LORRAINE SMITH’S BRAS
Lorraine H Smith is an independent researcher who specialises in 20th-century textiles and underwear. She has collected vintage bras since 2014, and now has more than 40 lovingly stored in her Leeds home.
I don’t really call myself a collector, I’m a person who is building a collection. I suspect that once my collection becomes less easy to store I will have to change my mindset and start to call myself a collector!
My collection really started with a research trip to the Symington Collection, a collection of underwear and swimwear in Market Harborough. I was trapped in it by road workers who had dug through a gas main outside, and while we were waiting the archivist said, “As we’re going to be here for a while I I might as well show you some other objects from the collection. Have I told you about the inflatable bra?”
I began buying bras after searching eBay to see if there was anyone selling genuine vintage bras rather than reproductions. It turns out there’s a lot of them!
I talk about my collection with people on social media, friends, researchers, archivists, students; anyone who shows an interest really.
If my house was on fire, I would save one of my boxes of bras. A benefit of collecting small objects is that they don’t take up much space, so I’d grab the box that’s on top. Perhaps I should put all my rarest finds into the same box, just in case.
If I was strapped for cash, I would sell something else. None of the bras in my collection are worth much individually, and I doubt they’d fetch much as a collection. Their value to me is more in what they represent as a part of my research and a moment in history.
The auction of my collection would be called ‘The Bra Lady’: a surprisingly uplifting collection.
If I won the lottery I would buy proper archive storage boxes, a few bras from the 1910s/1920s, or a museum space where I could hold exhibitions.
The most interesting place I found something was in a vintage shop in Ibiza Town. It was interesting to see 1930s, 40s and 50s bras being sold as 2020s clubwear.
Whilst collecting these things I met a curator at the V&A. She was working on an underwear exhibition and so I shared a list of the bras I’d donated to London College of Fashion’s Archives, just in case there was anything that might be of interest. Two of my bras ended up being loaned for the exhibition.
This collection will end when I’m bored of bras. I can’t see me stopping collecting for any reason other than if it stops being interesting.
