As Women’s History Month comes to a close, here’s a little bit of trivia for you: One of the premier patents in bras hadn’t been touched or improved upon in 88 years. That was until Bree McKeen went after it.
In 1931, inventor Helene Pons was granted a U.S. patent for a brassiere featuring an open-ended wire loop that encircled the bottom and sides of each breast. That uncomfortable, unyielding design had largely been left unchanged for nearly a century—and remains the dominant style in the global bra market, which is expected to reach nearly $60 billion by 2032.
