Can you really find a flattering new bra with a FaceTime fitting?
It’s a sunny weekday afternoon, and while the rest of the UK’s adult population is on Zoom work conference, I am on a video call of a somewhat different nature, wishing we’d installed a lock on our bedroom door.
“Don’t forget to draw the curtains,” laughs Eloise Rusted, owner and chief bra-fitter of mini lingerie chain The Pantry Underwear, as I get ready to take off my top. The customer before me – a 74-year-old lady – had only clocked partway through her appointment that her neighbours could potentially see her, partially-clothed, chatting to someone on camera. Now there’s something to send the gossip mill into overdrive.
Like many bricks-and-mortar business owners, Rusted had to choose between shuttering altogether or pivoting to online-only when lockdown began. But as every woman knows, buying a bra on the internet is far from easy: you could be a 32C in one brand and a 30D in another, find one style agony and another as light as air – and that’s not accounting for those among us who simply decided eschew the things altogether for now. Some brands, such as Marks and Spencer, have introduced tools on their websites to help you measure yourself at home, and with changing rooms still closed, it’s proved a hugely popular innovation.
But from the moment it was clear she’d have to temporarily close her three shops (in London and Saffron Walden) and furlough the majority of her team, Rusted decided to go one step further: she emailed her customers offering “FaceTime fittings”, and was swiftly overwhelmed with the response. “Ninety per cent of my FaceTime fittings customers wouldn’t have come to my shop,” she says, partly owing to geography (“I had a fitting with someone in Israel - she was actually on a hike while we talked, and found a clearing for some privacy”). But it was also about age: word of mouth has expanded her usual clientele from Millennials to the over-40s, and even a mother-and-daughter appointment, where the daughter was buying her first bra.
Over a few emails exchanged before our call, Rusted has asked if I’m comfortable showing her a couple of bras that I wear now, so, after a brief preamble, I find myself whipping off my T-shirt. It’s not the most natural of experiences, but she quickly and expertly puts me at ease, and to my surprise, I find myself much less uncomfortable than I’d anticipated. My last fitting, I realise, was probably a decade ago, when I needed something strapless to wear under my wedding dress, and is not a happy memory: a stern department store assistant put me in a band two sizes smaller than I was used to, and insisted my inability to breathe was simply because I wasn’t used to wearing something the “right” size.
“Bra fittings can be really intimidating,” agrees Rusted. “Often, stores want to present a transformative experience, and the easiest way to do that is to change the size you’re wearing. But there are other ways to make it transformative.”
For starters, she makes sure to understand what I’m looking for. I confess I’ve not worn a wired bra in years as I find them so uncomfortable, and aim my camera at my underwear drawer to show her those currently on rotation. She identifies the brand of my favourite Love Stories bralet on sight (“we can tailor that for you if it’s got too stretched out,” she offers) and smiles at the requisite Marks and Spencer T-shirt bra (“we can find something just as useful but far prettier”).
For the fitting itself, she asks what size I’m wearing and has me prop up my phone and stand back so she can get a clear look. First I’m to tuck my fingers under the straps on my shoulders and pull up: there should be half an inch to an inch of resistance there, and also in the back at the centre of the band. She asks me to turn sideways: “It’s important it sits horizontally. A lot of people wear them looser on the back to avoid back fat, but when they ride up, it actually makes it more obvious.”
Finally, she looks at whether the “bridge” – the centre of the bra at the front – sits flat against the ribcage, and whether the cups fit properly or dig into or gap over the breast tissue. A bra should start on its loosest hook, she advises, so you can tighten it as the fabric stretches. And that’s it; no tape measures or contortions. “It’s not witchcraft,” she says. “This should be educational – women should be able to check the fit of a bra themselves.”
She disappears off screen for a few minutes to find some bras to show me – some wire-free, others lace and ribbon confections that she insists will be far more comfortable than the Lycra and elastic I’ve been favouring (“half-stiff straps don’t cut into the shoulders as much as elastic”). Her bestseller, by Implicite, is a delicate, slightly risqué creation, constructed with satin geometric seams. The wires are a world away from the type I’ve been wearing – far thinner and more flexible.
After the appointment, she emails links to the sizes she thinks will fit, and you can order them to try on in the privacy of your home - but she also offers a “fit check”. The three that arrive are a mini capsule wardrobe: a soft, non-wired style by Lepel that’s smooth on the cup with a lace band; a demi-padded push-up also by Implicite, embellished with large polka dots woven flat into the fabric so it’s as practical as the moulded foam variety; and the aforementioned bestseller in black. It’s the same style, she says, that the customer immediately before me chose, and like me, she was converted back to wires after years away. The 74-year-old, however, bought it in Millennial pink.
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