KEY POINTS:
Anna Kournikova
In 2000, the toned tennis star's scantily-clad form appeared on billboards advertising Berlei's "shock absorber" range of sports bras. The slogan: "Only the ball should bounce."
Bra-less
More than 90 per cent of women are thought to wear bras, but studies have cast into doubt the belief that bras prevent sagging; almost all 250 participants in one French study, in which the women agreed not to wear a bra for a year, showed signs of improved firmness and elevation.
Cup size
The average New Zealand bra-size is now more a 14C, says Carol Rashleigh, Bendon's official Bra-ologist. "It is no longer the magic 12B figure of old."
Dudou
The Chinese silk dudou ("stomach cover") was employed as a bust-flattening undergarment during the Ming dynasty (1368-1644).
Etymology
Bra comes from the French brassière (child's vest), a derivation of the Old French word bracière, an arm protector in military uniforms and, later, a chest plate and a type of women's corset.
Feminists
During the notorious protest against the 1968 Miss America beauty pageant, a group of women filled a "freedom trash can" with bras, high heels and girdles, but they never set fire to it, because no permit could be obtained.
G-cup
About 70 per cent of women wear ill-fitting brassieres. Good fits are calculated thus: measure around the chest directly under the breasts and add four inches if it is even and five inches if it is odd. This is the bra size. For cup size, subtract the bra size from the bust size (around the fullest part of the bosom). Differences of 0-3 inches equate to, cup sizes A to D, while 10 inches give you a G.
Howard Hughes
For his 1943 film The Outlaw, Hughes created a steel underwire push-up bra for leading lady Jane Russell. She reportedly failed to wear the garment because of a poor fit.
Injury
In 2002, the British Journal of Plastic Surgery reported that a 27-year-old man required surgery after catching his finger in his girlfriend's bra strap.
Jean Paul Gaultier
Pop queen Madonna thrust her bust into his iconic conical bra during her Blond Ambition tour in 1990. The black satin brassiere was snapped up by a Chilean museum for five times its asking price at a Christie's auction.
Klum, Heidi
In 2003, the 34-year-old German supermodel posed in the world's most expensive bra. Comprising more than 2500 carats of diamonds and sapphires, it was valued at $10m.
Lesher, Henry
New Yorker Henry Lesher's patent for "combined breast pads and armpit shields" detailed how the inflatable rubber and cloth device, which never caught on, would "prevent the armpits of dresses from becoming saturated and stained by perspiration, give a symmetrical rotundity to their breasts."
Men's brassieres
American company Enell is one of many online firms offering "male support vests" for men with overdeveloped chests, or "moobs".
Northumbrian Water
In June, engineers at Northumbrian Water retrieved a bra from a sewage pipe in a village near Darlington. Heavy rain, together with a build-up of grease behind the offending article (at least a 36C), had caused a pipe to burst and a road to collapse.
Outlaw, The
Hughes's seamless cantilevered bra didn't appear in the film, but its invention heralded the heyday of the push-up "bullet bras".
Portuguese
The Portuguese for bra is suti, while the Spanish say sugetador (from sujetar, to hold). The French prefer soutien-gorge (throat-support) and the Germans, Swedes, Danes and Dutch all use "BH" from, respectively, büstenhalter, bysthllare, brysteholdere and bustehouder (bust-holder).
The Queen
Since 1960, the London corsetieres Rigby & Peller have had the honour of lifting and separating the royal bust. The Queen has never revealed the size of her bosom, but celebrity bra-size websites put it at an above-average 36B. which puts HRH in the same league as Carly Simon, Claire Danes and Doris Day.
Rosenthal, Ida
The inventor of the uplifting Maidenform was a canny businesswoman, building the brand name with racy ads featuring photos of women in bras.
Slang
Colloquial terms for "bra" are surprisingly rare. Some cockney rhyming slang dictionaries list "Master McGrath", the name of a champion 19th-century Irish greyhound, while the online Urban Dictionary offers only "over-shoulder boulder-holder" and "upper-decker flopper-stopper".
Tit tape
First spotted on the celebrity breasts of Geri Halliwell and Jennifer Lopez in 2000, tit tape quickly became a discreet alternative to bras.
Ultimo
The cleavage that threatened to upstage Julia Roberts in Erin Brockovich push-up bra. Launched in 1999, the Ultimo bra made its creator Michelle Mone a multi-millionaire.
Vogel, Thomas
The Guinness world record for the most bras unhooked in one minute using one hand is 56, achieved by the German Thomas Vogel in 2006.
Wonderbra
In an internet poll hosted by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the Wonderbra ranked fifth in the 50 greatest Canadian inventions.
XXXL
The largest off-the-shelf brassiere (sold only in America) is thought to be a 54LL.
Year
Every year the UK imports more than 100 million bras. A 2006 survey showed Brits spend £1.2 billion on bras and pants every year.
Zwart, Piet
In 2005 designer Wendy Rameckers unveiled a wall of breasts as part of her design for a lingerie shop in Rotterdam. Rather than comparing to embarrassed staff, clueless men would ponder different-sized fake silicon breasts.
- INDEPENDENT
