Less bounce to the ounce!

Black and white print advertisement for the Sportshape bra published in Cosmopolitan magazine. The advertisement depicts a woman arching her back to demonstrate the “superior support” of Sportshape’s patented “baseball cups.”

The Sportshape bra was a successor to the first sports bra, the Jogbra, invented by Lisa Lindahl and Polly Smith in 1977. Lindahl and Smith’s initial prototype was in the style of two jockstraps sewn together to create a crude brassiere with two pouches and an elastic wound around the back in an X shape to hold the garment together. The Jogbra was a fast commercial success and, by the 1980s, many sports-apparel and lingerie companies had begun producing different versions geared toward all kinds of exercise. The undergarment company Playtex subsequently acquired Jogbra, Inc. in 1990.