The slow death of the push-up bra (and why they might make a comeback)

Whatever happened to the Wonderbra? Best remembered for its iconic “Hello Boys” campaign poster, with Czech model Eva Herzigová staring down with glee at the results of her lace push-up bra, it sparked absolute carnage among Britons in 1994. Debates were had over whether the campaign was sexist or not. There were reportedly traffic accidents caused by motorists distracted by the sight of Herzigová’s breasts printed on roadside billboards. Lingerie brands Gossard and Sara Lee went chest-to-chest in a battle to obtain the licence to release the Wonderbra in different territories. It was chaos. But for women, the Wonderbra was revolutionary. It promised to increase the natural cup size two times and make the boobs appear perkier. Plus, it felt like a direct response to the androgynous waif-style bodies seen on the Nineties runways.

When I had my first bra fitting as a pre-teen, I glanced at the Wonderbra section in awe, imagining growing up and owning my own red satin push-up. The reality, though, is very different today: I wouldn’t dream of having my boobs hoicked and scaffolded like the trend dictated back then. Why? Because the push-up bra has been phased out for something else.

Visit the lingerie floor of a department store today and you’ll find rows of dainty bralettes, delicate mesh balconette designs and lightly moulded T-shirt bras intended to subtly sculpt and lift the breast in an understated manner – all without increasing the size. Across the intimate apparel industry, retailers have reported declining sales of padded and push-up bras, while sales of non-wired and soft bras have soared. Kim Kardashian’s Skims brand leads the pack, specialising in muted, lightly-lined lingerie and shapewear. The shift is reflected in clothing trends, too. Go out on a Friday night and you’ll notice young women wearing fitted high-neck tops that smooth over the breasts rather than display any sort of Victoria’s Secret-style cleavage.

But it’s debatable whether this is a sign of positive improvement. In 2025, women’s breasts should still fit an impossible criteria. Sexy but not overpowering. Visible but not in-your-face. Crucially: small in size. Emma Woodrow, a buyer at the lingerie company Pour Moi, tells me the current trend is about drawing attention to your boobs – but to an extent. “Thinner lined lace balconette bras have become popular to layer under tops to draw attention to the chest area in a subtler way than push-ups do,” she says.

Meanwhile, Nichole de Carle, CEO and Founder of the London Contour Experts also tells me that there’s a focus on “subtle enhancement” and “comfort” rather than anything that increases the cup size. “There’s a growing appreciation for bras that enhance rather than transform without the use of excessive padding,” she explains.

I’ve seen this trend unfold: while I like how it looks, my Victoria’s Secret bombshell bra is now collecting dust in my underwear drawer. I also own a collection of low-cut tops that I wouldn’t wear with confidence any more, out of fear of showing too much cleavage.

The “perfect” bra size has fluctuated and morphed throughout fashion history. And with it has been the work of designers and fashion brands, who’ve long attempted to catch up to – and inspire – the breasts of the moment. Gillian Proctor, an associate lecturer and contouring specialist in the fashion department at DeMontfort University, tells me that the earliest size-enlarging bras can be traced to the late 1800s. The Lemon Cup “bust improver” had whalebone springs inside each pad that would pop out horizontally to give the impression of a larger bust. “These early examples are very idiosyncratic,” she laughs, pointing out that women would experiment with different forms of breast enlargement procedures before the use of standardised implants in the 20th century. “Women would pump petroleum into their breasts, which is definitely something we wouldn’t do today. There’s also evidence that women would use substances like sawdust in early breast enhancements, before silicone gel implants were invented much later.”

While Edwardian women may have been intent on enlarging their breasts, the pendulum swung the other way by the 1920s, with flat chests becoming more favourable. Larissa Shirley King, an assistant professor in fashion design at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, tells me that the Garçonne women, those who rebelled against conventional ideas about feminine behaviour and dress in 1920s France, would bind their breasts in search of a more petite silhouette. “It was a boyish and androgynous look diametrically opposed from the curvy, padded women silhouette of the Edwardian era 15 years prior,” says King. “In the 1920s, bras were more like a bandeau style, very flat – not a lot of definition there. The whole body aesthetic was very thin and also very youthful.”

Unsurprisingly, things changed (and repeated) again. One of Proctor’s favourite inventions is the inflatable bra, launched in the early 1950s during the popularisation of the hourglass figure, which saw women increase their cup size within seconds by blowing into the pointy bra through a drinking straw. “Lingerie designers have always been the architects of fashion and they’ve also created the scaffolding for the clothes to sit over to respond to different trends,” she explains. Padded bras only got more popular in the Fifties, with the rise of Hollywood sex symbols such as Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield. “There was a survey done in 1942 that showed that four out of five women were wearing padding in their bras. By the Fifties, busty women were seen as beauty icons. British women wanted to look like that.”

The Wonderbra defined a cultural moment because the fabric technology finally allowed for a reliable size-enhancing design. But the Nineties push-up didn’t last long. “It flips back,” says Proctor. “In the 2000s, Kate Moss was the perfect example of that androgynous era, and we hadn’t seen anyone that slim and flat-chested since Twiggy, who had been the pin-up of the Sixties. Then there was lots of backlash in the press about size zero and questions about how healthy that look was. But as a result, bras disappeared once again as women embraced flatter chests. It’s done a seesaw throughout the past century.”

It becomes clear, speaking to King and Proctor, that women’s bodies have been shrunken, inflated and squeezed through the generations, with few moments of stability before another kind of figure is prized. Just as we were getting used to flat chests in the Noughties, the accentuated hourglass curves popularised by the Kardashians blew up in the 2010s. And even that’s being phased out: at the time of writing, the most aspirational body type that young women are striving for has been named “slim thick”, meaning a curvy bottom-half, tiny waist, toned abs and non-overpowering breasts.

The glamorisation of smaller breasts, meanwhile, could be seen as responsible for the uptick in women undergoing breast reduction. In 2023, the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons reported a 120 per cent increase in reduction surgeries, making it the second most popular cosmetic procedure in the UK. It’s a similar story in the US: in 2023, 76,000 American women underwent elective breast reduction surgery, which marked a 64 per cent increase from 2019, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. It’s also the country’s second most popular cosmetic treatment. The sizes that women are requesting have decreased in turn, with surgeons reporting that women who would typically ask for C and D cups are now asking for Bs (the average bra size in the UK is 36DD).

According to a 2020 breast size satisfaction survey, 70 per cent of women worldwide are dissatisfied with their chest. It’s easy to see why, when you realise how much relentless chopping and changing the female body has been subject to. The constant fluctuation of breast sizes in popular culture feels like whiplash – and continuously places shame on certain body types.

Victoria Kleinsman, a self-esteem expert and body love coach who works with women between the ages of 13 to 60, tells me that the cycle of body trends “keeps women in a perpetual loop of feeling like their natural body is never quite ‘right’”. “When larger breasts were in fashion, women with smaller chests were encouraged to wear push-up bras, consider implants, or feel like they were missing something,” she says. “Now the trend has shifted and women with larger breasts feel the pressure to undergo reductions [and] wear minimising bras. Or they feel overly sexualised.” (Just look at the horrifying treatment of Euphoria star Sydney Sweeney, who has complained about being “ostracised” due to the size of her breasts.)

Kleinsman points out that a woman may undergo breast reduction surgery for many reasons – to reduce the weight of their breasts, alleviate back problems or to improve their ability to move and exercise – but she wonders how many people are being driven by external beauty standards rather than personal desires.

“I often ask my clients, ‘Who is profiting off your insecurities?’. The more we recognise these beauty trends as just trends and money, the easier it is to step out of the cycle and embrace body neutrality and acceptance,” she explains. “In a decade, it’s been about extreme curves, heroin chic, then the push for ‘slim thick.’ It’s the same tired narrative repackaged: women’s bodies being treated as fashion trends, something to mould and adapt to meet ever-changing societal ideals. It will never be enough.”

Women with smaller breasts might be quietly relieved that fashion is suddenly in their favour, but it doesn’t mean that women with larger breasts should hide away or be ashamed. If history has taught us anything, most boob sizes will probably get their time in the sun. At some point in the next century, anyway.