More Bras, Less Crime

Katherine Mangu-Ward from the October 2000 issue

Kursty Groves, a 26-year-old graduate of London’s Royal College of Art and Design, is developing the Techno Bra, sure to be hailed by anarcho-capitalists everywhere as a giant step toward privatizing the police force.

The brassiere contains a global positioning system, a heart rate monitor, and the components of a cell phone. If the wearer is attacked, the bra sends a signal to a GPS satellite, which determines the location of the assault and dispatches a text message to the number of the wearer’s choosing–possibly a private security firm or a bodyguard. The wearer has 30 seconds to disarm the bra in case of a false alarm.

If this catches on, the potential attacker will soon be as wary of the well-endowed woman as he is of the musclebound man with a gun rack in his pickup.