Xuxu and Aida Amoozegar-Montero, the sisters behind the Bra Project. Photo / Gerry Keating, Victoria University of Wellington
After decades of discomfort, two sisters are on a path to give the bra industry a much-needed lift.
Tired of a sector that fails to cater for the needs and comfort of everyone, the Wellington sisters want a world where people can custom-make bras for their unique bodies.
Xuxu and Aida Amoozegar-Montero are completing PhDs at Victoria University of Wellington and getting help from UniVentures, a university unit that helps commercialise student inventions. They are still in the research phase but hope to see their bras become a reality soon.
Xuxu, 29, says she had the idea while completing her master's in Design and working with 3D scanning and knitting for the first time.
Dealing with breast asymmetry - when one breast is a different size or shape than the other - for most of her life and struggling to find bras that were comfortable, supportive and aesthetic, Xuxu realised customised 3D knitting could be part of the solution.
"When I was introduced to this technology I thought it would be really cool to scan myself and see my breast shape.
"And that sparked - why do bras not accommodate for asymmetry, for the slightest difference?
"The way they're fitted hasn't been changed in hundreds of years even though bodies have changed, and are constantly changing. Why hasn't the bra industry and sizing caught up?"
Aida, 28, who is completing her PhD in Sociology and Women's Studies, says they discovered many other women shared their frustrations.
"The first thing you want to do when you get home is take your bra off because it's so uncomfortable.
"This garment that we wear so closely to our bodies, that's so important – not just physically but psychologically as well – why is it so uncomfortable?"
During interviews for their research, the sisters found women often took time to acknowledge they were in discomfort.
"We've become so accustomed to this pain and this feeling that we don't even understand it's hurting us until we really think about it," Xuxu says.
Aida says things are improving, although far from perfect.
Younger generations are less inclined to wear "push-up bras or moulded bras that shape their breasts".
And women working from home during lockdowns realised "they could wear no bra, or a comfy soft bra - but then felt embarrassed about the thought of doing that in front of other people".
"Again we ask, why do we have to sacrifice? Why do the nice comfy soft bras not give us the shape that we want?"
The sisters are focusing their research first on women who have had mastectomies or reconstructive surgery, as their choices are often most limited.
"They're often relegated to a single rack that's deemed the post-surgical rack, that's grey and beige and big and bulky, and doesn't make you feel good," Aida says.
"You've just got these new breasts and gone through the trauma of breast cancer, and you just want to feel good and wear a normal bra and be seen as normal."
Their research, under supervisors Edgar Rodriguez Ramirez and Rhonda Shaw, involves collecting data about the shortcomings of the bra industry.
A website, named the Bra Project, asks people to complete a series of bra use and fit questions, and to take and share manual measurements.
"Our current bra system is not good enough and it's outdated," Aida says.
"Even the new brands that are claiming to have larger sizes, or account for different types of breasts – it's still based on the A B C D sizes.
"How can you categorise everyone in the world into those discrete volumes?
"Something as simple as 34A, that doesn't attest to the complexity of your breasts and it shouldn't."
They are keen to consider materials that stretch and bounce back easily, so people don't have to throw out their bras as their bodies change.
"We want to make sure the bra wearers are really involved in the process, and we're not just designing for someone based on our own needs," Xuxu says.
"We're trying to create a system where we get your personal measurements but we also get a bit of your personal history – what you've gone through but also what you want.
"For us, it's about not having someone fit the bra but rather the bra fitting the individual."