Duchamp's Bra. 

Recently, I watched a program on Soviet underwear and what it reveals about the history of that time, womanhood, and sexuality. In the late 1920s, the Soviet Union halted the extensive production of luxurious undergarments, replacing them with unisex tops and shorts that came in only three colors and sizes. Silk undergarments became a rare and precious possession that anyone who objected to the new uniform attempted to procure. 

The video showed an old silk bra found in a Gulag, which female inmates had worn as a fragile trophy, meticulously mending whenever the bra was torn. It is remarkable that even in the draconian conditions of the Gulags (Soviet labor camp), women prisoners - stripped of their identity and referred to by numbers - clung to the forbidden item as a symbol of their womanhood and sexuality: silk armor. The wounds of their incarceration and determination to survive were reflected in the tiny scars on this treasure. Even though the program did not elaborate on the act of mending and merely showed the bra as an example of the history of underwear, I was inspired to highlight how the history of its wearers transformed this mundane. 

I couldn't help but notice similarities between the Gulag bra and Duchamp's urinal, two iconic, 'ready-made' objects that have transcended their original purpose. While the urinal represents the male experience of the pre-World War I years, the Gulag bra embodies the struggle for femininity and self-expression in the Soviet era.