Bras and I didn't get off to a good start.
There was the initial stage every girl goes through (for me, it was via the crop top section of Tammy Girl) where you're waiting for your breasts to actually arrive. And then when you actually start wearing a bra, you wonder how big they are going to get until one day you go: "Oh."
I have never had big boobs but spent all my teenage years wishing for them (yet was not so crazed as to start eating 'oestrogen bread' from a plastic bag which is what one fellow flat chested friend started doing - it didn't work).
So I always assumed I was roughly the same size - between a 32b and 34a - and as I have remained the same dress size since I was about 24 didn't see any reason to get fitted for a bra.
In my old age though, I had noticed how increasingly I disliked bras. I opted for elasticated no-wire bras almost like a cropped top where possible ( which I felt were more comfortable than bras without underwire) and where possible I would try to get away without wearing one.
I didn't even consider that the reason for this was because the bra itself was uncomfortable.
Then something changed to make bras not the double breasted oppressor I had come to know.
The other week, I went to a fitting to try Triumph's Magic Wire bra, not expecting very much. I mean, it's a bra- how much is it really going to rock my world.
First, I had a fitting. My first ever fitting. "It's the wrong size", she said. "Your bra is too small."
"There must be some mistake', I replied, my jaw dropping.
Apparently, I'm a cup size bigger than I thought I was - the exact size I would've killed to be when I was 15.
When she fitted me with the correct bra, it instantly changed my world. Sounds dramatic?
Like your spectacles, your lingerie is something you wear every single day, for at least 10 hours a day. If it isn't comfortable, your body is going to know about it.
My body knew about it, it just wasn't fully aware why it was uncomfortable.
The bra, incidentally, was amazing, and I'm not being paid to say that.
Rather than a wire which digs into your breasts, they use silicone. It is so simple, it makes you wonder why no one has thought of it sooner, and at the end of my first day of wearing it, I didn't feel like I was dying to take it off in the same way I felt with other bras.
Although I am utterly kicking myself for not having done this earlier, I'm also amazed at how we get stuck in such a rut when it comes to our everyday items that have such a massive impact on our day to day comfortability.
I am, of course, recommending this bra to everyone I know, but before I do that, I'm insisting they go for a proper fitting first. You can't put a price on comfort (well, I suppose you can, if you're talking about cashmere slippers) and considering most places offer them for free, such as John Lewis, what have you got to lose?