 As the swimsuit was evolving , the underwear started to change . Between 1900 and 1940 , swimsuit lengths followed the changes in underwear designs . In the 1920s women started discarding the corset , while the <unk> company of Paris started developing something they called the " breast girdle " . During the Great Depression , panties and bras became softly constructed and were made of various <unk> yarns making underwear fit like a second skin . By 1930s underwear styles for both women and men were influenced by the new brief models of swimwear from Europe . Although the waistband was still above the navel , the leg openings of the panty brief were cut in an arc to rise from the crotch to the hip joint . The brief served as a template for most all variations of panties for the rest of the century . Warner standardized the concept of Cup size in 1935 . The first underwire bra was developed in 1938 . Beginning in the late thirties <unk> , a type of <unk> men 's briefs , were introduced , featuring very high @-@ cut leg openings and a lower rise to the waistband . Howard Hughes designed the push @-@ up bra worn by Jane Russell in The Outlaw in 1943 . In 1950 <unk> introduced the first official bust enhancing bra . 
