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Retailer has really got some front
STACIA BRIGGS
21 July 2008
As if the backache, leering and inability to jog without fear of coming home with two black eyes* wasn't bad enough, now women with bigger busts are set to fall victim to a stealth tax on bras from Marks and Spencer.
The high street retailer has this week defended its policy of charging extra on some of its bras that are bigger than a size DD (if you're a man, this means Sharon Osborne all the way up to Katie Price and Dolly Parton, taking in Ann Widdecombe along the way).
“Most of our customers are happy to pay a small premium for the specialist work needed to make larger sizes of bra,” said a spokesperson.
I think by “specialist work”, they're referring to underwiring and those ridiculous miniature bows manufacturers insist on placing between bra cups (if you're a man, this means the mechanised lifting apparatus, scaffolding, winches on chains and hydraulics involved in making bigger bras).
Interestingly, M&S doesn't charge more for larger size clothes, with the price tag for a size eight pair of jeans being precisely the same as that on a pair of size 24 jeans, despite the extra roll of denim needed on the production line.
I bet this decision was taken by a woman. A woman with really small bazookas.
Believe you me, larger bosoms are a mixed blessing, whether or not you take into account the latest financial penalty on those of us who sport jug, rather than cup sizes.
On the one hand, they appear to be an ice-breaker at parties (literally, if you lean forward too far into the freezer) on the other it can often feel as if you're carrying the weight of the world on your ribcage.
Having a big bust is a bit like being a dwarf, having no hair or being very fat: it's an open invitation for people to offer you the benefit of their opinion about something that is none of their business whatsoever.
I have had complete strangers ask me if they can 'have a feel' on the basis that they're not convinced my twin assets are God's gift, rather than the result of a surgeon, a large cheque and a bicycle pump.
In hindsight, such requests may have been anything other than an innocent enquiry about physiology and more of an attempt to cop a quick feel under the guise of a fact-finding mission: curse my naivety and willingness to help.
On the whole, I've found that women get far more het up about hooters than men: worrying about whether they're too big, too small, too lop-sided, too many miles down their journey south or too damn magnificent for this world (or is that just me?).
Men normally have a far less complicated approach to breasts: they like them, they like looking at them and they wish we'd wear wet t-shirts a little more often.
Let's put it this way: I have rarely had a conversation with a man along the lines of whether I am betraying my gender because I'm wearing a low-cut top.
Recently, in a monthly style magazine, a fashion writer stated that cleavages and large bosoms were 'out'. This, of course, for those of us who aren't packing chicken fillets in our bras or are Jordan-like yo-yo plastic surgery addicts, is quite bad news.Short of strapping myself into a surgical truss, I'm stuck with my chest until the day I shuffle off to meet my maker. Flaunt it and I'm 'out', cover it up and somehow it looks even bigger or worse, transforms into some kind of monstrous 'uni-boob' shelf.And look at the fashion advice those of us with melons rather than grapes are expected to embrace in an attempt to “minimise a larger chest”.
“Large handbags tend to draw attention away from the bust and make your breasts appear smaller in relation to the sheer size of the bag,” suggests one fashion writer.
Fabulous: as if carrying a huge set of Eartha Kitts around all day, every day, isn't enough, now we've got to carry a suitcase to offset our rack as well - it's a fast track to a dowager's hump by the age of 30.
In my experience, larger-chested ladies have the choice of working three looks: (a) nursing earth mother (b) blousy trollop or (c) imposing matron/nit nurse.
Wear a v-neck and half the population will address any conversation with you to your chest, wear a polo-neck and you'll look as if you're about to stick a thermometer up someone's rectum, wear a sports bra and you'll look like an extra from Return of the Mummy, wear no bra and discover that your chest keeps moving for a good ten seconds after you've stood still.
Charge us more for bigger bras? The bloody things should be available on the NHS.
* Clearly, the inability to jog is a benefit of having a mighty rack rather than a bad thing, but I like to give the illusion that I'd jog if I wasn't hindered by my chest. The truth, of course, is that I'd rather pluck out my eyes with coathangers than go for a run, unless I was running somewhere necessary, like from the car to the shop in the rain, or away from a hungry tiger.
A TERRIBLE ADVERT FOR SKIN CREAM
It's important not to let yourself go, even if you're locked in a prison cell awaiting trial for abducting your daughter and forcing her to live in a sex dungeon with your secret family.
It came as news to me, but apparently prisons aren't like long-stay spas, they're rather grim places without any Chanel concessions, hot stone therapists or nail bars. I know: just imagine.
Josef Fritzl, Austria's other monster with a penchant for hidden underground bunkers, has asked for a ready supply of anti-ageing creams to be delivered to him in his cell.
Being a maniac is terribly unflattering to the complexion - the worry lines alone can add at least another 10 years to your face, and the dust created by excavating under your house to construct your own dungeon is awfully drying.
Seventy-three-year-old Fritzl is keen to look as youthful as possible for his eventual trial, although frankly the only anti-ageing treatment likely to stop his wrinkles in their tracks is going to be death, or at the very least course sandpaper and an industrial plane.
One thing's for sure, all the major cosmetic companies will be praying that he doesn't identify their product as his anti-ageing cream of choice.
Because if we find out which potion he's been applying for all these years, we'll have definitive proof that it really doesn't work.
HOLIDAY HELP FOR ECONOMY
My children hold no truck with this 'credit crunch' business and are looking forward to six straight weeks of conspicuous consumption over the summer holidays.
By the end of it all, I may be single-handedly responsible for halting the recession in its tracks, solely on the basis of how much I'll be ploughing back into the British economy during the next month and a half.
In my day, a fiver would buy two return bus tickets from Costessey into Norwich, two swims at St Augustine's pool, a couple of tickets at the ABC cinema and two bags of chips after the film. If you had a tenner, you could have bought a house in north city next door to the pool for use as a private changing room and still had change for a meal at Wimpy. Today, a fiver would barely graze the surface of the bus journeys, let alone anything else - by this time next month I will have broken the bank, in addition to breaking my toes. Still, onwards and upwards. I'm off for the next two weeks attempting to keep up with the kids with my newly-acquired skill of power-limping. No sports bra required.
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