What's it like to be a bra designer?
There's more than meets the hook and eye to making bras, says Amy Pritchard
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Your support makes all the difference.Men often don’t know what to say when Amy Pritchard tells them she’s a bra designer. “They can go a bit red, or say silly things, but if they’re open minded they seem pretty impressed with how technical it is,” she says. “The basic bra has 26 components and 30 different stitching techniques go into it.”
The 27-year-old’s technical knowledge has led to her working as an associate researcher at the University of Portsmouth, helping on a project tracking the breast’s movement in bra cups. Women had to run on a treadmill with cats’ eye spheres stuck to their nipples and ribs, surrounded by 3D cameras. “It’s a bit like how they make Golem in Lord of the Rings,” she says.
Getting up close and personal with women can be awkward at times, as Pritchard remembers from the first time she did a fitting. “It was a bit embarrassing. I think it’s finding the right phrasing and the words to say. I was more conscious of upsetting someone.” She soon learnt the customer is often more nervous than her – or in other cases, the total opposite. “Some women come into the changing room and whip their bras off and they’re like, ‘yeah, let’s go’, but then you get the really sensitive girls as well.”
Pritchard first became interested in bra design for personal reasons. “A lot of it came from having slightly bigger boobs because I couldn’t actually get my own bra size.” After studying contour fashion at De Montford University, she specialises in sizes 28D-40KK and has worked for Wonderbra and Avon.
The most common problem she sees is women wearing cup sizes that are too small and under-bands that are too large. “If your cup size is too small you’re actually compressing your breast rather than encasing it. It can really affect your posture and shoulders.” Helping women to find a bra that suits them is the most rewarding part of her job. “It’s really nice to see everyone going away quite happy after a fitting, you feel you’ve changed someone’s day. Their boobs are lifted and they can walk better and look sexier.”
Unsurprisingly, women tend to be more at ease than men at talking to Pritchard about her job. “All the girls ask if you can fit them, where they can get better bras from and why bras are too expensive. When I’m in a bar people get their bras out when we go to the loo!”
This article first appeared in the i newspaper.
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