Cheesecake Babes

When I was younger, I remember wondering why women in older movies were always seen in very pointy bras. Why did women wear bras that were so different from today’s bras? What made these ladies want to make their breasts so pointed?

Reading up on the bullet bra, you will find that they became popular in the 1940s. The reason women wore them was because famous starlets like Marilyn Monroe, Jane Russell and Lana Turner began to wear them. Just like today, fashions catch and soon all the ladies were wearing bullet bras.

The bullet bra is a bra that has a cone like shape, created with circular stitching. Worn under sweaters in particular, these bras gave women a very distinct shape, which is where the term “sweater girl” comes from. These were the first push-up bras, designed to lift, enhance, and enlarge the appearance of a woman’s breasts.

There has been a certain level of controversy around bras over the decades. Apparently Howard Hughes had a special bra designed from Jane Russell in the movie The Outlaw to add more cleavage. This resulted in a censorship battle. In the 1940s, you had to advertise bras without even showing a picture of a woman wearing a bra, as it was considered too taboo. In the 1960s, we started seeing women burning their bras.

I’m curious as to whether the bullet bra will make a comeback as fashion moves away from the current pushed up, mountainous cleavage and unnaturally large breasts. Perhaps women will desire to have a different kind of shape, something that was considered feminine in times gone by.