About a year ago, Trinny Woodall and Susannah Constantine, the brazen British style mavens from the BBC show What Not to Wear, organized a televised bra fitting for 900 women in an English village. The two had often opined in their makeover TV program that most women wear ill fitting bras, which fail to enhance their figures.
On this side of the Atlantic, Oprah Winfrey had been talking Kelvin Benjamin Jersey about the same issue on her show.
All that buzz about breast health and wearing the right bra has turned into an uplifting story for a company that's been quietly producing custom fit brassieres for almost 50 years.
"People are realizing that bras are not just cover for your breasts. They affect your posture, the way your clothes fit and your shoulder health," said Linda O'Grady, vice president of marketing at Jeunique International Kelvin Benjamin Youth Jersey (Canada) Inc.
O'Grady saw a shift in attitude toward breast health about four years ago, which she attributes to wardrobe makeover shows, and a resulting increase in her company's bra sales in Canada. But four years ago, sales of the company's bras began to eclipse sales of skin care products. "Eighty five per cent of our sales now are bras," O'Grady said, adding that the company sells about 25,000 bras yearly in Canada, almost triple that of four years ago. Annual revenues for the Canadian market are about $5 million.
O'Grady makes no excuses for the utilitarian nature of the garments. "We don't pretend they're Victoria's Secret," she said. What they are is precise in their sizing. While retail outlets carry standard sizes, Jeunique has made a business of making bras in hard to find sizes from 26A to 46KK. Between one cup size and the next, there are various subtle gradations in sizing. "Each bra style comes in 200 sizes," O'Grady said.
They're marketed through direct sales, the Kony Ealy Womens Jersey bra equivalent of the way Tupperware or Avon cosmetics are sold, by about 1,200 independent sales representatives across Canada. The reps are trained fitters who measure their customers for the right bra.
The brain behind the bras is Pat Nobbs, wife of the company's founder, Mulford J. Nobbs, who started Jeunique in southern California in 1959. The couple still own the company and Mulford, now 91, continues to run it. The Canadian operation was set up in Toronto in 1993 and the head office was moved to Montreal nine years ago.
Jeunique's original vocation was to produce vitamin supplements and skin care creams from natural ingredients, inspired by Nobbs's travels among the Hunza people of the Himalayas. "Mr. Nobbs had been impressed with the Hunza people and was astounded at how youthful they looked," O'Grady www.panthersauthenticofficial.com/authentic-tre-boston-jersey.html said.
At about the time he began manufacturing supplements, his wife was having trouble finding a good bra and she talked her husband into creating a bra company, O'Grady said. "At that time, direct sales (done at parties in people's homes) were becoming popular. They were already doing direct sales of the vitamin supplements, so the bras became an extra product line."
The garments' claim to fame is the support they offer. "Most bras have elastic shoulder straps that eventually give and lose support," O'Grady said, adding that there is no elastic in her company's bra straps. Moreover, the under section of the bra cups have a fabric shelf of supportive material to hold breasts up from underneath. And the cups have a clasp that unlocks to open them, allowing the wearer to place her breasts in the bra's triangular form. The goal is to prevent breast material from overlapping into the armpits. They sell for between $115 and $200.
One thing the bras don't have is underwires. "It's panthersauthenticofficial.com/authentic-trai-turner-jersey.html not natural to have a piece of metal pushing into tender breast tissue, inhibiting lymphatic circulation," O'Grady said.
The garments have been a tough sell among Quebec women, she added. "Quebec is more European than the rest of Canada and women here tend to be fashion conscious. They look for sexy bras."
If the company has flown under the radar, she said, it's because it never markets the products through advertising. "We may run an occasional ad when we host bra clinics here at the head office, but generally our products get sold through word of mouth."
Moreover, the direct sales approach has also evolved. "Our sales representatives tell us they get more credibility when they do bra clinics in fitness centres, Kony Ealy Youth Jersey medical clinics, chiropractors' offices and massage therapists' studios," O'Grady said.
"Women are in the workforce now and instead of hosting sales parties, we're following them into their workplaces. They're running medical clinics. They're chiropractors and massage therapists. We still think the party approach is the most effective way of getting the word out about our products, but this is the change that we've seen in the market."
O'Grady won't specify how much the sales of skin care products and cosmetics are down but she attributes it to fierce competition in the cosmetics market. The 60,000 square foot Pointe Claire facility is the Canadian manufacturing centre of the skin care line, employing about 25 people. The bras are manufactured in China.
One of the challenges the company has is in finding sales representatives. "We've had calls from women in such remote areas as Elliot Lake in northern Ontario who want to buy our bras but we don't have fitters in that area," O'Grady said. "We need more."
Meanwhile, the company is keeping abreast of changes in the bra market. "Women are becoming increasingly aware of the importance of breast health," says O'Grady. And she wants her company's products to support that quest for better health.