Last week, I blogged about my experience with some of the new Eveden ranges, and how an experience in a Selfridges changing room had left me unsure of my so-far rock-solid relationship with Freya Lingerie. Sizes and shapes that I could once rely on suddenly were coming up loose in the back, forcing me in to the rare-for-Eveden 28GG size. I looked the sizing abyss I’d crawled out from over the last few years back in the face, and in spite of my well documented love and fidelity to Eveden brands decided I had to take a stand.
And I wasn’t alone. In forums and in the comments on the post, the overwhelming response was that other people had also noticed it but assumed it was just them. 30 backed girls were complaining they needed to go to a 28 back, and 28 backed girls were mourning the fact that the bras they’d got excited about were still too big for them. It seemed as if Eveden were playing roughshod with all of our hearts. The comments and Tweets added up, and just before I could start smashing plates they got in touch… Here’s what they had to say:
Dear Beckie,
We’d like to get in touch regarding your post about Freya and the Eveden brands. After carefully reading your blog post, and taking into consideration the points you make, we are writing to confirm that Freya does still love and want to support you just as much as ever.
With regards to the points you raise regarding the back sizes for Freya, we understand that you have liked and worn the brands for a few years now, however we’d like to confirm that the band sizes have not increased. However, our fans opinions are incredibly important to us and we rely on their feedback so heavily, that we will look into the option of tightening bands where this may be needed.
With regards to developments for Freya, most of our Freya collections start from a 30” back and go up to 38”, over 2011 we have begun to offer a number of 28” backs in certain ranges. 28” backs is an area we are looking into and we will consider this for development in the future. We are also looking into creating more GG+ cups for our collections.
Freya x
It’s not the grandest of gestures or romantic of apologies, but for now it seems the devoted among us can only hope they are true to their word and do investigate the mysterious size drift. Because the saddest thing of all is, it’s not just Freya. The comments on the blog post reported similar phenomena from other brands – including Panache and Curvy Kate – too. If we want to protect our small backed favourites, we’re going to have to fight for it.
It’s natural for partners in a long-term relationship to let themselves go a little bit. So let’s hope this size-drift is identifiable, fixable and short lived. But this isn’t all on Eveden. As consumers, we need to be vocal about what we want and expect from the brands we patronise and even champion. If you feel let down, you need to shout about it. We are strong and consumer activism can work. Just ask Marks & Spencer…
Busts 4 Justice 
I’m glad they actually responded… but hoping they do actually look into tightening bands. What annoys me is how the styles change over a G cup… so whereas in some bras a 28G is nice and tight in the band and too small in the cup for me, the 28GG is too big in both the band and the cup, and feels like a totally different bra! I posted recently about how I had this experience with the Faye bra. Very disappointing.
So basically they’re trying to argue black is white?
You know what I wonder? I wonder if it is not a matter of the actual size they are cutting the bras, but a change in elastic. If they have changed their elastic supplier, that could contribute to bands fitting looser. They say that the bands are not bigger, and to them I think this means they are not cutting them any longer. But if they are using a softer, cheaper elastic, they are going to have less firm bands.
This theory has been raised before and I actually think it’s the most logical – it really doesn’t make sense for brands to change their patterns in this way but there are an infinite amount of variables between them and the shop floor, like elastic and production methods, that can make a world of difference to the finished size. I just hope it’s identifiable and fixable – I have become quite dependent on Freya and it’s going to be a total nightmare readjusting! x
I thought they had wear testers, that sort of thing should be really easy to spot long before the finished product goes into manufacture.
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