Go-Getter Girls! ®

One thing every Go-Getter Girl absolutely needs is a good, ahem, “support” system. First, though every women has slightly different support needs, the best overall bra on the market is the Chantelle Essencia, hands down. Find it at Nordstrom or Intimacy. Second, Susan Nethero, owner of the Intimacy boutiques in Atlanta, New York, and Chicago, is the goddess of all things bras, and a bra-fitting session with her a few years back changed my life! Starting from the premise that tape measures don’t work when calculating band size, she uses a “holistic and proprietary” method that basically involves eyeing the width of your back and ribs, and the shape and slope of your bustline to determine size. I walked into her shop wearing an ill-fitting 36B; I walked out wearing a perkifying, smooth, sexy 31D. I was changed for life! As Susan said, I was not longer “jerry-rigged.” For those who may not be able to personally experience the method– or missed Nethero’s extensive coverage on Oprah in the past year– here are the life-changing tips I learned from her:

• The most common mistake women make in bra fitting is buying a bra too big, in the band size. ‘Bigger’ does not mean more comfort! It actually creates discomfort because the breasts are not properly supported.

• Only 10% of a bra’s support should come from the straps. The rest should come from the band. As in, you should be able to lower the straps and jump up and down without your breasts moving in the cups. Really. That means a properly fitted bra will initially feel much, much tighter across your bodice than you’re used to.

• In an ideal fitting bra, the strap in the back should be EVEN with the bottom of the cups in the front. Think about how a bustier looks—that’s the correct alignment, not the image I’m sure you can picture of a women with the back of the bra rigged all the way up to her shoulder blades trying to harness her breasts.

• Also, the space between the breasts at the cleavage should be about 1 inch.

• Cup sizes adjust in proportion to the band size. That means the actual cup on a 36B was about the same volume as the cup of a 31D. The reason why the latter fit so much better was because it hugged my bodice properly.

• To redistribute the pesky overflow that is popping out of an almost perfectly fitting bra, just take your index finger and scope it along your breast to smooth it out in the cup, like a spatula scooping brownie batter into a bowl.

• Bras can be tailored. Tailoring involves simply cutting off the seam where the hook attaches in the back, removing an inch or two in the band, and reattaching the hook plate. The bras I wear now are a size 32C off the rack, but they are tailored to a 30C before I bring them home.

• Fit your bra on the last hook (not the middle one, as commonly thought), so that you can move inward to tighten as the bra stretches out, which it will.

• You really only need 3 bras, says Nethero: one to wash, one to wear, and one in the drawer. I like to buy two nudes and one black bra at a time.

• Bras should be part of the handful of items in your closet you truly invest in. Buying 3 good bras (expect to pay about $60 each) is worth seasons more of good outfits than a drawer full of cheap, poorly fitting ones. That means, resist the urge to splurge at, say, Gap Body.

• Don’t buy white bras as your “neutral”, everyday, wear-with-everything bra because white bras can be seen under white shirts. Buy nude colored bras that more or less match your skin tone. In a pinch, I find that even a black bra is less visible than a white bra underneath a white shirt.

• Don’t wash bras in Woolite; it is apparently too harsh. Use mild detergent specially made for lingerie (like Forever New), or even shampoo in a pinch.

• If you can’t make it to Intimacy, Nordstrom also does a great job of fitting.