From today, old sparring partners Marks & Spencer are offering their customers a £5 lingerie voucher in exchange having a bra fitting.

In the announcement today, M&S said “we are encouraging women to pop into store for a free bra fit-with over a third of women [erm, probably 2/3 actually – B4J] wearing the wrong size bra M&S advises all women to visit their local store and meet one of their trained advisors.

As M&S are responsible for some of the most cataclysmically poor fittings of my bra career (“I’m sorry, but you [B4J at 15] are just enormous.” “[As justification for putting a 29″ back woman in to a 36] I hope you don’t mind me saying so but your ribs are really prominent.” and “I don’t really know why it’s doing that. But it is your size.” etc etc ad nauseum), I’m understandably nervous about floods of women trusting their boobs to M&S fitters.

Recently, a B4J mole visited a mid-sized M&S to see how they were doing (I may be out of the country, but I have eyeballs everywhere). And while they didn’t manage to insult the poor girl, they didn’t give her (a 32G) what she considered to be a good fit (36E). It’s disappointing and alarming that – nearly three years on from B4J’s early M&S meetings about the fitting problem – this is still being allowed to happen. And I know what M&S will say – they have 14,000+ fitters and it only takes one bad apple, etc etc. But, as their very own Soozie Jenkinson states: “Not many women know how a well fitting bra can not only improve their posture, make them look slimmer and boost their confidence as well as their assets!” It only takes one bad apple to ruin that for dozens of women every day.

But all is not lost. Having been fitted by one of them, I know that the (incredibly passionate) people at the top of M&S lingerie know their onions (or should that be watermelons…) when it comes to fitting DD+. And the M&S website now boasts a lingerie guide that gives clear and simple guidelines to recognising a good fit. Armed only with that, a girl could find her way to her size with a bit of trial and error. The trick now is empowering girls to speak up when the assistance they’re getting in the changing room doesn’t match up with what they know is right from the guide. And, of course, for M&S to make sure that each and every one of their fitters are singing from the song sheet…

The £5 fitting offer runs until 25th September, or use BRAFIT11 when you check out online. But be fit aware!