Bandeau soft fabric and delicate trimmings providing little support or shaping. The design was patented in 1916 in the United States by Edgar Guggenheim and resembled the contours and wrapping effects of the scultetus binder used in hospitals. It was sometimes made from an elastic material to flatten or suppress the breasts in the style of the period. When the "boyish" silhouette went out of fashion, the word "brassiere" or later "bra" became the term for more shapely support garments. The term bandeau also refers to the thin headband traditionally worn—until recently—underneath and supporting the veil by the nuns of many
Continental shelf an advancing oceanic plate dives beneath continental crust in an offshore subduction zone such as off the coast of Chile or the west coast of Sumatra. The largest shelf – the Siberian Shelf in the Arctic Ocean – stretches to in width. The South China Sea lies over another extensive area of continental shelf, the Sunda Shelf, which joins Borneo, Sumatra, and Java to the Asian mainland. Other familiar bodies of water that overlie continental shelves are the North Sea and the Persian Gulf. The average width of continental shelves is about . The depth of the shelf also varies,