I don’t upload pictures of my boobs/bras to my blog, but I have huge respect for the bloggers who do [big up Georgina Horne and Cheryl, amongst others]. In showing their diverse figures and how various styles and shapes work on their bodies, they not only provide a useful resource for women but promote body confidence and help present a more balanced spectrum of shapes and sizes.
When it comes to bra fitting, there is no better technique than getting in to a changing room and taking your top off with a professional fitter. But when that fitter/amateur blogger is on the Internet, separated by countries or even continents, how they give advice that is genuinely meaningful when they can’t see exactly what’s going on? And if you’re not one of the Georgina Horne’s of this world, how do you give a remote stranger a visual on your boobs in a world where a Tweet can last a lifetime?
Brayola think they’ve cracked it. With their new Fit or Not app, women can upload anonymous (if they want to be) photos of themselves in their bras and Brayola’s fit experts will give their professional verdict. And if that verdict isn’t good, they’ll give constructive and clear instructions to help you find a better match.
And that’s not all. Before you see the expert verdict, you’re invited to rate the picture “fit or not”. The expert’s reveal helps educate a wider audience, and spread that good fit further.
It’s not perfect by any means – a heavily airbrushed and extremely dodgy photo pulled from Figleaves (or similar) scores a good fit despite being 2D’d out of recognition – but the advice on the ‘real’ pictures seemed solid and I have truly applaud Brayola for trying something totally innovative and totally different in the minefield that is online fitting advice. Plus, it’s weirdly addictive. I keep looking for familiar chests from the boob blogger sorority….
Play Fit or Not at Brayola.com.
*****EDIT
After a couple of more plays, I spotted some off advice on non-stock imagery to. I’ve sent the below to Fiona at Brayola: looking forward to hearing back.
Hey Fiona, hope you are well.
Loving the concept of Fit or Not – quite inspired solution to online fitting advice.
I was wondering though – it falls down on a couple of dodgy expert calls. Like on Playtex Secrets 48B, the advice is to try a different brand – when clearly the advice should be try a much smaller band and a much bigger cup. And on Victoria’s Secret 36DD, it says the band looks great but actually you can clearly see from the right breast that the underwire isn’t tracking properly and the breast is resting on chest tissue rather than the bra.
I think it’s nearly there but would just benefit from some revisiting. I also wonder if ‘how it should fit’ link under each expert opinion that visually explains how a bra should look (Bravissimo do this excellently if you need pointers) would make it a more useful and much more important tool for women online.
I look forward to hearing from you on the above. Please let me know if there’s anything else I can do to help.
Beckie
Busts 4 Justice 
Thanks for the review 🙂 Brayola’s main goal is to give women the personalized online bra shopping experience they deserve! Unfortunately their is so many already wearing the wrong size bra we are looking to help reduce this number, by educating women and making them aware that if it feels “ok” that doesn’t necessarily mean it fits! We can’t wait to see what your readers think of brayola!
Fiona Lipshaw
(Communications Manager)
Loving your work Fiona 🙂
Yes and that is because people don’t know how to fit women in the first place just put a tape measure around the under bust and start from that number first and then maybe they will get the cup right but there is a lot more to it you have to know your stock and your customer and being totally honest with them than in the case of just wanting to sell them something
this lady is not a DD CUP TERRIBLE BRA ALSO her breast are pointing down she is more likely a FF so that means she only measure about a 34 the cup style is also terrible I hate these band-less bra’s they are cheaply made and no support in this style either.
If I could like your comment I would! 🙂
Fiona
Victoria’s secrets don’t do my size
Your main goal it to fit then you should be on the high street seeing seeing women then,Doing the job I do every working day giving women real advice and showing them why other company’s are putting them in the wrong size even when they say they do a fitting service.
And knowing how the company’s you buy from each season are fitting real women giving them the correct advice if a certain brand band size isn’t what it says on the ticket if a cup size isn’t again what it states on the ticket guiding them with the knowledge you have gained by fitting women of all ages and sizes into the bra and shape and style and price that they are looking for researching and resourcing company’s for every product that gets shown in magazine’s at lingerie shows and fitting yourself customer’s like to see what brand you are wearing especially when you tell them its a good fit and shape as you casn really show them you believe in all the products you sell .
And customer’s telling family friends work colleagues about what a good service and fit they have been given because everyone makes a comment how different and more confident they look.
There’s no question a good, personal fitting is best but the reality is that’s not an option for everyone (especially outside of the UK where we’re blazing a trail) – and often women think they’ve had a good fitting when they have not. Intervening with helpful fitting advice online is a great way of helping women who can’t get to a store, or for inspiring women who don’t know how their fit is failing them to seek out better.
I completely agree with you, and appreciate such an amazing job you are clearly doing! However, there have been bra fitters for years and not all of them are maybe as knowledgeable as yourself (for instance, if you have ever been fitted in Victoria’s Secret?!?) Many women are too embarrassed, self conscious, or maybe too busy to see a professional bra fitter, so brayola is open as an alternative.
Our main goal is to provide women(all over the world!) with a personalized bra shopping experience, and at the same time we want to educate women to know when a bra fits, and when it doesn’t, as you are totally right, it can make them feel more confident and sexy…and who’s kidding who, women are awesome when they are loving themselves!
I done some of you yes or no’s and some that you have said is correct you are totally wrong.
So your system doesn’t and won’t work because your are not actually measuring them and seeing what their back size is so in one where you say go up a cup how can you say that when you don’t even know what their back size actually measures.
And do you know how these company’s sizes are actually accurate or not I don’t believe you do.
So how are you actually helping these women.
PS in my picture Iam wearing a 36 H
So.. this is a Great idea but I went through a bunch and ones that the “expert” said were fitting Were DEFINITELY NOT. This could be great if done correctly though.
Have you looked at the same service that Bratabase has been providing for a while (http://www.bratabase.com/troubleshoot/ )?
It does not have paid “experts”, but it works very well given their reputation and vote system. They use real users pictures that are self submitted and not stock pictures or heavily airbrushed ones, which I think it is terrible. Also they allow you to browse through them and search by issues, so you can see how each of them ended up solving them, plus having their measurements and bras available it is extremely helpful.
This Brayola “Fit or Not is cannot really help me to troubleshoot my issues…and what is the deal with those Facebook comments???
Yes, I’ll take bratabase over anything. If they improved the page design and went out to make it profitable, they would blew any competition from the water because they are community based. This means you get non-biased information from real women. More than 30 000 bras are added there! I don’t see anything that can top this.
WOW flipping through that fit-or-not gallery is making me SO incredibly grateful for my bras (even though I’ve yet to find a perfect fit)– it’s been a long time since I wore really ill-fitting bras and I forgot how painful it was and how awful for my self-esteem. It’s difficult to see so many women wearing bras so clearly ill-fitting or unsupportive!
As a plus-sized woman who has fluctuated in weight over my teens and twenties, seeing some of the larger women who have submitted photos to that site reminds me of the days where I was at my heaviest and all I could find in a somewhat acceptable size for me was those ugly mammoth minimizers with stretchy one-piece cups that did little more to support my bust than a couple of tube socks stapled to an elastic belt would. If anything made me feel heavy and unattractive, it was those huge stretchy bras that made me feel like a lumpy blob instead of a curvy woman. Sorry for the long ramble, but WHOA has seeing some of those photos given me flashbacks!
It seems like submitting pictures to someplace like that could be a really good first step for a lot of those women to get confirmation that their bras *don’t* fit (it’s not just them being picky or expecting miracles as I used to feel when I longed for better bras) and take the next steps to try and figure out what sized and bras would fit.
Since it seems like folks from Brayola might be reading these comments, I’d like to add that what I really really would LOVE MOST to see on that site is a really clearly marked page that lays out the VERY BASICS of what actually constitutes a “fit” (ie: what list of things are these experts looking for when they evaluate the ‘fit or not’ photos) since clearly a huuuuuuuuuuuge amount of women taking interest in the ‘fit or not’ game have no idea what to look for and think a bunch of these awfully fitting bras count as ‘fit’. I’m talking the very basics with a few clear drawings or photos, so things like ‘center gore lies flat’ (with explanation of what the ‘gore’ is!), ‘band doesn’t ride up on back,’ ‘cups not cutting into breast-tissue/causing ‘quad-boob” etc. Women using this ‘game’ and site wouldn’t be doing it if they weren’t somewhat interested in bra fitting– this is the PERFECT platform to have really easily available education to people who are already interested!
If users don’t have any idea what criteria your ‘experts’ are using to decide if a photo is a ‘fit or not’ then as good as your intentions are, you’ll be missing out on helping these thousands of people rating the photos (and many of the people submitting them, those who don’t get an explanation but just a ‘fit’ or ‘not’) learn anything about what a properly fitting bra looks like. It does the majority of your users absolutely no good to keep what makes a bra a good fit a mystery that only the experts can decode. I look forward to seeing where this goes in the future, it seems like a really exciting idea and I bet you could do a lot of good once you add some solid education to the mix.
Apologies for the long-windedness!
Sorry to be writing so much and for being a nerd and replying to my own comment, but I just refreshed this page and noticed that you edited to add some very similar advice to the Brayola folks at the bottom of your post 😉 I didn’t see that before I wrote my comment. I’d say ‘jinx’ but you worded it much more clearly than I did!
Hi Meg,
First off I love everything you have written, and totally agree with you! Fit or Not is a baby right now, and this is just the first stage! Brayola is about women, real women (as you can see from some of the images!) So what people say about it, is also extremely important! So many women have given us suggestions on how they want to see it being improved that it is already hard to know where to start! This is a project that we are so excited about, and really do believe in it!
Definitely watch this space! Brayola WILL make your bra shopping wishes come true (and fitting issues!)
Fiona
P.S Thank you for taking the time out to write such a detailed comment, we will take everything you have said on board and you will see changes soon!
These are the kind of stories we hear all the time and have even experienced ourselves on multiple occasions. This is why we created brayola : to solve these fitting room disasters and help you find your next favorite bra that will fit and feel amazing. You don’t have to be measured, you don’t have to pull your hair out, and you don’t have to leave the comfort of your home. Our goal is to bring you all the bras you could ever dream of at the touch of a button through a personal bra shop (that we create just for YOU)!
Has anyone else noticed that the sizes listed next to the pictures *don’t match the damn pictures*?
For instance, there’s a “Victoria’s Secret Balconnette” in a “34FF”. And an “Aerie Balconnette” in a “28C”. Neither of those brands make those sizes. So, based on that – all the women on there who have a photo and say they’re wearing a 36A, but it looks alright (certainly not as bad as a 36A would on a sub-28 band), I’m guessing the information is wrong. Dead, completely wrong. How is this supposed to help women when they’re mis-representing sizes?
There is lots wrong with this site as you can’t work out there cup size unless you know exactly what their actual band size is by showing us the tape measurement under the bust and even then some bra’s can distort even my expert eye the only way you can fit anyone is by doing in in person you can’t do this on a picture that hasn’t been taken at the correct angle in most of them ad not been given the correct size or make that has been stated and women don;t have to be honest in a picture do they they can all say anything.It doesn’t help women it just tell the something something else. and they hope its the correct answer who is really going to know no one .
Its never going to work and I will keep saying it it doesn’t help any women get themselves fitted in the correct size style shape price for them .
Hi Nikki,
Thanks for pointing this out! We are looking into a stronger monitoring system, so that we can alert women when they have said a false size. We already have a system in place that doesn’t allow these women to go into the recommendation filter ( so they are exempt from giving recommendations in the personal shop)
As said before, we are so thankful for releasing Fit Or Not when it’s in early stages, as we have had such wonderful feedback from women, like all of you that have commented (positive and negative!) so we can really improve this feature…So watch this space!