Fruitless Search for a Bra

We feel sorry for Camille who had such a hard time trying to purchase a strapless bra. Hey, what’s wrong with padded bras? Anyway, our solution to this type of problem would of course involve going braless!

Thursday, March 15, 2007
  Bras
Current mood:  aggravated
Category: Fashion, Style, Shopping
I had to buy a strapless bra recently. I’m going on vacation very soon and I have been buying a lot of sun dresses to wear — I’ll be in Belize, so I’m hoping that sun dresses are appropriate — but I needed a new strapless bra. My old strapless bra had some problems. One of the cups got smushed somehow, so it looked like I had been punched in the boob when I wore it. That wasn’t going to work on my fancy vacation.

What does a girl do when she needs a new bra? She goes to Victoria’s Secret. I still had part of a gift certificate left over from Christmas, so the outrageous prices there weren’t going to stop me. I went to the mall near where I work, which unfortunately has a small VS. I didn’t have a lot of time — lunch hour — so I had to enlist the help of the salesman who was working that day. Yes, they had a salesman on the floor — an oddity at any VS store. I told him what I wanted. Most importantly, I didn’t want a padded strapless bra. Just a regular one. This narrowed my choices considerably. He showed me to a rather shiny, golden-hued padded bra. Oh, but these were removable gel pads, and I didn’t have any other choices in this store.

First of all, I do not want a shiny bra. I do not need anyone to see my bra glisten underneath my nearly transparent white dress. Secondly, hello! Even with the gel pads removed the bra still felt like my memory foam matress cover. Why has VS turned into the padded bra superstore? Why is it so difficult to find a comfortable, nice-looking bra which doesn’t pushup, plunge or invisibly add a size?  Plus, I need one of two colors for my bra – flesh or black. That pretty much covers it for me. Sure, I have a lavendar one because it is pretty, but I almost never wear it because I don’t have a ton of lavender clothes and it shows under the white clothes, which I do have a lot of. VS is a field of colors and patterns. Now you can not only get a vivid color on the outside of your bra, but the inside, in addition to being highly padded, comes with an animal print fabric!

All I can figure is that the world is populated with whores and I just missed the memo. Some women out there might be saying now, “but I need a padded bra to make my blah, blah outfit look better.” Well then, the padded bra should be the exception in the store, not the rule, for those outfits which just cry out for a little extra boob.

I did eventually find an okay bra at the larger VS store in the mall farther away. It was in their Pink line, which as far as I can tell is geared at teenage girls. At least my gift certificate is used up.  Next time I get one, I think I stick to the panties. But don’t get me started on those.