Commercial: On bras

Forgive the venture into territory saucier than this blog normally ranges across, but I can't resist sharing with you something Ms Beta related to me last night.

She and a friend yesterday went shopping in Bordello, a fashionable East End retailer of what we once used to call 'frilly items'. While there, they were accosted by a sales assistant who, as I believe is the usual pattern in these environments, established a rapport through conversation about the generally ill-fitting nature of most bras.

'But why is that?', was Ms Beta's not unreasonable question.

As it turns out, we can blame France.

French maidenhood, it appears, is not brought up like its British equivalent. Because mademoiselles are not by and large breast fed, their bodies develop differently. Related to – and perhaps because of that (at this point in Ms Beta's retelling of the tale, I might have been distracted by conducting some research on the Bordello website) - French girls start wearing underwired bras almost immediately.

Back in Blighty, this is resolutely not the case (and how pleasing is it that the daughters of Albion are not as louche as the Marianne sisters? Isn't it?) British girls are breast fed, and so develop different bodies. Bodies featuring chests that, in the main, aren't well-suited to wearing underwiring from the off.

Which is a problem. As the majority of bras provided to the British market comes from France. And are underwired.

So there you go. If you, or your partner, wonder why you can't / always hear why comfortable, well-fitting bras are not to be found, you now know the answer.

A rare case, perhaps, where vive la difference is not to be celebrated. Who's up for starting 'Backing British Bras' campaign?

Eh? Oh.