It seems like a fairly boobalicious era at the moment in Doperland, so I figured I may as well ask a question about them.
When you’re learning to draw, you’ll often trace people in pictures. Since you’re trying to figure out how everything is related to everything else, you’ll often remove the clothing entirely as you do this.
But so way back when, when I still had use of doing this, I discovered that when you trace a woman, she’ll end up looking vaguely wrong. And I figured out that the reason is that bras seem to universally squeeze in towards each other so that the sides go straight forward from where they are attached on the outside edge, whereas nude breasts are at an angle on the body and so skew outwards a bit (leading to the coveted side boob shot).
Now it seems a bit odd that I’ve never seen what looks like a bra that actually conforms to the natural shape of the female body–not even the cheap, utilitarian ones. So the question is whether this is a technical thing, that it would be difficult to build two independent and separated cups that still provided lift; an ergonomic thing, getting the puppies out of the way of your biceps; or just popular fashion, either to create more cleavage or because it would be odd to be the only girl without a monoboob look when you have a shirt on.
I’ve had a few very plain, non-underwire bras, but it gets to a point where it’s so close to your own breasts’ shape that you wonder why you need it at all. Support needs structure. (Oh shit, I mentioned my own breasts – does this mean I’ve revoked some sort of right?)
Bras are function (get the ladies out of the way and reduce pain while moving, doing sports, etc.) – but most modern, shaped bras are fashion. You just have to check out a vintage bra to notice. The look of the day is big, round and 'round the neck (for some, obviously). Nipples are usually nonexistent (can you imagine a Dope post about nipples? Or having a few select posters in a nude drawing class? I think some heads would explode).
This is actually a pretty damn interesting question - never though of this before and I will embark on a close analysis of my SO’s undergarments to see if I unravel it.
Off the top of my head though, I think it is not really a desired effect (more like a circumstance of design). I would think that to provide upward support, you HAVE to have horizontal strength - thus compressing everything around the ribcage. From an engineering point of view, I think you could make (and I am sure there are) bras that dont have this effect, but the shoulder straps would then have to be guided outward and therefore, aside from lifting, would also have an undesired separating effect. I can’t think of a reason women would want to have their breasts separated more than they already are (in some cases). And of course many times the effect that is desired is, joining the breasts more, which would happen naturally anyway once you compress them against the ribcage.
I would imagine that you could get vertical support without horizontal compression if you had a second strap per boob, like this. The idea of a bra is to fight gravity so that your breast-tissue doesn’t get stretched and droopy as time goes on (in my understanding), which would seem to make stretching them inwards to one another counterproductive.
I cant see a bra “stretching” breast anywhere. If the are further joined together by the compression of the breast, then they are not being stretched, they are being compressed. Women with medium/large breast will compress inward, naturally causing a joining due to volume. Women with small breasts, will compress naturally without joining because of lack of volumne. Unless of course you consider padded brass to enhance your breasts.
Also I will agree that preventing sag is ONE of the reasons to wear breasts, but I would think it is not the only one, and definitely not the immediate benefit.
The best way I can compare it (sorry ladies and gents), is men and their junk (genitalia). Some guys wear briefs because (I guess) they dont want all that junk swinging around down there. Boxers, dont provide that kind of support. Women (I would imagine), dont want theirs boobs swinging wildly around, which I would think at some point would become annoying to them.
Other reasons for a bra that I would WAG:
Since women wear blouses of different materials, some of which might hurt nipples after a lot of friction, a stationary barrier between nipples and blouse is a good idea. Us guys dont have that issue since our clothes are friendlier, and unless you have man-boobs, they arent bouncing around in our shirts.
Not all women have perky breasts (or they want to conserve their perkiness)
Concealment of their anatomy (probably dont want others noticing their nipples through shirts/blouses
Avoid malfunctions (boob popping out when they bend over of something)
We are lucky, we get to wear pants over our moving parts. Women, not so much.
The Playtex® Cross-Your-Heart bra was different at the time, because it promised to “lift and separate.” At the time, oddly, the TV rules said a woman could be shown wearing a bra onlyoutside her clothes.
On the other hand, you might prefer the Rawhide bra. It heads 'em up and moves 'em out.
I have seen a couple of patent drawings of bras, and they are wonders of stress distribution and engineering.
