Even though Victoria’s Secret apparently accounts for over half of America’s intimate apparel sales, it’s flawed. I’ve spoken before about how the cleavage-enhacing standard the store offers isn’t my style.
But a company called True&Co. knows a lot of women are dissatisfied with Victoria’s Secret, and they think it might have something to do with the fact that the company only caters to one beauty standard (you know, Angels).
“That’s not every woman’s definition of beauty,” the company’s founder Michelle Lam wisely notes.
According to a feature in FastCompany, Lam wants to make a bra shopping experience that is better for women: from the shopping itself to the fit and make of the actual bras. And it’s not just an issue of diverse cup sizes. In fact, she explains that there’s a lot more to bra sizing than cup and band size.
What neither metric accounts for is the curvature of the breast (shallow or full) or the weight distribution of the breasts (where they sit on a woman’s chest). This is where the biggest variation occurs among women, meaning that even a bra in your size might cause you to spill over or have fat rolls under your arms or straps that won’t stay up–and in ways both physical and psychological, make a woman look less attractive.
To navigate these variations, True&Co. has conducted a ton of research, and they’ve found there are at least 6,000 distinct female body types.
As a result, they’ve designed bras that address these types, and have made a shopping experience that’s been summarized as something similar to the “Warby Parker of bras.”
It sounds truly amazing, and it’s hard to imagine that every woman on the planet couldn’t benefit from the company’s scientific approach to fitting. To learn more about the company, and the orgin of their unique approach, read the entire profile on FastCompany.
Or, if you’re already convinced like me, you can go ahead start shopping.
Reprinted with permission from Styleite. Want more?
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