Wonderbra

In a recent vote, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation asked the general public of the nation what they felt to be the best Canadian invention of all time. Behind Insulin, the telephone, the lightbulb and “Five Pin Bowling”, at number five came the Wonderbra. This tells us a few things. Firstly that Canadians are every bit as sensible as the cliché seems to suggest. Diabetics the world over would be in serious trouble without the wonder drug, the telephone has made all of our lives easier, if occasionally a little more annoying, and the light bulb is simply indispensable to us all now. Also, the poll tells us that the Wonderbra was a Canadian invention – something that most people probably had no idea of. It is true, however, that a Montreal-based fashion worker by the name of Louise Poirier created the brassiere that is known and loved by an army of followers to this day.

The Wonderbra had been in existence in other forms prior to that time, but simply in name only. The push-up design that the entire world knows today was licensed to a company by the name of Gossard, who would put the design into production and change the way we look at cleavage forever. The design became highly popular in Canada, but it was not until the early 1990s that it would become more of a worldwide phenomenon, starting in the United Kingdom in that decade, breaking through in mainland Europe in 1993 and then finally breaking America in 1994. Although it had been designed and created just north of the border 30 years prior, it had taken that time and the circuitous route via Europe to become big news in the States. However, once it had made it big (so to speak), the Wonderbra kept on going.

The Canadian Lady corset company is not the corporation of which people think when they think of the Wonderbra. More usually it is Gossard, even though that company no longer produces the bras, which are now the trademarked property of the Canadelle Limited Partnership. Wherever the rights to sale and publicity lie, though, it goes without saying that the Wonderbra itself is one of the most prominent innovations in women’s fashion, without any doubt.

In 2008, a survey of 3,000 women in the United Kingdom found that almost unanimously the respondents considered the Wonderbra to be the greatest fashion innovation in history. It has had such an impact on the way women dress, and become in so many women’s minds a symbol of female empowerment, that there are few people who have not heard of the Wonderbra. It has had a deeper cultural impact that any innovation in the women’s fashion industry, and been at the source of controversy when the advertising campaign in the United Kingdom in 1994 featured Eva Herzigova in the bra staring downwards above a caption saying “Hello Boys”. Rumor had it that this advertisement on billboards near roads had caused traffic accidents, although this was never proven. The toned-down ads used in the United States featured the same photograph with captions such as “Look Me In The Eyes And Tell Me You Love Me”.