Bras, They’re a Ball!

HERE AT TSP, we’ve never said you don’t have a lot to say, on a lot of different topics. But apparently, sisters, you really, really like to talk about bras.

Between Marion’s initial foray into the bosom-y landscape and my recent revelation of my insufficiently supportive past, you’ve had an awful lot to say.

It turns out, your interest is justified. Bras, the garment about which every woman has an opinion, have lives of their own, having been transformed into both art and commerce, the latter with a not-so-secret, very sisterly mission.

First, the art. The Bra Ball, the creation of California artist Emily Duffy, weighs 1800 pounds and now resides at the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore.

Made of over 7000 bras donated by women around the world, Duffy’s work is intended, according to her artist’s statement, as “a way of disrupting some of the longstanding taboos surrounding [bras]. Interweaving stained nursing bras with provocative, augmentation bras somehow balances the distorted images of women’s bodies. It reconciles the narrow stereotypes of virgin and whore and fills in the true definitions of women that are missing in between.

“We’re old and young,” the statement continues, “tall and short, thin and plump, rich and poor, straight and gay, famous and anonymous, and every racial background imaginable. The BraBall includes artists’ bras, postal workers’ bras, lawyers’ bras, mothers’ bras, secretaries’ bras, students’ bras, and even exotic dancers’ bras. The bras, made of satin, silk, cotton, or nylon, run the full color spectrum and range of print designs: floral, polka dot, even cartoon characters or signs of the zodiac.”

Across the country in Queen Creek, Arizona, Elaine Birks-Mitchell, and her husband and partner, Johnny Mitchell, Jr., have a mission: bra recycling. Their company, Bosom Buddy, collects used bras still suitable for wear, and distributes them to women’s shelters. Elaine’s goal is to have 10,000 bras donated to women in need by October–can you help?

And if you still haven’t had your fill of all things brassiere, check out National Geographic’s take on the complex process of bra design–definitely both art, and commerce.

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