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Episode 81: The Torture of Buying Bras

Writer's picture: Kristin LindstromKristin Lindstrom

I heard a box drop onto the front porch and looked out the front door to see what it was. It seemed innocuous but I knew what was inside. It represented the end, I hoped, of the lifelong torture of buying bras.


When I was 12, I was coming down the stairs at home. My mother was entertaining some of her writing students. I was halfway down the staircase when I heard my mother say:

“I’d like your recommendation on training bras for Kristin.” One of the students was to become a very well-known author, Anne Beattie. I turned on my heel and ran back upstairs.


Humiliation complete.


Do training bras exist anymore? I hope not. Like a lot of things-–corsets, bullet bras, girdles—they must have gone by the wayside. Spanx, anyone?


I remember tagging along with my mother on a shopping trip when I was a kid which involved a stop to buy a bra. The better stores had women trained in cruelty —all the better if they were French—who shoved and pulled and berated the poor women trying desperately to find a bra that fit.


Oh, the humanity.


The history of bras is checkered, going back (maybe) to the fifteenth century, depending on your reference. They were developed to either contain a woman’s bosom or to thrust it out in a ‘sexy’ manner. No doubt designed by sadistic men.


A corset.


Women endured corsets for going on 400 years. They were made from whalebone or wood and metal and could cause significant health problems. In the early 20th century, dress designs changed to a flat look for sleek flapper styles. One designer literally cut the corset in half and the brassiere. Later in the 1950s, who can forget the bullet bra that was popular during World War II. Any gal could show off torpedo tits and many did, including actresses doing pin-up posters for the boys at war.


A model displaying her bullet bra.


Certainly early on my decolletage, such as it was, did not require any kind of bra. But by the time I was 21 something had to be done.


I determined not to put myself in the hands of the department store harridans. I was so small it was nearly impossible to find a bra that fit anyway. Think 32, quadruple negative cups. I trudged from department store to department store rarely finding anything that didn’t gape wide open above my tender buds.


Then one day at Garfinkel’s, a tony store where I rarely shopped, I came across an odd thing. It was a teeny weeny one piece black bra not unlike some of today’s sports bras. It looked like it would fit my old Barbie doll.

I barricaded myself in the dressing room, determined to keep the bra ladies out. Instructions called for the bra to be pulled on first one and then the other diagonal. After doing so, I managed to squeeze one elbow and then the other through the armholes. After much wiggling, it was on. It fit, sort of. I bought two.


Eventually I graduated to a larger size, and I wore a Maidenform wireless bra size 36 B forever. Until I suddenly horrified that I’d gotten bigger somehow, and my torture began all over again. Very few wireless bras were available, and the underwires were —are—awful.


It wasn’t until the pandemic that I was truly set free. I rarely left the house so no bra was needed. And once I began to venture out I realized no one was going to notice little ole me anyway.


I was right.


Which brings me back to that box on the porch. It contained three wireless bras. I’d decided that some outfits, dresses mostly, looked better with a little support. No need to suffer with an underwire; more and more wireless bras are available.


So in some ways. I’d come full circle, no longer dragging from store to store but buying online. It felt good.


Next: I’m old enough to remember the introduction of panty hose.

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