Fashion Features

Cursed with big boobs while living in a Victoria’s Secret world, one woman's victory

By Karen V. Stevens Aug 22, 2012, 21:24 GMT

I have been cursed with big boobs while living in a Victoria’s Secret world!

I have been cursed with big boobs while living in a Victoria’s Secret world!

It was in the 6th grade, during the graduation trip to Yosemite with all my classmates, when it was commented by one of the cute boys that I had boobs.

The next six days were torture! 

I knew all the boys were looking at me like I was a boob freak and all the girls were jealous that I was getting all the looks that I really didn’t want.  I would wear my t-shirts tightly tucked into my Chemin De Fer jeans to flatten my chest but all that did was make me look like an idiot with big flattened boobs.

Junior High School wasn’t any better. I was terrorized by an upper-classman with obvious social issues who couldn’t let me walk to my locker without making a perverse comment in front of the other kids who would then snicker or laugh at the big-boobed freak.  So I never had a love affair with bra shopping as my peers would have. 

My first experience was at Saks 5th Avenue bra department while getting my girl scout uniform.  I had one foot still in childhood and the other hiding in the back of the bra department.

Getting your first bra is like losing your virginity, it’s scary, exciting, sometimes painful and always pivotal… it is a lasting memory.  Mine was mortifying!  I remember a very old lady with her crypt-keeper hands on my boobs calling them “bosoms”, telling my mom that I was very large for my age. 

She skipped over the pretty pink and lace training bras and went directly to the 3-hook, stark white holsters that I was supposed to wear with pride at becoming a woman.  If I knew what valium was back then I would have demanded three of them.

Even though I was chestically blessed, I was never a fat girl, but I always felt fat because of my boobs.

As I got older I learned to embrace my assets and gave them names, (Tom and George, don’t ask, I was stoned or drunk or both, but it stuck).  By college I was a 36DD and pretty bras that could hold double Ds still hadn’t caught up to my people.  There was even some brainiac who invented a wonder bra that added a cup size, I always thought it would be more of a wonder if they could delete a cup size! 

The all of a sudden all bras had to be padded or have gel or made from cardboard and sales people were trying to convince me that they would make me look smaller!  Um, I have a $120,000 college education, please don’t make me hit you!

I spent years of my adulthood hating the lingerie store Victoria’s Secret and their lying sales people who didn’t know the alphabet went past D!   

I’ve gained, lost, aged and been surgically lifted, but I’ve never been bra-happy.  That’s when someone recommended I go to a bra fitter.  I have an awful flashback to that day in Saks 5th Avenue with the “bosom” lady and I shudder.

Then I was told about a store that specializes in bras for people like me and they are half the cost of other lingerie stores.  So, I took the one hour drive to Los Angeles suburb, Monrovia, to the Wizard of Bras.  After waiting an hour in the waiting area that still had magazines from 1965 and a continual loop of a Huell Howser interview that was playing on the TV over my head, I was finally called by the sales girl. 

She measured me then gave me a bra that was obviously two sizes too big and just told me the take my side boob and shove it around front.  I’m sure she could see then disdain and utter disbelief on my face because her attitude came up like a sand storm in the Sahara...cover your eyes and look away people!  

Then she handed me a box of bras in that same size and told me these are the ones to pick from.  The Wizard of Bras was like the last scene in the Wizard of Oz… just ignore the nasty salesgirl behind the curtain, we really don’t know what we are doing, we’re just pushing levers and talking loud!  I hightailed it out of there without buying anything and hoping that a house would land on the wicked witch of Monrovia!

And just like in the Wizard of Oz, I thought there is no place like home… and home meant the Westside of Los Angeles and Intimacy!  Intimacy is a specialty lingerie store that caters to women like me.  It may cost a bit more but then again I don’t have to drive an hour out of my way to be given ill-fitting bras by a nasty sales girl.

I walked into their store in the Century City mall and met my specialist, Ruth, and it was is if the clouds had parted and the sun was finally shining on my chest.  Ruth has been with Intimacy for 4 years and has a background in pattern making and before that she was a shapely lingerie model, so she knows her stuff. 

She explained that all the people who work there must go through a week of intensive training in fitting, product and material. Basically a Boob-Camp. 

Goddess Ruth, as I call her now, explained that bra sizes have changed, no longer do we have DDs!  A DD is now an E, a DDD is now an F and a DDDD is now a G.  How come nobody told me?  Why isn’t this big news??

The Goddess just looked at me and instantly knew my size, I’m not kidding!  No tape measures, no protractors, no new math.  She could make a fortune at a carnival with this skill. 

She brought in the most beautiful and perfect fitting bras that I have ever worn.  My boobs were pretty and lifted and cute, I wasn’t sporting a boob shelf or a boobie-roll!  I have never had cute boobs and here I am, in my 40s and finally my boobs look cute! 

Ruth told me that many of clients have always felt they had to apologize for being large breasted and when they are finally fitted properly its almost an emotional release.  I believe it.

I was amazed at how good I looked in their bras, I wanted to buy them all and honestly, if I could cash a bond to pay for them, I would have. 

As my mother always told me, you get what you pay for… and it’s no different at Intimacy.  The prices start from around $80 and go up. But, get this, they also offer free alterations within the first 6 months of buying your bra.  Seriously, alterations!  Because your natural body heat and wear can change the give or pull on the material and they want you to be happy for a long time.  I love these people, I love this place!

For the first time in my life I walked out of a lingerie store with a spring in my step and a kicky bounce in my boobs!  And just for fun, I flipped off the Victoria’s Secrets store in the mall.

And just like when I buy shoes, I couldn’t wait to go home and parade around in my new purchases. 

So here I am writing about Intimacy at my computer wearing yoga pants and my new bra... remind me to put on a shirt before I go walk the dog.

People, run, don’t walk to Intimacy.  Ask for Ruth, the Bra Goddess, it will be life changing.  http://www.myintimacy.com/

Guest reporter Karen V. Stevens is a segment television producer, USC booster and media/pr consultant living boobaliciously in Los Angeles, California. You can follow her on Twitter