My First Proper Bra Fitting at 22: What Every Gen Z Should Know About Bra Sizing and Lingerie Fit

One of the perks of working in the lingerie industry is that you occasionally get gifted lingerie too. Last Christmas, our founder Bella gave each of the female staff a £100 voucher and encouraged us to get properly fitted at one of her favourite boutique stores.

Even after being part of Brarista for over a year, I had mostly been learning in theory - and somehow kept putting off the experience of an actual fitting. I had been wearing a bra since I was about 12, and had been properly fitted exactly once in my life - at Victoria's Secret, aged 15, where I was put into a 32B. That number followed me around for years, long after my body had outgrown it.

I could spot the signs now, looking back. Bikini bands riding high in old photos. An ill-fitting bra showing through a crop top. But going to a boutique still felt like a stretch.

Let me unpack that.

As someone navigating my early twenties, bra fitting was never really on my radar before joining Brarista. It's such an under-discussed topic - not spoken about amongst friends, not covered in any class. Growing up, I absorbed the idea that anything above a D cup signals something extraordinary, when the reality is far more varied than we are led to believe.

Sex education has become so normalised, yet understanding our own bodies somehow hasn't. Nobody teaches you that your bra size probably changed several times before you turned 21.

I came out of the boutique knowing I fluctuate between a 30D and an E, depending on the brand - which, having spent a year at Brarista, I had roughly worked out on my own. But a fitting is not really about confirming a number. Here is what I mean by that:

1. Sizing is not universal

I was a different size across every single brand we tried. What surprised me most was that even the same style in a different colourway could change the fit - the dye affects the fabric's stretch and structure, enough to drop me a cup size in white compared to black.

No size chart accounts for this. It is the kind of detail that only comes from a fitter who has physically handled the stock. As someone who almost always shops online rather than in store, there would have been no way to know any of this through a screen. The variables that affect fit are invisible on a product page - and yet they are exactly the variables that determine whether something gets kept or sent back.

2. Some things just need to be on your body

I have always believed that certain clothes just need to be on your body before you can know if they work. Trousers are like this for me. This experience reminded me that lingerie applies to this logic about a thousand times over

I was drawn to a full cup bra on display and wanted to give it a try. Although it looked structured and elegant on the hanger, it went completely flat on me, doing nothing for my shape.

What made me appreciate the fitting experience more was that in these situations when something did not work out, the fitter simply redirected me to an alternative. She did not just identify what size I was, but knew what to reach for next when the obvious answer was not the right one.

3. A little intimate fashion show

I should confess that my bra-drobe at this point consisted of three, very old bras I wore interchangeably. I suspect I am not alone in this. We all have a favourite we exhaust daily, despite the fact that bras are recommended to be replaced every six months or so.

Trying on twenty different styles across brands felt like a little intimate fashion show. Dora Larsen, Lisca, and Girlfriend Collective all made it to the “keep” side of the hanger - though I did not end up buying them on the day (next time!). What struck me was how different my body looked depending on the cut and construction of each piece. Not better or worse - just different, and so refreshing.

4. Fitters don't bite

There is a vulnerability in standing in a fitting room with a stranger while your body is assessed - which is partially why I put it off for so long. The stories you hear do not help, because an offhand comment from a fitter can stick with you for years. But through this experience, I learnt that good fitters just want you to finally feel confident in the right size.

I walked out with two bras - a Triumph and a Nudea - and a lot more clarity about what works for my body. Not just a number, but the shapes, fabrics, and subtle details like patterns and colours that a size chart would never tell you and that a product page cannot show.

A fitting like this should be easy to access for anyone who wants one. That is part of why we built the Brarista-approved Fitting Services directory: a global map of boutiques and independent specialists who use the fitting by eye method, so that expertise like this is findable wherever you are.

But I am also someone who does most of her shopping while scrolling in bed. And not everyone has a boutique nearby, or the time, or the ability to get to one. That gap is exactly what Brarista was built to fill - bringing the same fitting knowledge and product intelligence I experienced in that room into the online shopping journey. The brand-to-brand size differences, the colourway that drops you a cup size, and sister sizing alternatives when a product is out of stock - these are the things we are built to account for.

I believe the industry is better when both the physical and digital worlds thrive.

And to everyone who hasn't done this yet: if you take your bra off the moment you get home, you are probably wearing the wrong size!

A bit about the lingerie industry

I believe that, although the conversation around bodies and sizing is shifting, the gap between knowing your size and finding the right bra online has not really closed - especially for the new generation. The information exists in fitting rooms and in the hands of experienced fitters, but it has not made it onto product pages yet, which is where most of the new generation of shoppers and clients live.

The idea that expert fitting advice should only be available to people who live near a good boutique, or who know to ask for it, feels increasingly outdated. We carry more information in our pockets than any previous generation - to the point where we sometimes assume that is the only place to find it. The expectation that we can get useful, personalised guidance online rather than a generic size chart is only going to grow. The fitting I had showed me exactly how much expertise goes into getting this right. The point is that finding a boutique should not be the only way to benefit from it.

About Brarista

Brarista is the world's first AI-powered bra fitting chatbot platform designed specifically for lingerie retail. By merging advanced AI technology with professional bra fitting expertise, Brarista revolutionises the online shopping experience and tackles the long-standing challenge of incorrect bra sizing, which affects 90% of consumers and drives dissatisfaction and sales drop-off.

Unlike generic chatbots or simple measuring tools, Brarista offers deep lingerie specialisation — combining professionally graded fitting quizzes, deep learning algorithms, and large language models to democratise expert fitting services at scale. It delivers round-the-clock, personalised, brand-agnostic sizing recommendations through B2B2C white-label software embedded directly within retailers' websites, free to end-users.

Book a demo to discover how Brarista's AI bra fitting chatbot can help you turn sizing uncertainty into sales.