Can the Internet Help Women Feel Better About Their Breasts?

The idea for True & Co. came to Michelle Lam during a shopping trip. She was a former principal at Bain Capital in Boston who’d moved with her husband to San Francisco in 2011. “I wasn’t intending to focus on bras until I got stuck in a lingerie store fitting room in San Francisco, and two hours later I walked out empty-handed,” she says. “I had a lot of time in that fitting room to think, and I had a couple of insights. First was that a bra fitting is the worst shopping experience you can have, and second was that there was nothing wrong with my body because I couldn’t find a bra that fit. There was something wrong with the product.”

For those unfamiliar with the rite, a traditional bra fitting is a cross between that dream where you’ve forgotten to wear your clothes to school and an episode of The Walking Dead. Upon entering a boutique, a usually older, often pushy lady approaches with a demented intensity, staring at your chest. She stuffs you into a fitting room, demands you take off your shirt, and uses her cold hands, along with a measuring tape, to deduce your bra size. Sometimes it’s different from what you have on; for this you’re shamed. You eventually buy a couple of $80 bras and leave, demoralized and broke. “The experience of having someone measure me and reduce me to a size was something that I felt should be questioned,” says Lam.