From LIFE magazine archives: a photo gallery of adhesive bra models.
The design du jour, featured just ahead of beach season in May 1949, was a pair of bra cups a woman could affix to her breasts with an adhesive that caused neither pain nor sticky residue when removed. The purpose of the invention, which looks like the anachronistic love-child of Madonna’s cone bra and your grandmother’s lace doily collection, was to allow a sunbather to achieve an even suntan. The idea struck inventor Charles L. Langs when he witnessed his wife Mary fidgeting discontendtedly with the straps of her regular old swimsuit.