Everyone wants to get fit and stay healthy—starting in about 10 days, anyway! But for us women, the trade-off is that working out hard can lead to a sagging chest over time. Not ideal.
Author: Brooke Glassberg
Brooke is the editor of this here blog. In a previous life, she was an editor at Good Housekeeping and O, The Oprah Magazine. Brooke has written for Glamour, Travel+Leisure, New York Magazine and more. She’s into concerts, travel and her exceptionally adorable daughter and husband.
Krista Molinaro, our contemporary and luxury buyer, is just back from Market—one of four weeks a year she spends visiting vendor showrooms in NYC for a look at your underwear drawer’s future—with an exclusive spring preview.
So what lingerie look is she most excited about?
As the editor of the Bare it All blog (hi, I’m Brooke, nice to meet you!), there’s little I love more than some old-school undercover reporting. And there’s nothing quite so under-the-covers as a bra fitting, right?
One of my first priorities after I came to work for bare necessities was to get fitted. I was both brimming with hope and filled with dread. At 5’2” with the faintest suggestion of a chest, my bras have been riding up uncomfortably and gaping widely for as long as I can remember. Padding has long been my frenemy. Since my first department store fitting in middle school, I’ve been convinced NO ONE makes bras that fit me.
Brittany finally broke me free from that idea.
She’s one of our certified Bra Fit Experts, and she is as kind and smart as they come. When I started here, she personally gave me the once-over, sizing me up in a conference room with nothing but her well-trained eyes. Three times, she pulled different brands and sizes from our warehouse until we found the elusive bra of my dreams. In fact, we found three.
Welcome to the second installment of our expertly curated holiday gift guide. In this season of giving thanks, we’re thinking of all the family and friends on our shopping list. So we’re tapping our plugged-in Bra Fit Experts for their favorite holiday gift ideas, bras and beyond, of all time and at this very moment.
From a pair of PJs anyone would covet to over-the-top cashmere extravagance, we hope you can check a few loved ones off your list with a little help from these holiday present ideas from your friends here at Bare Necessities. Meanwhile, we’re hoping you and yours had an exceedingly happy Thanksgiving!
When it comes to finding the perfect holiday gifts for the ladies we love in life—up to and including ourselves—we’ll leave no proverbial stone unturned. But where to begin? With the experts, that’s where.
Our Bra Fit Experts are always the first to hear what customers are buzzing about, and they know from experience what’ll fit and what’s bound to be a hit. So here’s our gift to you: their smart suggestions for gorgeous, crowd-pleasing holiday present ideas in every category, including their most beloved bras.
This week and next, they hope to make this happy-if-hectic season easier by saving you hours of site-surfing and personally pointing the way to a few of their favorite things to give and receive as holiday gifts. (“One for me, one for you. One for me, one for you…!”) Because this time of year is just as much about uplifting others as it is about taking time to pamper yourself a bit, too.
Though we still say things like “ugh, I got a run in my stockings,” chances are what we’re actually wearing is tights. This time of year, when all of the legwear options come back into full rotation, here’s everything our in-house hosiery expert Erica Luster wants you to know. Consider it a gams glossary of sorts, a lexicon of legwear…
On crisp fall days, we’re all about two things: pumpkin spice lattes and the comfiest, coziest clothes we can get our hands on.
“Everyone is working longer hours, and we’re staying in work clothes for more than half the day before going to bed late,” says Jeni Doherty, sleepwear and loungewear expert here at Bare Necessities. “All you want to do is walk through your front door is change into something super-comfortable,” she says. Amen to that.
Read on to meet Jeni and see what options she suggests to reach maximum relaxation.
Say hello to Laura Burke, Director of Customer Service, Bra Fit Expert and mom to a 4-year-old son and a 7-month-old daughter. To say she’s a woman in demand, at work and at home, would be a serious understatement. We wanted to find out everything she knows professionally and personally about nursing bras (one thing new moms don’t have all that much of is free time to do research), not to mention how she holds it all together when life’s going a hundred miles a minute in every direction.
Give her, or any of our certified Bra Fit Experts, a ring at 877-728-9272 or tweet questions to @barenecessities with the hashtag #getalift. They’re at your service.
Our mission here at Bare Necessities is to lift women up so they can soar, which is why we’re featuring the women of this company (stay tuned for the men!) who come to work with a singular goal in mind: to empower you. You just met Mette; next up, introducing Shaneek Anderson, our marketing project coordinator.
NY Fashion Week may be a wrap but, around here, it’s always Fashaneek Week. Every morning, the office waits to see which Shaneek will show up: on Monday, she may be all business in a pencil skirt and tie-neck blouse; on Tuesday, it’s artfully mixed stripes and florals; Wednesday could be glam worthy of the red carpet; Thursday, she may be easygoing in a boho look; by Friday, she’s relaxed in head-to-toe denim. Clothes aside, what she’s really doing is telegraphing different aspects of her personality. That’s charisma: You want to find out more.
Meet Mette Iacovou, one of the certified Bra Fit Experts here to help fit you and find the perfect bras for your body. They field hundreds of calls and chats every day from real women with the same real-world concern: not nearly enough time to find just the right underthings. So do yourself a solid and say hello at 877-728-9272, x4, or tweet @barenecessities with the hashtag #getalift. There’s no problem these bra-fit ninjas can’t solve, pinkie-promise.
Mette Iacovou, customer service supervisor (and employee of the month!)
Bra size: 36H
Life’s work: I always wanted a job where I could help people, inside and out. I was born with a rare tumor—I wasn’t supposed to be here. From infancy until age 17, I had so many surgeries. My attitude wasn’t always positive, but with age comes wisdom. It’s made me more empathetic. So I love nothing more than bringing out someone’s best characteristics and letting her shine.
Role model: After everything I went through, I was very “woe is me, I’m not worthy.” My strong mother taught me otherwise. She showed me what I should and should not be accepting of in life.
Motivation source: My son, daughter—she’s 6 going on 35—and husband. They are fun, loving, caring, genuinely good people.
Passionate about: Educating women to find the right fit in intimate apparel. It’s neat to enlighten friends and strangers, to make them feel more supported. They might take this information and teach it to their own children. It helps raise a woman’s self-esteem.
Bra-fit secret: It takes a lot of tries to get it right, and it’s not just a one-time measurement that stays with you for life, either. It helps if you know what each part of a bra does and how it’s supposed to look on your body. For example, straps are not supposed to be doing all the work!
Fun fact: I was born in Denmark and moved to the States at 7, not knowing one word of English.
Personal mantra: Go for it 100,000%.
The most frequently asked questions Mette has been fielding lately are….
The great debates of our time rage on: When will women earn as much as men for the same work? Will there ever be peace in the Middle East? Are leggings really pants?
We may not have answers to the former but to that last burning question, Erica Luster, one of our hosiery experts here at Bare Necessities, says a resounding…
Here at Bare Necessities, we pride ourselves on the best selection and size range of intimate apparel anywhere, period, end of story. So when you’ve got a near-infinite inventory, a little expert guidance steering you toward what you want and need goes a long way. Read on to find out what our ace team of merchants, bra experts and buyers not only curates for the site but genuinely loves to wear, right down to their all-time favorite bras.