Foundation garments – Breast or chest – e.g. – brassieres
Reexamination Certificate
2001-02-20
2002-05-21
Hale, Gloria M. (Department: 3765)
Foundation garments
Breast or chest, e.g., brassieres
C450S071000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06390884
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to the breast support devices. In particular, it relates to a device that allows a user to dynamically adjust the manner in which an undergarment, such as a brassiere, supports and controls the position of the breasts to enhance the breasts' cleavage and to enhance the perceived fullness and firmness of the breasts.
2. Background Art
The use of devices, such as brassieres, to support a woman's breasts is well-known in the art. Traditionally, these devices have merely provided support for the breasts. More recently, attempts have been made to enhance the cleavage and appearance of a woman's breasts by pulling the individual breast supports together, thereby enhancing the perceived size of the breasts as well as the cleavage.
While these devices serve their purpose to an extent, they also have some disadvantages. In particular, prior art devices are restricted in that they only pull the breasts together to increase cleavage, and only push the breasts up to increase perceived size. In addition, they do not allow the wearer to dynamically adjust the amount of cleavage, or the position of the breasts, to suit a particular outfit or social event. It would be advantageous to have a brassiere that would allow the wearer to dynamically change the manner in which the brassiere controls the position and cleavage of the woman's breasts.
Another disadvantage associated with brassieres is that when breasts are pulled together laterally for the purpose of enhancing cleavage and pulled up for the purpose of enhancing the perceived size of the breasts, the brassiere also occasionally produces some undesirable side effects. In particular, when the brassiere pulls the breasts together, it sometimes creates the appearance of creases or wrinkles in the breasts which makes the breasts unattractive and increases the apparent age of the woman. It would be desirable to have a method of adjusting and controlling a brassiere such that the cleavage of a woman could be improved while still maintaining a smooth surface texture on the skin of the breasts.
Another problem associated with brassieres is that they do not take into account the fact that humans are not perfectly symmetrical. For example, the size of an individual's hand may vary, the size of an individual's feet may vary, etc. That is why one shoe may often fit better than the other shoe worn by an individual. In the case of women, it is fairly common that one breast may be larger than another, or may be positioned lower or higher on the chest than the other, etc. Prior art brassieres do not account for this difference between symmetrical parts of an individual body. It would be desirable to have a brassiere which would allow a woman to dynamically control not only the cleavage of the breasts as a pair, but also to dynamically control the cleavage and position of each breast individually.
While addressing the basic desirability of using brassieres, the prior art has failed to provide a device which is inexpensive to manufacture and use, which can be integrated with a brassiere at the point of manufactured or used in conjunction with a conventional brassiere as a retrofit attachment, and which allows an individual woman to dynamically control the amount of cleavage provided by a brassiere, to dynamically control the perceived size of the breasts, and to control the position and cleavage of each breast independent of the other breast without the drawbacks of the prior art, such as perceived wrinkles created by the pressure of brassieres which laterally press breasts together and upward to increase perceived cleavage.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention solves the foregoing problems by providing an adjustable brassiere which rotates the cups supporting the breasts in a clockwise or counter clockwise direction under control of the wearer. The pressure is applied between the brassiere cups above or below the midpoint of the brassiere cups such that rotational pressure is applied. The point at which the pressure is applied determines the amount of rotation and the rotational direction of the brassiere cups. The pressure mechanism can be fabricated as pair of the brassiere or, alternatively, it can be implemented as an add-on feature to retrofit conventional brassieres. Depending on the point of attachment of the pressure mechanism to the brassiere, each cup of the brassiere is rotated in a clockwise or counter clockwise direction. By attaching the pressure mechanism at various locations between the brassiere cups, the brassiere cups which hold the breasts are pulled together at a greater or lesser degree. Placement of the adjustable clip above or below the center point applies rotational pressure to the brassiere cups, the direction and strength of the rotational pressure controlled by the location of the pressure mechanism. Rotation in one direction will appear to move the breasts closer together and rotation in the other direction will appear to move the breasts apart. One embodiment of the pressure mechanism is implemented by an adjustable clip that attaches to a conventional brassiere. Additional embodiments use integral attachment devices which may be clips, hook and loop strips, buttons, string ties, or other suitable devices. In a preferred embodiment, the pressure mechanism is attached to different locations on each brassiere cup such that each brassiere cop is rotated a greater or lesser amount than the other brassiere cup which allows the cleavage and perceived size of each breast to be individually adjusted to compensate for slightly asymmetrical breasts.
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Hale Gloria M.
Smith John C.
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