In Juliette’s drawer, the bra is almost gone. “Frankly I don’t even have to have five, explains the young woman who takes inventory of her underwear. There is one, it must be three years since I last worn it, another which is new and that I have never worn. As soon as there is a frame or a strap on the back, I completely stopped wearing them. “
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More and more women are abandoning the bra, for more comfort and to free themselves from diktats. One in six young women under 25 (18%) never wear a bra, a proportion four times higher than that measured before confinement (4%) according to the French Institute of Public Opinion ( Ifop). It’s called the “no bra”, which has been gaining momentum since the first confinement.
For two years, Juliet only wears bodysuits or crop tops under his t-shirts. This Parisian comes back to life: “I no longer have anything that bothers me. I already have no physical discomfort. Before, I felt my chest now I don’t feel it anymore. I had pain in my chest and under my arm caused by the the reinforcement and the permanent pressure, I hardly have them anymore. I’m just freed from this weight. “ Others, more numerous, like Coline, have recently started. For her, who works in events, and who is often dressed to the nines, confinement was the trigger. “It started on the bra and continued on the rest of my dress style, says Coline. I don’t wear jeans or tight stuff anymore. I prefer comfort. Containment was kind of the test. “
This comfort at all costs lowers the sales of traditional bras. “Before, it was about 60% with reinforcement and 40% without reinforcement. Now, in the space of two or three years it has reversed.”, explains Patricia Tranvouez, CEO of Etam. The leader in lingerie in France had to invest in research. So as not to lose his clients.
“It’s not just a question of having a very simple wireless bra. On the contrary, it requires more and more sophistication in the weaving to be able to accommodate more generous breasts without underwire.”
Patricia Tranvouez, CEO of Etamto franceinfo
This change in shelves is not a fad according to Laurence Duchiron, marketing director at Princesse tam.tam: “The underwired bra, symbolized by a push-up for example, the injunction is to have perfect breasts, rather round and high. Women take a real distance with this injunction from this idea of the idealized body. And that suggests that the trend is perennial. ” Companies born after confinement no longer offer more than models without reinforcement, without seams: lingerie with a “second skin” effect.