The bra has come a long way since its inception. Check out how this sexy staple has changed over the years—and choose which style you like best!
Whether they were meant to flaunt your breasts – or hide them – the first bras date back to ancient times, and like most fashions, they reflect the social and economic changes of that era.
Today women have the option of pushing-up, covering-up, and everything in between, and a new video created by Glamour charts the evolution of the bra over the past 500 years.
Beginning with the constricting mamillare from the Roman Empire and ending with a hypothetical design meant for robots in 2100, the clip highlights the prominent styles and history of the bras that debuted in various eras.
At the start of the video, viewers are introduced to the mamillare, a tightly wrapped cloth meant flatten a woman’s breasts. Ancient Romans found large breasts to be unattractive, so the ‘bra’ of the time was meant to disguise them.
Hundreds of years later, from the 1500s to the 1800s, women relied on corsets to push their breasts upwards and create extreme hourglass figures.
And interestingly, corsets have made a comeback thanks to celebrities such as Kim Kardashian and Amber Rose touting the benefits of waist training on social media.
Bras replaced corsets in the 20th century, and by the 1920s hour glass figures were out, and androgynous body types were all the rage.
