Bra, corset, bodice … and the car

What has the underwear of the women, their way of dressing and modulating of the feminine figureto do  with the cars? Seemingly not much, not to say anything, but nonetheless we have found links between this two so opposite topics.



Between 350 years the women had to suffer in the famous corsets (invented in 1550 by Catherine de Médicis), a metallic interior structure to reduce the waist of the women and to oppress her breathing, which alone served for aesthetic questions, today very questionable. What has this in common with the cars? One of the manufacturers of the metallic structure of corsets was the family Peugeot, who in 1832 created a company for such manufacturing … to dedciate this compnay 65 years later to build cars.

There is a curious legend of the corsets: when Americans entered World War First, the militarian asked women to deliver their metal corsets for the service of the nation. With the whole collected material two ships of war were constructed.

It seems the first bra was patented - in this case we speak about the first patent, since previously there were other ideas of supporting the bust of the women - for the American Mary Phelps Jacob in 1914. This woman was the daughter of the inventor of the steam engine Robert Fulton, serving to create more ecological cars.

And to illustrate our small incursion in another subject matter we reproduce an advertisement of the prestigious French magazine France Illustration, who was devoting itself principally to the car and to the trips with it. These announcements always were always very… suggestive. This announcement in concrete dates back of 1934, 80 years ago!