On this episode with Karen Swan, Store Manager at Colleen's Lingerie and Swimwear, we chat about the ins & outs of finding the perfect size, fit, and style bra for you!
We cover multiple lingerie topics:
I need ten or fifteen skirts from Calvin Klein.
Sometimes I would buy big instead of dinner.
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This is Taylor Talk with your host Sammy Rose.
On today's episode, we chat to Karen Swan, a bra fitting expert and store manager at Colleen's Lingerie and Swimwear in Garren. Colleens prides themselves on creating a safe and really supportive space pardon the pun, for anyone and everyone who needs assistance finding that perfect bra, no matter what their size.
Shape or gender. Karen, thank you so much for joining me.
That's much favor. Thanks for having me now.
Karen, getting a bra fitting is something that I've never done, but I've heard it can make such a difference in the bras that we choose for every day. Why is it so important that a bra is properly fitted?
Gosh, so many reasons, so many reasons. I think you know, we've all had a bad experience with a bra fitting or with trying to choose our own bras. It's over. There are hundreds of choices, hundreds of sizes, and not really someone in many retail spaces these days to guide us and to help us know, you know, the right bra for us. It's certainly not a one size fits all when it comes to when it comes to bra fittings. You know, overall though, it's all about fit and confidence and comfort is really important. Of course, you know, I think we've all had days where we're just constantly pulling at our bras because they're riding up our backs or structure falling off. You know, breasts are trying to escape out of cuts everywhere, you know, and you know a lot of us we sort of just think, I just want to get home and rip this bloody thing off, you know, And it doesn't have to be like that. So a really good bra fitting I like to compare to trading s TOI Letto's the slippers. You'll be comfortable and you'll look great and your clothes will fit better. So really important.
I love that.
That's a beautiful metaphor, and I loves and slippers.
How good? All right, So how does a bra fitting work?
So if someone comes into you, guys there at Colleen's, what's the process look like?
All right? Well, it's nothing like the movies show, it's nothing like the memories. Perhaps for those of us who are over forty, who you know, may have gone into a department store and had some grumpy old lady handing you some bage bra you know, yanking back the curtainers and standing there in horror half naked. A really good fister will do everything possible to minimize your discomfort. Really important that we respect your personal space, your vulnerabilities. But the main thing that we'll do is listen. And you know and understand that whilst we do this all day every day, you're essentially, you know, standing with halfy gear off in a change room with a perfect stranger. So the first step, of course, is making sure you're comfortable and listening. You know, we're not here to tell you what you need necessarily, so we'll listen to whatever issues you might be having with the bras you currently wear. If you've had any surgeries, we'll think about the best sort of options, maybe make some suggestions. Interestingly these days, and if you're with somebody who's very experienced, we won't measure you. I mean, we've all stood in change rooms and tried things on, thinking no, I'm a size ten, but why in this brand am I trying to size fourteen. It's a bit the same with bras. The measurement doesn't often correspond to your actual size, so a good fitter, someone who's been doing it for a while, will do what I like to call a visual measurement. So we'll take a quick glance and that's normally all we need to select an appropriate size to begin with, and we'll also work on you know, what size you think you are, workout in somewhere if you're in the ballpark or completely wrong, and we'll bust you something. After that, we'll select a bra, take you down to the sitting room, entirely up to you whether we stay in there and help you put it on, so maybe you might like a hand fastening it around the back. Also, we're really happy to pop out as you change, so again just respecting your personal space. And really we'll just talk a lot and we'll ask lots of questions. Make sure the bra feels comfortable, make sure you're happy with the style, the look of it, how it feels, will show you how to make all the appropriate adjustments, so where you should be doing it up at the back, how the straps should be done up, you know, I mean, we don't want you trust up, you know, with straps pulled really high. Up around your shoulders. So I guess a little bit of explanation in there as well as to why this bra fits and why this is the right bra for you. Possibly will talk a little bit about how to care for it, and I guess we're asking lots of questions, comes a lot of listening. So I quite often say to women I'm fitting. Look, I can put you in a bra that ticks every single box for this is the perfect fitting bra. But if you're not comfortable, then it's not the perfect bra for you, And so we try and find a way to meet in the middle. Often comes down to how firm people are comfortable with having a bra on, because bras do need to be quite firm to fit. So it's finding that happy middle ground of a bra that's going to do everything a BRA's supposed to do, minimize the risks of all the problems or the same issues that may have brought you into the store in the first place, and something that you love and really something that makes you feel gorgeous and feel confident and just better. And it's amazing. You see again that the puns and innuendo are endless when it comes to bras, But you see the visual lift in women when they've been wearing something that's not fitting correctly, and then we put them in something that does, and they just pop your dress on over the top. Well, let's pop a T shirt on over the top, and to see it's just that recognition in their face that oh, my goodness, this looks amazing, or I look like I've lost five kilos. You know, there's a power in a really good fitting bra. There's a woman named Freddie Zappa who works in the industry in New York, and she's pretty incredible and pretty inspirational, and she has a quote that I really loved. Can I share that with you?
Of course I would love that.
Thank you excellent. So Freddie says, my absolute favorite moment is when a woman looks at herself in the mirror and falls in love with herself. Oh I know, right, maybe for the first time, or maybe all over again. Now she's ready to conquer the world. And I know that sounds really woo woo, and like as if you can conquer the bra wearing the right size bra, but if you are uncomfortable and we have all walked around right in bras that are digging in underwires, that are hurting. It's like wearing shoes that don't fit or high heels. When you hate high heels, you can't perform at your best, you can't parent at your best, you can't work at your best if all you can think about is I just want to rip this thing off. I'm so uncomfortable or in pain, you know, or any of the other issues that come from the wrong size bra. So you know, it doesn't sound like much, but it can make an absolute difference, for sure.
No, that's such a beautiful philosophy. And I even love I mean, it sounds like you guys are at Colleen's without sounding like an advertisement. But it's such an important thing to make, you know, your clients or people that come in off the street feel so welcome, you know, because it is. It is such a vulnerable thing when you've got your boobies out, you know, with a total stranger in a changing room and you're talking about you know, your life and everything like that.
And so I guess I also you mentioned there like work.
And family and weekends and what we do you know when we're wearing bras? Do you take those kind of things into consideration when you're finding the right bra for a client.
Absolutely, absolutely, there's no point in putting somebody in, you know, a high impact supportive sports bra to where when they're sitting at their desk all day. Yeah, you just don't need that kind of that kind of product for that. So yeah, it really these are the questions that we ask, you know, what does your life look like? What are you doing? Are you bending down a pick up kids all day? Do you sit at the desk all day? Because if you're seated all the time, your body's in a completely different position of course to someone who's up and about and walking around. Now, it might not make too much of a difference into which kind of bra you go into. But depending on your size, you know, the question of do you want an underwire, maybe you don't want an underwire. You don't actually have to wear an underwire if you don't want to, regardless of your size. So absolutely, people's lifestyles, you know, mobility, ability, all kinds of things come into choosing the right size bra or the right style bra or rather.
Yeah, and Karen, one that I kind of I know we've spoken about it here in the office amongst the ladies is how often we wash our bras. I don't wash mine very often.
How often should we be washing them?
Well, you know, it's again, it's going to be different for everybody, and it depends on what you're doing while you're wearing the bra, of course. So if you think about things like what kind of climate do you live in? If it's very hot and you're humid and sweaty all the time, you're going to want to wash that bra a bit more. Or if you're really physically active in your daily life, those sorts of bras are going to need more laundering than you know, the T shirt br you throw on to go to work, where you're really just going from the car to the office and back again every couple of days, I suppose, or every two or three wares I guess would be a good rule.
Okay, yeah, you know, you.
Just want to try. It's like anything else. You want to just make sure that you're getting you know, the skin oils and any odors or anything even perfume just out of that fabric. Just to maintain the integrity of the bra. You're spending you know, fifty tow one hundred dollars on a really good bra. It's worth the investment. To look after them, just that little bit extra to make sure they have a lifespan that's going to, you know, to really make them worth what you're paying. What I will say is that please don't put well, I'm not going to say please don't put them in the washing machine. It's best if they don't go in the washing machine.
Okay.
I take mine into the shower and I just ring yeah. I mean you're in there anyway, right, And it's multitasking at its finest. So you're just washing everything and body wash whatever, you don't need special special detergent, give them a rinse, hang them over the shower, I head to dry, and then you've got them there and ready to go. And I think that makes it takes some of the mental load because let's face that, everybody has the pile of laundry, you know, and you chuck your brass on there and after school sports on Saturdays, everything goes in the washing machine and that's it. But it's one other. It's a little act of self care, really, particularly if there's something very beautiful. There's something really I don't know, maybe it's just me, but there's something really lovely about taking care of something that's beautiful and it makes you feel beautiful. It makes it so look a bit more special. But avoid top loaders. Top loaders are just dangerous for bras they're going to bend underwires, make underwires pop out, so you avoid that. Front loaders are fine in a washbag, but just make sure you do the hooks and eyes up at the back. Otherwise those little hooks can fling around and you know you're likely to either rip the lace if it has any or you know, rip the fabric of the cup. Yeah, definitely want to be a bit gentle bit gentle with them, but every couple of ways, you know there's no the bra police aren't going to come and get you once every two weeks.
Thank goodness.
Now, Karen, I did want to ask you mentioned there, and this might be a silly question, but I didn't realize. I assume and I think other women might have the same kind of vision in their head. When I think of bra fitting, I think of going in for like sexy lingerie and not much else. But you mentioned then that if I wanted to come in, I'm a runner. So if I want to come in and get a sports bra properly fitted, that's so that's the thing as well.
Every bride doesn't matter. If it's a date night bra doesn't matter, if it's an everyday bra, doesn't matter, if it's a crop top, doesn't matter, if it's a bralett. Every bri you buy, you should be fitted for, or at least have had a very good fitting, so you've got a general understanding of sizing and how it works, because they're all going to fit differently, and you may well be different sizes in a sports bra than what you would be in an everyday bra. There's so many variables when it comes to bra fitting. You know, if you're a twelve D in one, you may not be a twelve D in another. So I would be fitted every single time.
One of the reasons I asked you to chat with me today and take time from your day, which I'm very grateful for, was because you guys are so inclusive there at Colleens and a bit of your reading your mission statement on your website was really quite beautiful and refreshing. Can you just tell me a bit about your mission there at Colleens and what you guys are all about?
Sure? Well, the business started, you know a couple of decades ago, really, and the focus was on care for women and lingerie for women post breast cancer diagnosis that whether they had had mystectomies or reconstructions. And we still do that here absolutely, that's a very strong base point of our business, helping women after their breast cancer diagnosis and their journey with PROCESSUS or whatever surgery they ended up having. But women or people who identify as women, we're diverse in a glorious way, really, and there is so much overwhelm when it comes to walking in the door. I suppose somewhere to be fitted, to find the right product that works for you, even more so if you identify out of the binary, or you've had surgery, or you have ability mobility issues, or even if you've just been made to feel unwelcome somewhere of your size or something, if you feel like you've been judged before you've even had a chance to have a conversation. So we really we don't do that here and we don't do that in our lives. And we wanted to create a really safe, authentic space for people to come somewhere that they can trust that they're going to be listened to and heard it's really important that it is a vulnerable thing, regardless of how confident you are really to come and stand in a chage room and stand there in a bra, you know, and you're faced with a mirror and you're faced with what you might see as your imperfections. We're not going to see any of what you see. We're going to see a beautiful person in a bra that fits them beautifully. So yeah, it's been very important to create a haven, I suppose for anybody who wants to wear a bra, or anybody who needs something just to whether it's post surgery, whether it's something to help with any gender transitioning. You know, everybody should deserve the same kind of respect. So that's what we've strived really to create here. And I think you know, our branding kind of says it all that we cater for breast, big, small, uneven or none at all.
Yeah, No, it's a beautiful philosophy, Karen.
Have you guys.
I guess at the end of the day, our listeners if they want to come and find you, guys, where are you located? Can they find you online?
What's the go Sure?
Well, there's all the usuals on socials, so the Facebook and Instagram page is a good starting point, certainly our website, but we're located the shop Punting Garn at Garn Shops, so just behind the just behind the hospital. People are welcome just to pop in and come and see us. Or if you feel like you want maybe a little bit more time, or you have a few questions, people are very welcome to give us a call, or they can book appointments via our online appointment booking at button.
So thanks for Karen.
That was such an interesting and informative chat.
Thank you so much for your time.
Today my absolute focus, Thanks very much,