Foundation Repair
May 20, 2005, came and went for most of us without much fanfare. But that day’s episode of Oprah, “The Bra and Swimsuit Intervention,” had immediate repercussions for Terry Levine, the owner of Leawood’s Clair de Lune lingerie boutique. “In the industry we’re calling it ‘O Day'” Levine tells us. “Any specialty store, any department store that sells lingerie, has felt the impact of that show.”
The show revealed that 85 percent of the world’s women are not wearing the correct bra size. “It’s probably even higher than that,” Levine says with a sigh. “Maybe once a week we see someone who’s got it right.” This week, she and her staff hold their own intervention, putting on a seminar to try to up those averages.
Levine doesn’t use the typical fitting methods. “We don’t fit by using a tape measure, because it’s not very accurate,” she explains. Instead, she and her staff prefer to start by looking at what her customers have been wearing, evaluating the fit and other characteristics. After that, Levine says, the best thing to do is just put a bra on.
Levine opened her store after frequent visits to Europe, where she had grown envious of the continent’s lingerie boutiques. “I started wondering why there wasn’t anything like that here,” she says. “You can go to Victoria’s Secret or you go to department stores, and they carry the same stuff, these tried-and-true American brands.”
But European lines have something else to offer. “European women truly believe in spending as much money on their innerwear as their outerwear,” Levine says. To prove her point, she carries over a Lise Charmel bra ($180) in a pale, champagne-colored lace exquisitely embroidered with pink flowers. “It’s soft, not coarse, and it’s so well-made,” she says.
Levine tells the story of a customer who ended up wearing a size 36-F bra. “She had never found a beautiful bra in her size. After we fit her, she was amazed that a bra could feel that way and could make her look a certain way. She’d never spent money on lingerie, and now she’s a regular customer.” — Rebecca Braverman Clair de Lune’s Uplifting Bra Seminar is from 6 to 6:45 p.m. Thursday, July 28, at 5045 West 119th Street (Hawthorne Plaza) in Leawood. Reservations are requested. Call 913-491-3232.
