The search for the perfect strapless bra is still ongoing. Could this be the one? The Full circle mono wire bra designed by Sydney S. Alberts of Yonkers, New York, USA and patented in 1952, patent No 2622244.

From a pattern drafting point of view, one of the interesting parts of this bra (besides the "breast encircling" wire) are the non-stretch wings. How many modern designers rely too much on the forgiving nature of "good old" Powernet, or other stretch fabrics, for most of the bra components such as the wings?!

What if you want to make the wings from the same non-stretch fabric as the cups and cradle of the bra? Yes, we have all seen that "to die for" non-stretch lace or printed silk. Or maybe you want to recreate a vintage bra design?

 

We could draft a "skin fit" bra for non-stretch fabric, but for some strange reason all of my clients like to breathe occasionally..... so we must have some sort of stretch component(s) in the bra to allow for this habit of breathing and to accommodate slight changes in chest / band size over time. 

Most bra designs in the past have used elasticated insert parts in the cradle of the bra and the back to allow for movement.

In Sydney S. Alberts' bra, the stretch components are at the ends of the wings: two folded-over strips of elastic with the "hooks and bars" sewn to the ends for fastening.

Recently, I undertook to design some foundation garments in the style of the 1940's. For the bra, I used a wide ridged elasticated band for the stretch component on the non-stretch wings of the bra, and sewed the hooks to the end of the elastic and the eyes on to the end of the wing for a 40/50's off-centre fastening.

This idea of sewing elastic inserts or gores into a foundation garment to allow for movement goes beyond bras. Look at vintage corselets and girdles and you can see elastic gores set into the rigid control panels to facilitate walking and sitting.

 

As with the previous Overwired bra design, the wire in Sydney S. Alberts' bra is not intended to be sprung open by the elastic tension / pull from the wings, but the wires still need to be held against the curve of the chest wall and breast root. So the balance of wing tension against the wire spring is not as critical as with a modern underwired bra.

 

Drafting the Cup We will come to the wing draft in a moment; first we need to draft the cup. Yes, get out your size darted cup master. We will leave the cup as a single darted cup as per Sydney S. Alberts' patent, but I think you should be starting to get the idea of how to divide the darted cup up into shaped panels for different seam / cup shape configurations. Lines 3 and 6 on the master darted block give you a horizontal over bust seam. Partly close up dart 4/5 to share the fullness control with the new darts/cup seams.
The Sydney S. Alberts bra has a part circular perimeter where the wire in a casing is sewn. We could just use a pair of compasses to draw a circle on the darted cup master, but this will not work.
Hopefully you will have noticed that the "cup cone" produced by the master darted cup block is "off centre". There is more fabric from the bust point to underarm than bust point to centre front, and more than bust point to under bust. The classic measurements that I was taught for drafting a UK core size 34"B cup are 100mm, 90mm, and 85mm, and then all other cup sizes are graded and cross graded from this.
Since we are drafting in two dimensions for a three-dimensional object, we will start by drawing a vertical line on a copy of your master cup, bisecting the dart running through the point of bust to the neck hem of the cup.
This gives us a point on the neck hem at which the wire will end, above the point of bust.   Now draw a line from the neck hem end of this line to the underarm end of line 6.
Bisect this line and draw a line at 90 degrees to it.
Draw a line running through the underarm ends of lines 6 and 7.
Then draw a line at 90 degrees to this line at the end of line 6.
This now gives us a point from which to draw an arc from the end of line 6 to the point on the neck hem (the reverse of "tangents to a circle").  Set your compasses to the length of new line 6A and draw a circle on the cup.
Copy the new cup outline to a fresh sheet of paper. Only use part of the circle from line 6 to the neck hemline point for the cup outline, and use the rest of the original outline.
And add 15mm seam allowance around the cup for the wire casing and 5mm seam allowance for the cup dart.

 

Drafting the Non-Stretch Wings 

A good starting point for most non-stretch winged bras is to draft a wing that is a third (33.3%) of your back measurement. This will give you 2/3 for the wings and the remaining 1/3 for the stretch element of the back. Then you can adjust the length / tension of the stretch element for a supportive fit. You can refer to the Push Up/Sling Bra article for the "gated back" stretch fastening for a good stretch element / fastening. Drafting a wing to 1/3 of your back measurement also gives a good position near the end of the wing for the "strap platform", the point on the wing where the shoulder strap will attach.
But for this Sydney S. Alberts bra, instead of a third of your back measurement for the wing length, we will use a quarter (or 25%) of your back measurement and a third (33.3%) for the elastic and fastenings.  Go back to your cup draft with the circle and draw a line across the cup at the point of bust 90 degrees to the vertical point of bust to neck hemline line.
Draw a parallel line to this line starting from the end of line 6. Make this line 25% of your back measurement (from side breast root around back to other side breast root).
Now draw a line at 90 degrees at the end of the 25% back line. Make the line length equal to double the width of the elastic strap you are going to use as part of the back fastening. I am going to use 20mm wide elastic so this end of wing line equals 40mm for my example.
Connect the end of the wing / elastic strap line with a straight line to the point on the cup draft where the circle crosses the curve of the line 5 dart line.
Draw a gently curved line from the other end of the wing / elastic strap line to the top cup hem, flowing into the curve of the cup hem.

Copy the outline of the wing plus the curve of the wing to cup seam (part of the circle) to a new sheet of paper and add seam allowance (10mm for the wing to cup seam and 5mm for the hems).

 

Drafting the Centre Front Bridge

The centre front bridge is very similar to the Push Up/ Sling Bra centre front bridge with the addition of a securable flap to cover the centre flat part of the mono wire. If you wish to make this bra with two separate cup wires then there is no need to add the flap. I recommend this, as it means less wire bending and less sewing.

Start by extending cup line 3 by 2.4cm.
Then draw a 2.4cm line parallel to this line at the end of line 2.
Draw a centre line through the two lines as in the diagram.
Now, one third around the cup hem from cup line 3 to cup line 4, draw a line parallel to the first two 2.4cm lines to the centre line.
Extend the line by the same amount past the centre line.
Copy and mirror the cup hem curve between the lines to the other end of the parallel lines.
Now copy the bridge shape and add 10mm seam allowance to the cup curve sides and 5mm seam allowance to the top and bottom hem seams.

 

Back Fastening Elastic

The last part of the drafting is to work out the length of elastic for the back fastening.  To give the bra some elastic pull / tension / negative ease we will make the elastics and fastenings one third / 33.3% of your back measurement. 

First work out 33.3% of your back measurement, then divide this measurement in half.

 

This half of one third will be the length of the folded-over length of elastic. Add 5mm to the elastic length for sewing to the wings and that's all the drafting done. All that drawing for a "simple looking" bra! That's drafting in two dimensions for a three-dimensional object for you.

 

Making It Up

Now to cut, bend, fold and sew.

Fabrics, Elastics and Findings

• Fabric for the cups
• Fabric for the wings and centre front bridge
• Denier lining for the cups and wings (if needed)
• Underwire casing, 10mm to 12mm wide
• Lace edging for cup hems (if needed)
• Elastic for back straps elastic, 16mm to 25mm wide
• "Bikini" hook, size to suit back elastic
• Non-stretch fabric tape for back fastening "loops". Same width as back elastic and hook
• Seam tape (12mm wide NL2) or nylon lining fabric for DIY seam tape
• Piano wire, 16swg for cup sizes 1 to 6, or 14swg for cup sizes 7 to 10, or 12swg for cup sizes 10 to 16
• Thread (colour matching or contrasting)

 

Making up is similar to the previous overwired bra.  Start by sewing the top and bottom seams of the centre front bridge and bag out.
Make up the elastic back / fastenings. The type of elastic I am using is generally for waistbands of outer garments, skirts, trousers and so on. Mark out two lengths of elastic, thread one length of elastic through the hook and sew across. Take 10cm of fabric tape, fold over and sew across at intervals of 5mm to form the "loops" for the hook, and sew to the end of the other folded-over length of elastic.
Tack stitch the elastics to the ends of the wings, right side to right side, ready to fold under and cover with seam tape.
Next we need to fold over the 5mm hems of the wings and sew on some non-stretch seam tape. You can make your own seam tape from nylon lining fabric or thin cotton fabric by using a bias binding tape maker and steam iron. Remember to cut the strips of fabric with the grain / weave of the fabric, not "on the bias".

Fold over the 5mm hems and sew the tape on - outer edges first, then go back and sew the inner tape edge. Mitre the corners; you can use a small, flat screw driver (the one that came with your sewing machine, perhaps) to tuck the corners in as you sew.

 

Now for the cups.  Fold the neck hem over and sew down with seam tape. Sew up the darts and seam tape.
Tack stitch the wings and centre front bridge to the cups, right side to right side.
As this is a "on cup wire" design we will sew on the wire casing as with the Overwired Jack Glick bra and the Push Up/ Sling bra. Sew the inner edge of the wire casing on the right side of the cup, turn under and sew the other edge. Stitch one end of each wire casing closed, about 3mm from the end.
Now for some wire bending. Measure around the wire casing from the closed end stitching to about 3mm from the other end. Add 2cm to this measurement for the wire end fold over.
Cut two lengths of piano wire and grind smooth the cut ends. Follow the hot wire bending instructions in the "Underwire Theory" article, bending over 1cm at each end. When cold and cleaned, gently curve the wires by hand to the approximate curve of the cup. Try to keep the bending as smooth as possible, with no kinks or bumps.
Insert each wire into the wire casings and stitch the casing closed.
That's it! Try the bra on. My example is a plain cotton toile but you can "pretty" up your bra with lace trims, bows and such like.

 Further Adventures with Wire

And finally, two uses of wire. One, a very interesting patent and the other is a bit of rebellious madness from my design mind!

Is this the very first underwired bra, from 1893?!

When researching the history of intimate apparel at university I came across this USA patent from Ida M. Rew of New York, USA. Patent No 505003, Dated 1893. If we overlook the fact that this long line bra fastens by means of corset-like lacing, we can see the separate two-panel shaped cups and the underwires in their casings. All this is described in the text of the patent.  If Ida Rew and her family had kept this patent active, then all the world's underwire bra manufacturers would owe Ida and her family millions in royalties!

 

Going over the top with support wires!

"The madness of designer Mark 1st"

When I was studying Contour Fashion at university, we students were all ordered (and I do mean ordered) to submit a design for the "Triumph International Inspiration Award" competition. I was included in this instruction, even though I was excluded from the competition because of my age! (I was a mature student, you know).

In rebellion, I picked modern building architecture for my inspiration,  and the way parts of some buildings are suspended from external metal frames. The result was the strapless bra and long leg panty girdle with "additional support" pictured.

All the metal wire frames are flexible and articulated so that a model wearing the bra and panty girdle can move freely and walk. The lines connecting the wire frames to the fabric are thick stretch "shearing" elastic thread (and some people say designer clothes are not practical to wear!)

One of the tutors asked me if the university could keep my creation when I left, so my wire monster may still be at De Montfort amusing new students!

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