The bra every bra-fitter wants you to know about

While the rest of the nation is fixating on sports bras, it was during a much-needed fitting at Marks & Spencer that I found my new favourite bra – and yet it was almost by accident. After the pandemic, a pregnancy and fluctuating weight, I didn’t have a clue about my size, only that I needed unfussy underwired bras in neutral colours that I could wear under everything, every day.

I was in good hands. My fitter, Halima, who guessed my correct bra size on the basis of a mere glance at my chest, brought me a selection of different styles – balcony, full cup, plunge – but it wasn’t until she was walking me to the cashier with my selection that she pointed out what looked like a basic crop top. “Have you ever tried a non-wired bra?” she asked. “We [bra fitters] all wore these during the pandemic.”

As someone who has been every cup size from my current 34D to an F, I’ve always felt I needed proper scaffolding – and that means underwires. During the lockdowns of 2020 and 2021, when women were ditching their bras with an enthusiasm not seen since the 1960s, I remained faithful to my pretty-yet-trusty Dora Larsen underwired styles. Yet even the Office for National Statistics has traded the traditional bra for the sports version in its list of 700 products used to calculate the rate of inflation.

So while experience has taught me to be sceptical, I also wanted to believe the hype about non-wired bralettes and crop tops that offer the same support as an underwired design. “I honestly forget I’m wearing a bra,” Halima told me. Could M&S’s unremarkable-looking £20 Flexifit non-wired full-cup bra be the lingerie world’s Holy Grail?

That was the design team’s goal, although working with a new 360-degree stretch fabric presented lots of challenges. “It’s where style meets science,” says Soozie Jenkinson, Marks & Spencer’s head of lingerie design. They refined the fit by testing each prototype on a variety of different women and making adjustments where needed. “A small tweak on a bra can make a big difference, so it’s important we are completely happy with all aspects of the design before we bring the product to market,” she says.

L-R: Sloggi Zero-Feel bralette, fits up to an E-cup, £35; Anyday non-wired Willow bra, fits up to an E-cup, £20; Never Say Never Super Curvy Sweetie Bralette, fits up to an I-cup, £55; Spanx Bra-llelujah! non-wired bralette, fits up to a d-cup, £36; Flexifit non-wired full-cup bra, fits up to an h-cup, £20

This would have been happening back in 2016, when a global pandemic was something that only happened in Hollywood movies. The Victoria’s Secret empire was already struggling, along with the idea of women buying lingerie for the male gaze, but this was still canny forecasting. Three years later, Kim Kardashian would launch her shapewear and lingerie brand Skims, now worth $3.2 billion (£2.6 billion), so when Covid put the world on pause a few months later and traditional bra sales fell by 16 per cent (according to the US market researcher NPD), both she and M&S were well placed to profit from our rapid lifestyle shift.

So, what is this hero bra like to wear? I tried the A-E-cup version in a C-cup, as Halima had advised me to size down (there is also an F-H-cup style, as well as minimiser, post-surgery and nursing versions). For a start, the fabric is really soft: there’s no mistaking the feel of it when blindly rummaging through your underwear drawer without your specs. Nor is there any irritation from scratchy lace or labels. And the band doesn’t roll up – the eternal issue with sports bras. 

Plus, it looks elegant enough to wear as a crop top on its own. I wore mine on holiday in Italy last week with high-waisted linen shorts and a matching shirt on top, worn open. I’m not alone: M&S has sold almost half a million of these bras to date. I’m late to the party.

M&S is not the only lingerie manufacturer to tap into this demand for non-wired bras catering to larger cup sizes: Bravissimo has pretty lace bra­lettes that support up to a J-cup, from £36; John Lewis’s affordable Anyday range includes the non-wired Willow bra, which goes up to an E-cup, £20. The most competitive appear to be Sloggi’s Zero-Feel bralette, £35, and the Spanx Bra-llelujah! non-wired bralette, £36.

My only minor complaint is that, while supportive, the Flexifit doesn’t keep the breasts separate like an underwired bra, which makes all the difference to the way your clothes hang. While there’s nothing to stop you wearing it all day, every day, I’m most likely to wear it for a pilates class, when walking the dog, or just around the home. When I’m going to work or socialising with friends, I still want that lift and separation in order that my shirts and dresses look as good as possible – and that, as far as I’m concerned, can still only be provided by a traditional underwired bra.

However, it has proved me wrong about non-wired bras, all the same. They can be supportive and comfort­able – even if you have a middle-of-the-­alphabet chest.