corporation did not renew Gossard's license and decided to redesign the push-up style for the reintroduction of the Wonderbra to the U.S. market in 1994.



Talk about brand push, the Wonderbra , Since 1994, has expanded from the single push-up design into a full-range lingerie fashion label in most parts of the world. Kate Windsor, a fashion enthusiast says that in most countries, the brand emphasizes sex-appeal. Another thing to note is that in its native Canada, the brand however promotes the functional qualities of its products—a departure from the strategy that made Wonderbra the top-seller in the 1970s.





The killer campaign that made bra sales literally pick up was In 1994 in the UK. The (Sara Lee) Wonderbra achieved a huge profile for its racy Hello Boys campaign. The most famous campaign poster presented model Eva Herzigová in a Wonderbra gazing down at her breasts with the caption "Hello Boys", ambiguously addressing either male admirers or her breasts. According to most people, urban myth attributed a number of car accidents to (male) drivers being distracted by the advertisements.



The British men never had it better than in 1994, when they were never so keen to get out of bed and face traffic en route to work, Eva and her assets smiled down upon the rush hour traffic, as men one by one kept banging into each other. Eva’s assets were a bad time for insurance agents as accidents kept mounting, and Eva became more than just a show stopper, and the tribe of the wonder bra lived to tell a famous story.



The wild fire that Eva caused, had transformed the 90’s woman into having insatiable demands of strutting down the fashion highway, playing mind games, in questioning the contents of her lingerie drawer. This seemingly discreet undergarment had transformed itself into the must-have fashion item of the decade. Lingerie had been elevated from functional to fashionable. The Millennium woman could only get more demanding and also more conscious as a customer, which bode very well for the fashion Industry.

That was a small piece rewinding down memory lane in saluting the world’s sexiest product. We shall be back with more articles later this week. The Fashion Networks team invites you to comment on this piece and share your experiences as a woman, in the pride of having worn the bra.