It's a bra bonanza!

Today's news is stuffed with stories about women's undergarments.

Published November 10, 2005 3:33PM (EST)

Either the editors at the Associated Press news service have a serious breast fetish or there is some sort of bizarre bra bonanza sweeping the globe. Already this morning, there have been three lingerie-centric stories on the news wires; one of those stories -- about plush global-warming-fighting undergarments from Japan -- has already been reported on in Broadsheet.

Now this: From China comes a hard-hitting report announcing Hong Kong's Polytechnic University new degree in "bra studies." What work awaits China's underwear engineers? According to the AP, Top Form, China's biggest lingerie manufacturer, employs a crack team of bra-smiths who push the cutting edge of tit-padding technology. The Wall Street Journal reports that in their quest to "give busts a boost," Top Form has tried pumping pads with air -- but met disappointment when the bras deflated like old balloons. Then the company's oil-filled pads proved prohibitively expensive and bulky. Now they're betting on fiberfill, a fluffy insulating material usually used in ski clothes -- and not something you'd normally find in Victoria's Secret products.

Back in the U.S., a woman has been accused of using bra padding not to enhance her décolletage, but to commit a crime. The AP reports that Jill Knispel, a 35-year-old from Florida, was arrested after stuffing her bra with a stolen parrot she hoped to trade for a 1964 vintage Volkswagen Karmann Ghia. "The circumstances of [this] case are the most bizarre I've ever encountered," veteran wildlife investigator Lenny Barshinger told reporters. Funny, sounds like a classic case of grand-theft Audubon to us.


By Sarah Karnasiewicz

Sarah Karnasiewicz is a freelance writer and photographer based in Brooklyn, N.Y. Until recently, she was senior editor at Saveur magazine; prior to that she was deputy Life editor at Salon. She has contributed to the New York Times, the New York Observer and Rolling Stone, among other publications. For more of her work, visit thefastertimes.com/streetfood and Signs and Wonders.

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