One of the most interesting parts of being a bra fitter is the sheer variety of people I get to meet and talk to on a daily basis. Ours is a profession of intimate details – and it is truly a privilege to get to know so many different people in such a profound way.
It isn’t unusual for the fitting room lights to reveal whole life stories of love or loss, or doubts – even major accomplishments (those being the most fun, obviously). All of our personal experiences combined make up who we are and I like to think that each fitting teaches me something new. That’s part of the allure of this job – to keep adding pieces of experiences to gain a greater understanding.
I was so excited to start our model search – it seemed a daunting idea when it was in its infancy – but it always had an exciting pull that made me want to dig in and get started. We put out the call – and I’m not kidding when I say that the response was vastly better than I had even hoped. I pretty much received at least one submission per day – and it was so nice to look forward to seeing new emails from excited women in my inbox.
Perhaps even more thrilling, however, was the level of excitement and interest from non-participants. Women stopped in just to say how much they were looking forward to seeing finished pictures of women they could identify with in lingerie ads.
The absolute worst part was that we couldn’t feature every single woman who sent us a piece of her story. Narrowing the list down hurt. I dreaded saying “no” to anyone, but it helped me so much to know that this photo shoot is just the beginning. It’s a starting point to make a stand, and say that we want our customers to see people like themselves, or like their friends, in our advertising. The lingerie industry does not need to depend on glossy, airbrushed bodies and faces forever – we know that the best representatives for who we are as a company are right here, in Charlottesville and the surrounding communities, and they look like you. Or your mom, or sister, or best friend. They are women who you work with, who you respect, and who you care about.
We care too – which is why we aren’t interested in photo shopping our models. We also aren’t employing styling tricks to make a bra fit someone that it doesn’t – the bras you see on our models are actually the bra size that they would wear everyday.
This photo shoot has been a transformative experience for me and it has been an absolute privilege to, in the process, correspond with so many amazing women. We hope you’ll follow along in this journey – some limited sneak peeks will probably pop up on our social media accounts next week.
