ThirdLove, an inclusive sizing intimates company, now has brick and mortar stores in several ... [+]
ThirdLove, the intimates company made famous for inventing half-cup bra sizes, has opened up several shops in California. ThirdLove fans can now shop in-person in San Francisco, Walnut Creek, Los Angeles and Newport Beach. I visited the new San Francisco store on Fillmore Street, and got to spend an hour with company co-founders, Heidi Zak and Ra’el Cohen. As they walked me through the store, we talked uniboob, bra straps, fit, and boob sweat.
Heidi Zak and Ra'el Cohen, co-founders of ThirdLove at their new shop in San Francisco
First, Cohen asked me if I’d ever had a truly great strapless bra. After some failure flashbacks, I realized that the answer was no. She wasn’t surprised. “Exactly,” she replied. “There's something with how strapless bras are designed that just does all the wrong things. Our strapless bra really acts as it should. It just cups the breast and lifts it. So it doesn't give you that weird uniboob thing.”
Next, Zak and Cohen educated me on the fact that women are often wearing bra bands that are too big, which is part of the reason most of us think that the straps do most of the work. “Oftentimes a woman may think she's, for example, a 38E but really she's a 36D,” says Cohen. “Generally speaking, women tend to wear bands that are too big. When you have a band that is too big the bra is not working as hard as it should. It’s the band that really gives the support, not the straps. If you have underwire on, it's the band and the wire that are doing the majority of the work. So when you get the right band - and generally it's probably smaller than you thought - all of a sudden the bra works for you instead of you working for the bra. Like it's a different relationship.”
Inside the ThirdLove shop in San Francisco
When it comes to fit, ThirdLove believes in a lengthy research-and-development phase and a lot of testing. “Our biggest differentiator is how we fit on different sizes. We have about a dozen women coming in once a week, sometimes twice a week and we do fittings on all of the women,” shares Cohen. “Then they take bras home, actually put them through the paces and then report back on the findings. We go and sweat and then we wash them in our washing machine. The way you're not supposed to, right? We have these ongoing relationships with fit models, real women, and then all the women in our office, too. So we are all wearers and testers of the product.”
Next on the itinerary: their new sports bra, the kinetic. This bra has been in development for two years. “What's wrong with every sports bra that's out there?” asks Cohen. “Boob sweat. I don't know about you, but the boob sweat is a real thing.” Preach.
Ra'el Cohen, co-founder of ThirdLove, with their new sports bra, the kinetic
“You can't get it off after you work out or it's so compressive that you can't breathe or it's not compressive enough. This bra addresses all of that. We have encapsulation with the foam so your breasts won't be pushed together. They're separated. So, it's a supportive sports bra, but it also makes people's breasts look really amazing. It wicks sweat away. Then is has this mesh panel, which allows heat to escape. There’s a wide band to make sure that it's supportive. It's lined with mesh. Then it has the back opening like all of our bras do with tagless printing. So you won't ever have to struggle to get it off post-workout. Then the straps are nice and wide, but they're not thick.”
As a plus-size customer, I wanted to know about fit technology. Currently ThirdLove offers bras in 65 sizes, from 32AA through 44H. Cohen says that the brand strives to have every product look the same on every person regardless of size, but this doesn’t mean every garment is constructed the same way. “Something that the design team is focused on is really maintaining the same aesthetic through the entire size range. There's nothing worse than getting something and having it look totally different than the image you saw online. So the design team spends a lot of time to make sure that as we scale the sizes up and down, the elastics are changed or the lining fabric might be changed. To the outside eye, though, everything you see is exactly the same across the line.”
As my tour sadly comes to an end, Zak and Cohen share that the ThirdLove philosophy is looking at the problems women have with their bra, and fixing those problems for a wide spectrum of bodies. “I just think that's what ThirdLove's hat trick is,” says Cohen. “What makes us special is that we take something that used to be only for a few and make it for as many people as possible.”