In 1907, Vogue Coined the Term 'Brassiere', and Launched a Billion- Dollar Industry That Changed the Way Women Dress for Ever. A Hundred Years on, Lingerie Lover John Walsh Provides an Uplifting Social History of the Undergarment - and Grapples with Its Role in Today's World ; Extra

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The bra was invented by an engineer of German extraction called Onto Titzling in 1912. He was living in a New York boarding house, and one of his neighbours, a voluptuous opera singer called Swanhilda Olafson, complained that she needed a garment to hoist her vast bosom aloft every evening - so Titzling obliged, using some cotton, elastic and metal struts. Unfortunately, he failed to patent the device and, in the early 1930s, a Frenchman named Philippe de Brassiere began making a suspiciously similar object. Titzling took him to court, but the unscrupulous Frenchman won the day. And that's why the garment all the ladies are wearing is called a brassiere, not a titzling. …