A bralette is a lightweight bra without an Underwire bra, designed primarily for comfort.[Emma Seymour, 17 Comfortable Bralettes of All Shapes and Sizes to Wear at Home, Good Housekeeping, 2020-05-18]
Bernadette Deron, No Underwire Here! You’ll Wish You Bought This Plunge Bralette Sooner, US Magazine, 2020-06-18
Abigail Southan, Best bralettes to shop for women of all bust sizes, Cosmopolitan, 2020-03-27
Tembe Denton-Hurst, This $20 bralette actually supports my big boobs, Nylon Bralettes are also sometimes worn as outerwear top,[Linda Dyett, The Bralette Is Back. This Time Blouses Are Optional, The New York Times, 2019-07-31] and are also designed as for girls developing breasts.[ The Playground Set Gets Its Own Bras; URL accessed August 22, 2020.] The size of the bralette also differs from that of a bra: Instead of band width and cup size, normal clothing sizes are commonly used (S-XL or even larger).[ Bralette vs. Bra; URL accessed July 29, 2023.]
Popularity
In the 2010s and early 2020s, bralettes and soft bras started gaining in popularity, at the expense of Underwire bra and padded bras.[Georgina Safe, Cup half full: the lingerie brands ditching padding and underwire, The Guardian, 2020-02-06][VerityJohnson, Woke millennials didn't kill Victoria's Secret, pale stale males did, Stuff, 2020-02-07] In 2017, the sales of cleavage-enhancing bras fell by 45% while, at Marks & Spencer, sales of wireless bras grew by 40%.[Harriet Walker, Push-up bras prove a bad fit for women in era of #MeToo, The Times, 2018-10-27] Some have attributed the rising popularity of bralettes to a new focus on the "athletic body, health and wellbeing", more than "about the male gaze,"[Kate Finnigan, Soft focus: the new lingerie evolution, Financial Times, 2020-07-08] while others suggest a connection to the MeToo movement movement.[
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Bralettes also became popular during the COVID-19 lockdowns due to a focus on comfort while .[Alicia Lansom, Trade In Your Underwired Bra For Something A Little More Comfortable, Refinery29, 2020-04-19]
See also
