Does Anyone Actually Love Their Bras? We Asked 300 Cut Readers
Like many others born in the late ’80s and early ’90s, I bought my first big-girl bra at Victoria’s Secret at the mall when I was a young teenager. I barely had boobs, but that wasn’t a problem at Pink, the chain’s younger-sister brand, where neon-pink and green cotton underwear was stacked across the counters like piles of colorful candy. My mom indulged my request for an AA-cup T-shirt bra with enough padding to keep it from completely collapsing under my school-uniform polo shirt. It would be many years before I realized that not every bra I wore needed to be a push-up. And even more years to realize I didn’t need to be wearing a lined underwire bra to even consider leaving my home.
Where did I get that idea? At Victoria’s Secret, of course. My memories of those fitting rooms inspired me to investigate the entire history of the company, which started in 1977 as a little upscale boutique in the Bay Area and became one of the most influential and polarizing brands in American culture. (You can read the whole story in Selling Sexy: Victoria’s Secret and the Unraveling of an American Icon, which I wrote with Lauren Sherman.) With its hyped bra releases and a seemingly endless assortment of colorful, textured options, Victoria’s Secret gave underwear a fast-fashion spin. Though the brand is still one of the largest players in the intimates market, its dominance has waned after years of store closures and bad press (accusations of sexual harassment, a Jeffrey Epstein connection).
Tonight, trying to win back shoppers and rebuild that huge market, Victoria’s Secret is staging its famous lingerie fashion show for the first time in six years. But if fewer people are buying the brand these days, what are they buying instead? I asked 300 readers to share their honest, intimate thoughts on their bras — which styles they wear and when, where they like to shop, and how confident they are that they’re wearing the right size.
Where Are You Buying Your Bras These Days?
Department stores are back. When asked where readers were most likely to shop for new brands, Nordstrom was mentioned 54 times, far more than any other store and nearly as much as the second and third most popular destinations (Amazon and Victoria’s Secret) combined. Other go-to destinations included Target, Aerie, and ThirdLove.
Your MVP bras come from tried-and-true labels like Wacoal and Natori. We asked, “If you are going on a trip and can only take one bra with you, which bra would you bring?” Wacoal and Natori, two brands you can easily find at Nordstrom and Macy’s that are known for their comfortable fits and wide size ranges, were mentioned 19 and 17 times, respectively. One reader described Wacoal’s unlined Lace Embrace bra as her “go-to for at least five years (replacing every year or so) because the shape is right but the straps are wide, so it works with any neckline top.” Natori’s Bliss Perfection T-shirt bra was mentioned six times.
ThirdLove is giving Victoria’s Secret a run for its money. The rivalry between these two brands goes back to 2018, when Victoria’s Secret’s head of marketing at the time, Ed Razek, said “We’re nobody’s third love” in an interview with Vogue; e-commerce label ThirdLove’s founders responded by taking out a full-page ad in the New York Times essentially scolding the larger company’s executives. (Nothing like an old-school marketing stunt involving newspaper ads.) But among our readers, the two brands are neck and neck, tying for third place behind Wacoal and Natori as the most important bra in our readers’ underwear drawers. Each was mentioned 15 times. Your favorite Victoria’s Secret styles varied, but most ThirdLove fans named its best seller, the 24/7 Classic T-shirt bra, as their top choice. Other popular brands included Aerie (mentioned 12 times), Skims (11 times), and Cuup (ten times). Readers whose cup sizes ranged from DDD to I also preferred Wacoal and Natori but otherwise favored Chantelle and Panache (each mentioned five times).
Still, it’s rare that readers love their bras.
How Many Bras Do You Own?
A few of you have drawers bursting with bras …
… But slightly more than half of you (51 percent) wear no more than four of those bras on a regular basis.
What Makes for a “Good” Bra?
Bigger isn’t the goal anymore. Nearly 80 percent of readers said they never wear push-up bras, and only 5 percent said they wanted their bras to make their boobs look bigger.
Some of you are inspired by celebrities’ bodies. We asked readers if they see any and think, I want my bra to make my boobs look like theirs! A few revealing answers:
Is It Ever Okay to Go Braless?
Of course! Like Charli XCX, who often goes braless on the Sweat Tour, readers are moving away from pads and underwires — especially since the pandemic.
Going braless doesn’t feel so scandalous anymore …
And we’re taking our bras off in weird places:
You all agreed that — no matter the store — buying bras is time-consuming and fraught.
The list of reasons ran long:
When shopping for bras, most respondents said they care much more about comfort than “sexiness.”
Sometimes, a comfortable fit isn’t the priority. 41 percent of you said you have bought bras specifically for sex or for a romantic partner. Your favorite styles varied from kitschy to lacy.
Are Celebrity-Backed Brands Like Savage x Fenty and Skims Any Good?
Only 30 respondents had tried Savage x Fenty bras, and just five loved those purchases. Here’s what they had to say about the brand:
Skims had more fans among our readers than Savage x Fenty. 16 percent of respondents (49 people) said they had tried Skims bras, but only 15 of those loved what they bought. The Kardashian connection was a problem for some readers: Three women said they would never shop Skims because they didn’t want to support the influencer family. Still, Skims has been extremely successful with its marketing, hiring the actors, athletes, and musicians of the moment to pose in its signature skin-tone sets. Social-media tracking firm CreatorIQ said that so far this year, Skims has generated the most conversation online of all its competitors, including Victoria’s Secret. (And said that Savage x Fenty’s online engagement has taken a severe dip since 2022.)
Here’s what you had to say about Skims:
How About the Bras at Victoria’s Secret?
In our survey, 16 percent of readers said they had shopped at Victoria’s Secret in the past five years, and most of them fit into historically the most commonly available sizes (30 to 38 bands, A through DD cups). What exactly are they buying?
But the largest group of readers stopped shopping at Victoria’s Secret between 2010 and 2018 — the peak of the fitness-obsessed #TrainLikeAnAngel years. What prompted them to leave the mall brand behind?
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