Column: Surveys claim around 80 per cent of women wear the wrong sized bra
It’s refreshing that the age of the political U-turn has ended. Now I get to talk about much more interesting 180s, says writer and comedian Steve N Allen.
Back in May, Marks and Spencer introduced a new bra fitting policy. Fitters would no longer use tape measures. Sizes would be estimated by eye. Staff would look at customers and make a judgement.
I don’t know how easy it is to size up someone’s chest just by looking. Well, that’s not strictly true, but I don’t know how accurate that visual assessment normally turns out to be.
People train for years to become a sommelier. What I’m imagining isn’t that different.
Thankfully, this madness has ended after only three months. M&S has reversed this and said fitters can use tape measures again if they or the customer prefers. So, when you’re going to get measured it’ll be up to you if they actually measure you.
Surveys have claimed around 80 per cent of women are wearing the wrong sized bra and M&S stopped people actually finding out.
I am a man. I have never had a bra fitting and I am not going to pretend I understand the specifics of the experience. The closest equivalent I can recall from my own life is the foot measuring device at Clarks shoe shops when I was a child. The Brannock Device. You put your foot in it, you expected torture but you got new shoes. I imagine a bra fitting is basically that.
What I do understand is that the entire point of a fitting is to establish an accurate measurement. If you remove the measuring from the fitting, you have a chat with someone while they stare at your bust. Women don’t need to pay for a service like that.
Why is that less creepy than someone measuring you? Would you rather someone gets out a measure or looks at you and says, “They’re 34Ds. Do you want me to guess your weight?”
If I went to get my tyres changed and the mechanic said they weren’t going to use a pressure gauge but would estimate the PSI by eye, I would go to a different garage.
When you go to a doctor they take your blood pressure with a device. They don’t eyeball you and say, ‘You seem about 130 over 80. Take some of these pills.’
M&S has now clarified that fitters can use a tape measure if they like. They have said this isn’t a U-turn, it’s a “clarification”. Don’t lie to us. Your nose will grow and we know where the tape measures are these days.