The Improbable Life of the Inventor of the Modern Bra

The Improbable Life of the Inventor of the Modern Bra | Atlas Obscura

Mary Phelps, known as Polly to friends, was born in 1891 to a family that could trace its heritage to such luminaries as William Bradford, Plymouth Colony’s first governor, and Robert Fulton, the inventor of the steamboat. As New England royalty, Polly grew up in New Rochelle, New York, wanting for nothing.

It wasn’t until 1910 that Polly realized something important was missing from her life. She was busy one day preparing for a debutante ball when she looked in the mirror and realized she loathed the way a corset made her look. It bunched up her bodice and squished her breasts into a single, uncomfortable monobosom. In her memoir, The Passionate Years, she referred to it as “a box-like armour of whalebone and pink cordage.”

Like all great innovators before her, necessity was the mother of Polly’s invention. She grabbed a handkerchief, ribbon, and a needle, and before the party was off the ground, had fashioned herself a new undergarment: the modern bra.

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West Aceh: No Trousers For Women

From the Jakarta Post:

Women wearing jeans and other trousers in West Aceh will now face sharia police, as will clothes vendors selling slacks for women.

West Aceh Regent Ramli M.S. issued the controversial regulation on Tuesday.

Those found wearing tight trousers, such as jeans, will have them cut by sharia police, and will be forced to wear loose-fitting attire.

"We have issued the regulation to further enforce Islamic sharia granted by the central government," Ramli told The Jakarta Post by phone on Tuesday.

To anticipate the huge number of slacks to be cut by police during raids, the West Aceh regency administration has prepared around 7,000 long skirts, which will be provided for free to those caught wearing trousers.

According to Ramli, the new regulation will be effective as of Jan. 1, 2010.

The regulation also prohibits clothes vendors in the regency from selling slacks or jeans to women.

NK: NO Trousers for Women

From the Times of India:

North Korean women face hard labor if caught wearing trousers rather than skirts, under the communist regime’s latest crackdown on public morals, South Korean activists said on Friday.

Offenders can be punished with hours of forced labor or fines of 700 won, almost a week’s salary for the average worker, human rights group Good Friends said, citing its own sources within the isolated nation.

The Stalinist leadership’s campaign is angering women who see skirts as less practical than trousers, Good Friends director Lee Seung-Yong said.