If you wear a bra, chances are that you know how important it is to have a bra-fitting.
Too tight and you're constantly having to adjust, your chest feels squashed and sometimes it even contributes to acid reflux if it's pushing too hard on your abdomen. Too loose, and your boobs feel unsupported, uncomfortable, and you might experience shoulder and back pain.
Why, then, do so few of us actually go for a bra-fitting? Lingerie e-tailer Womanhood revealed recently that 41% of its customers revealed that they haven't been fitted in over five years, while 19% admitted that they've never been fitted at all.
Whether it's the faff of getting to a store or the potential awkwardness during the fitting itself, more and more women are forgoing the bra-fitting and approaching their bra size as a sort of trial-and-error guessing game.
Which is why Womanhood - a brand founded in 2019 with the primary aim of empowering women though body confidence when shopping for lingerie and is the only UK lingerie e-tailer to exclusively stock female-founded brands - have come up with a solution, after discovering that 90% of its returns are due to incorrectly-fitting product when their customer doesn't know their true size.
Joining forces with up-and-coming femtech start-up Brarista, they have launched a one-of-a-kind AI digital bra-fitting service which marks the first of its kind anywhere in the UK and is proven to be twice as effective as using tape measures.
The new - free(!) - service means that customers can get measured accurately from within the comfort of their own home, avoiding the need to travel to a store and brace yourself for the occasionally daunting traditional encounter.
“The process is easy,” revealed Womanhood. “Simply take a few photos of your upper body wearing a body-hugging crop top and, after a few minutes, the computer vision-aided AI will tell you exactly what bra size you are in every single product.”
“All imagery is deleted after submitted & no naked photos are required as the AI has been trialed and tested with real data from both the brands’ communities of bra wearers. Your bra sizing will be saved on the website too, ready for your next purchase.”
Speaking of her brand, Tanya Robertson - founder and CEO of Womanhood - said: “Womanhood is a celebration of womankind and also an attempt to change women's relationships with their bodies.”
“The goal is to create something that doesn't make women feel like they have to look or be a certain way to belong.”
The service is launching August 17th on Womanhood.
For more from Glamour UK's Fashion Editor Charlie Teather, follow her on Instagram @charlieteather.
