Some of you may have heard about Jockey in the news recently. If you haven't,
here's a decent article detailing their "revolutionary" new approach to bras. For those of you too lazy to click on the link, I will elaborate.
Jockey looked at how women's bras are sized and said, "This makes no sense. We can do better." So, they put up some cash, and did some research and came up with...drumroll please...volumetric sizing. The way this works is you order one of their
fit kits, which comes with 10 plastic boob forms, a measuring tape, instructions, and a lingerie bag. You then measure for your band as normal (under the breasts, tightly) and find which boob form fits you best. Whatever the number of that boob form is, that's your cup size. So, you wind up with sizes like 5-32 and 9-40 and whatnot. You then have your choice of five--count 'em, five--different bras in the sparkling color palette of white, nude, and black.
Now, at this point, I'd like to refer you over to fellow blogger
Charla Welch, who kindly ponied up the $20 and ordered the fit kit. She has an excellent review of the actual kit, so I'm going to save my time (and money), and look at the sizing system itself.
First off, I'm rather reluctant to trust my boobs to a company known for making men's underwear. I mean, I think they've made some sports bras, but let's face it, they don't call them jockey shorts because jockeys wear them. I'm pretty confident that Jockey has my hubby's back, but I have my doubts when it comes to the girls. That aside, I would like to applaud them for attempting to try something different. Bra sizing is completely insane, and anyone willing to tackle that challenge earns my respect. That said, this is a gimmick.
Yeah, you heard me. A gimmick.
The first--and most obvious--problem here is that Jockey offers absolutely no conversion scale to traditional sizing. While I understand that the idea is to breakaway from traditional sizing, there is no way that five styles of bra are going to fit all women. No way. So, if you order the kit (which does come with a $20 coupon and supposedly is refundable), and find your new size, but none of their bras fit right, you're kind of screwed. I mean, you know that you're now a 6-30, but what's that translate to in normal sizes? Sure, you'd love to stick with Jockey, but if the bras don't fit right, they don't fit. Also, if you're a specialty size normally (i.e. very small or very large), how do you know any of those plastic cups are going to fit you at all? I mean, seriously, I'm currently trying on H and HH cups (and they're fitting). I'm pretty sure those cups aren't going to be big enough.
Secondly, Jockey's whole idea with "volumetric sizing" is that women's breasts are shaped differently (which is true), so how can we accurately gauge their size with one horizontal measurement? This is absolutely correct. There are about eleventy billion differences in breast shape, size, fullness, width, and all those other factors that make bras nearly impossible to find. That said, I encourage you to look at this image of several of the fit cups that is on Jockey's website.
Really look.
There is no difference in the shape here. It's the exact same shape, only scaled up or down.
What the hell, Jockey?
And don't even get me started on the price. You have to pay to find out what your size in their brand is? I don't care if you give me credit towards my purchase, that's insulting. And, frankly, if I'm going to pay $60 for a bra, I want a sexy pretty bra, not an ugly sports bra (admittedly, most of my bras are in the $60 range, but some people have more options).
My next argument is really more of a suspicion. What if the reason they don't have a conversion chart is because they're using the same cup sizes and just calling them something different?
I'll admit, part of my suspicion here comes from that fellow blogger I pointed you towards. She noticed that the cup number was the same as the difference between her bust and band measurements. While this could very well be coincidence, that would be a very convenient (and more logical way of sizing. However, that would also mean that there's no real difference in how the bras are sized. You can call a tomato a pear, but it's still a tomato. And, let's be honest here, they haven't done anything innovative with the band here--the only difference is they're not adding inches like half the fitters/manufacturers do. If they really have just changed what they're calling the cup sizes, it's not much more than vanity sizing--now if a woman doesn't want to believe she's a DD, she doesn't have to. She could be a five instead.
I also question exactly how they're managing the grading for these things. You see, one of the many difficulties in manufacturing bras is the sheer number of different products.
This is a great article that explains the difficulties inherent in bra making, and there's a great section on grading about a third of the way down. In a nutshell, bra grading is how manufacturers minimize the number of different parts they have to use to make the widest selection of bras. If you've heard talk of sister sizes (like how the cup is the same size in a 34A, 36B, and 38C), this is exactly what makes that work. The caveat is that your band size affects your cup size. Have they really managed to just plug the cups into different bands? I mean, theoretically that could work, but there are so many factors to take into consideration.
Finally, I'd like to point out that they haven't changed anything about band sizing. Admittedly, the band sizing is less broken than cup sizing, but there are still a few problems--like the fact that bands only come in even sizes. Or the fact that bands only go down to a 30 (I think if 26 and 28 were widely available, we'd all be amazed at how many women would fit into those bras).
I think Jockey's really bold for trying something new with bra sizing, and, if nothing else, they are carrying the widest selection of sizes of any American manufacturer. But this isn't enough. The bra is an insanely complicated garment (seriously, read that article about bra making, it will open your eyes), and there's no way we can boil that many curves down to just a couple of numbers. Having looked at what it takes to make the damn things, once you take into consideration the sheer number of variables that make up a pair of breasts, as long as we stick with off the shelf bras, we are going to have fitting problems. Ultimately, I think our solution is going to lie with materials--what we really need is something like Marty's jacket in Back To The Future II, where you push a button, and it automatically adjusts to fit you properly.
This is what the future of lingerie looks like.
Maybe the real solution is to take bras out of the realm of fashion and recruit some engineers. I bet they'd be more supportive, at least.
Either way, thanks for trying, Jockey, but I think I'm going to stick with traditional sizing until we find something that actually fixes the problem.
