Date: c. 1980s
Origin: United Kingdom
Fabric: Lace
Brand: Warner
This bright-coloured nylon and Lycra longline bra by Warner’s features underwiring, plastic boning and detachable straps, enabling it to be worn as a supportive strapless bra. The photograph on the original packaging shows that it was available in at least one other colour, white. The wide shoulder straps are constructed from lace-covered fabric at the front, with an adjustable elastic section at the back, ensuring that they are attractive and provide support plus flexibility. In this shade the bra is clearly a fashion piece, perhaps intended to tap into the growing trend of wearing underwear as outerwear in the late 1980s.
As a manufacturer of underwear, Warner’s has a long and interesting history. In the late nineteenth century, New York physician Dr Lucien Warner gave up his practice to begin a new career lecturing on women’s health issues, including the effects of the corset. In 1873, he designed a corset that provided the desired fashionable shape along with increased flexibility. The following year, Lucien Warner and his brother founded Warner Brothers Corset Manufacturers. After buying Mary Phelps Jacob’s brassiere patent in 1915, Warner’s went on to introduce lettered cup sizing in the 1930s.
In 1968, the Warner Brothers Company changed its name to Warnaco and, by the mid-70s, had become a multi-national with almost twenty clothing divisions. In 1986, Linda J Wachner engineered a hostile takeover before streamlining the company’s divisions into just two clothing categories: menswear and underwear.
From the collection of The Underpinnings Museum
