I am the queen of metaphors, and to cheer us all up on this snowy day I thought I would share one of my favourites.

Women’s breasts come in so many different shapes as well as sizes, and understanding them can go a long way to help fit bras properly. When I am training a staff member or a new store owner, I often invoke mountains and hills to describe breast shapes. While this may be a fairly commonplace comparison, I have dissected it more then most.

Let me take you on a summer stroll, or a mountain hike if you prefer…

Some mountains you climb for the challenge. They have a steep incline, and once you reach the top there isn’t a lot of room for gatherings! Similarly, most women’s breasts grow out of smaller portions of their bodies and come to a smaller area at the tip.

On the other hand, some breasts have a more gentle incline and a greater plateau at the top. Perfect for picnics – you can take a easy stroll up there and then spread out your blanket with a group of friends. One of my staff members loves it when I describe her breasts like this – she says it makes them sound friendly.

Contrary to what you might expect, both these breast shapes can fit exactly the same bra size. Both hills can have the same mass overall but a very different shape. The woman whose breasts are shaped more like the steep mountain may not always be able to wear the same bra as the woman who has the wider breasts.

Just as a mountain climber needs to accurately assess the terrain, so the bra fitter must have an understanding of different breast shapes to select the best bra possible.

Occasionally a male customer will breeze into our store, looking for a gift for a special someone. As he takes in the variety of bras – and realizes the variety of sizes we carry – he’ll grow increasingly bewildered. Not to worry if you’re one of those gentlemen. Like a first bra fitting, the experience doesn’t have to be painful!

A bra can be a perfect gift because of what you are really giving:

You are giving beauty; it says ‘I treasure you and I think you are beautiful and I think you will look beautiful in this.’

You are giving comfort; a well-fit bra can be so comfortable, it says ‘I care about your content and I want to make sure you are.’

You are giving practicality because she will wear it all the time; it says ‘I am considerate and I think about your needs.’

You are giving quality because you have done your research and found a quality bra lasts longer and make her look better; it says ‘You are worth it.’

No matter where you are picking up a gift of a bosom up-lift, here are some helpful hints to get the perfect fit.

First come armed with knowledge. Bras come in over 150 different sizes (at Tryst we carry 28-52 backs AA-K cups) so saying “she is like your size!” is not very useful. A good way to find out without asking her is to peek in your sweetheart’s underwear drawer. Write down a few sizes and what the brands are, since different companies have slightly different size scales. But keep in mind: since so many women out there are wearing the wrong size, if she’s never had a fitting, chances are she’ll need one first. Our trained fitters may point out to you the illusions behind mainstream sizes like those blasted 34B and and 36C.

In that case a gift certificate may be the best way to insure she gets the perfect fit. Make sure the store you go to carrys a large selection of sizes and has expert fitters. If you buy a bra for a woman who you think is a D from a store that only carries up to a D and she is actually an E you haven’t helped her resolve the problem of uncomfortable wires and saggy breasts.

Many stores will also keep records of their customers so if she is a regular customer of a certain store they may even have an idea of a bra that would suit her perfectly or maybe even a new colour of her old favourite. She may have even had the foresight to make a wish list and tell them what she would like. If so they can tell you – you lucky guy – your gift giving just got so easy and you still get to be the hero!

Last of all make sure you understand the return policy of the store.

Once in a while, a customer asks me what size she’ll be in another store. I tell her the size I fitted her in is the size she should be in any store (give or take slight differences in brands and styles). “But,” she continues, “other stores don’t carry these sizes”.  The truth of the matter is — if another store doesn’t carry your size, it doesn’t carry your size.

We tell our customers 50% of people are actually D cups or bigger. This can be a shocking realization when you consider that many stores don’t carry anything bigger than a double D.  So the question is: why do stores which do a huge number of sales carry only a small percentage of women’s actual bra sizes?

Look at it this way:

Let’s say a woman wants to open a restaurant in a small town, but first she has to decide what type of food to serve. So she surveys some people who live in the town, asking them what they would like to try. Ten percent say Thai, 10% choose Jerk, 10% want hamburgers, 5% demand Chinese and a whopping 50% answer Italian. The rest have other culinary tastes.

At this point, it would be foolish to open a restaurant serving all these different foods. Our restauranteur would have to hire different chefs for every cuisine, stock a huge amount of food and be left with a vastly confusing menu.

The easy thing to do would to be open a restaurant that serves just Italian, since this is the preference of 50% of those surveyed. The other 50% would end up eating there anyway because:

1. They’ll go with the friends who like Italian;

2. They may not even know there are other delicious choices; and

3. They don’t have any other options.

How does this relate to bra shopping?

What the restaurant owner does is exactly what most bra stores do –- they carry only a few sizes (let’s say 25 or so) because most lingerie stores don’t want a huge amount of stock. And, they would have to train  staff to fit all these sizes — a process that takes us about three months. So in most bra shops those women who don’t fit the standard mould just wear the wrong size and suffer. They either don’t know any better from never having a proper fitting, or they know there could be something better, but they don’t know where to find it.

In our store (and some other lingerie stores that do fittings), we stock over 150 sizes because that is why we are here -– to make sure you get the perfect bra for you. We carry sizes from 28 to 52 backs and AA to K cups.

It may not be the easy thing to do, but those who’ve experienced a proper fitting may not think it’s such a foolish thing after all!