A breastplate is a device worn over the torso to protect it from injury, as an item of religious significance, or as an item of status. A breastplate is sometimes worn by mythological beings as a distinctive item of clothing.

In medieval weaponry, the breastplate is the front portion of plate armour covering the torso. It has been a military mainstay since ancient times and was one of the last pieces of functional armour to be abandoned with the development of firearms, because it protected the vital organs without limiting mobility. They were usually made of leather, bronze or iron in antiquity, of iron during the Migration Period, and then steel during the Middle Ages and ever since. Bullet-proof vests are their modern descendant.

A "breastplate" or "breastpiece" was among the clothes of the Jewish High Priest. In the Bible, the word Breastplate is used figuratively to describe protecting oneself from unrighteousness (cf, Isaiah 59:17, Ephesians 6:14, etc.).

Both Zeus and Athena are sometimes depicted as wearing a goatskin shield or breastplate called an Aegis. At the center of Athena's shield was the head of Medusa.

Ken Read, CM (born November 6, 1955) is a retired Canadian Olympic alpine ski racer, Corporate Director, sport advocate and international sports leader.

Born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Read was raised in Vancouver, Kingston and Calgary and began skiing at age 3 and competing at age 8. He is an alumnus of the Ottawa Ski Club and Lake Louise Ski Club. The Read family currently are members of the Banff Alpine Racers, located at Banff Mount Norquay, Alberta.

Ken Read was a member of the Canadian Ski Team, known colloquially as the "Crazy Canucks", from 1974 to 1983, and competed in two Winter Olympics. He won five Canadian Championships. He won at Val-d'Isère, France in December 1975, becoming the first Canadian and North American male to win an World Cup downhill event. He won two World Cup downhill races in both 1978 and 1980. His 1980 point total placed him second in downhill in the World Cup competition. Read was the first non-European to win both the famed Austrian downhill, the Hahnenkamm, and the equally storied Swiss race, the Lauberhorn at Wengen. These two victories complimented his 1978 win at Chamonix, France in the historic Arlberg-Kandahar, ski racing's oldest classic event.