Berenice Bejo has a starring role in the recent Golden Globe winner and Academy Award-nominated movie "The Artist."  But, what many may not know is that under her flawless gown at the Golden Globes she was wearing a Maidenform strapless bra.

To be more specific, it was the Maidenform Custom Lift Strapless bra style 9455. I think this was a great choice.  This strapless bra has a rather unique feature. Its padding in the bottom of the cups is sized differently for each cup size. So, the amount of padding in an A cup is more than the padding in the B, C, or D cups – the padding decreases as the cup sizes increase.  This unique construction of the strapless bra means it stays up and will not look unnatural on you.

Berenice looked fabulous and so can you! 

Find Maidenform lingerie at HerRoom in these departments:
Bras
Panties

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Today the Panache Full Busted Underwire Sports Bra 5021 made its way onto "The Today Show" with Hoda and Kathie Lee.  What they loved about it was its "bounce free" factor.  I agree with them, but I also love its look.

This is one of the prettiest sports bras on the market today.  It’s multi-tone color-blocking and uniquely designed back make it a stand-out that can be worn alone or peeking out of work-out clothes. And, so far our 10 reviews have all given it a 5 star rating – truly high praise.

When looking for a high-impact bra, you really do want full breast coverage – otherwise the breasts will bounce out of the open area on top. And, having a wider strap is not only more comfortable, but can actually give you extra padding against some of the gym equipment that rests on your shoulders.

This Panache sports bra also has unusually high cup sizing for a high impact bra. Panache makes this bra up to an H cup (their H cup is 7 sizes larger than a D cup). Given that this bra is encapsulation designed, this is quite a feat.  And, this bra has been independently tested and was shown to reduce breast bounce by at least 83%.

Many of us share the New Year’s resolution of getting into better shape.  With this bra, you will look and feel good working out in 2012.

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It’s no secret that Elomi is known for bringing full busted women great choices in lingerie and now the brand is expanding their bra offerings of K cup sizing. This is a win/win for Elomi and their K cup customers who until now have had a very limited selection to chose from.  In fact, many K cup women have not been wearing their proper cup size, so these are potentially new customers.

When you combine functionality with luxurious designs, the final product is a bra that full figure/full busted women truly enjoy wearing.  And Elomi strives to create that experience with every style. Key features you’ll find in many Elomi bras are 3 part and 4 part cups that support and give shape, side support panels that project the breasts forward and non-stretch straps for comfort and lift. These key ‘ingredients’ are especially great for those new K cup sizes.

An important point here is that not all manufacturers make the same K cup sizing.  For example, Aviana, Elila, Fancee Free and some Goddess styles all come in K cup sizes, but what they call a K cup is 4 cup sizes smaller than Elomi’s K cups.  So, keep this in mind if you are looking at Elomi bras – your size is not called a K.

Gone are the days of only unattractive lingerie choices for women with larger breasts.  Elomi continues to be at the forefront of bringing beautiful bras to the full figured woman. Even makes us average bra-size girls jealous that we can’t fit into them.

Find elomi lingerie at HerRoom in these departments:
Bras
Panties
Plus-Size Lingerie

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I was on a long flight recently, and well, you know, you eventually end up speaking to the person next to you. As soon as I tell them what I do, especially if it’s a woman, I can settle in for a nice long conversation about underwear. This last trip was no exception. A quick look at her, and I immediately told her why most bras are not fitting her. She is petite.

What is a petite bra? It’s a bra that is pared down to better fit and flatter a women who is short in stature. When a bra is classified as petite, this usually means the cups have less coverage, are closer together, and the straps are shorter. Though this new brand we are carrying – Lula Lu Petites – has the word ‘petites’ in the name, this is not what their bras are. Instead, Lula Lu bras are focusing on women of all sizes who have very little breast tissue. Their bras go from a B cup size all the way down to an AAA cup size.

Now, an important point needs to be made here about cup sizing. In the larger cup sizes many manufacturers go D, DD, DDD with their cup sizes. The more D’s, the bigger the cup size. Not so with A cups. They go in the opposite direction. So, in order of smallest to largest, Lula Lu Petites lingerie goes AAA, AA, A, B.

Figure-flattering bras and matching panties make up Lula Lu’s lingerie collection, with an emphasis on style and function. But Lula Lu is really more about the small busted woman rather than a petite woman. I spoke with company President, Ellen, about this recently. We had a very candid discussion. She is aware that the word ‘petite’ has kind of been hijacked by the short-in-stature community, but she also thinks it’s not only an accurate word for her products, but kinder than saying ‘small busted.’ I sympathize with her dilemma. But, having read many comments from our smaller busted customers, they are rather emboldened and not offended by their breast size. The ones that are have pretty much had surgery to solve their concern. The women left with small breasts are happy with their breast size and don’t mind being called ‘small busted.’

Lula Lu is focusing on accurate sizing for smaller busted women who wear dress sizes 0-8. The end result: better bra sizing for small-busted women. Lula Lu Petites bras range from 30-38 band sizes, offering A, AA, AAA and B cup sizes. FYI, the difference between an AA cup and an AAA cup is that an AA cup is less than 1" different from the band measurement, and the AAA has less than 1/2" difference. HerRoom is not carrying AAA cup sizes of this brand currently.

In the brand’s collection, Lula Lu features t-shirt bras, great for everyday wear, some that include removable padding with the thought that not all small-busted women want the appearance of larger breasts. So you can have the option of natural or enhanced cleavage.

Finally, small-busted women don’t have to sacrifice sex appeal, Lula Lu also makes seductive bras and panties that are both comfortable and stylish. I’m happy to announce that Lula Lu Petites is now available at HerRoom.

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I don’t need any more boots.  Over the last couple of years, i think I have collected every style – booties, thigh boots, motorcycle boots and on and on.  But, I confess to wanting all of them to look more current and modern.  Well, I found my answer – wear them with socks.

It took me a while this fall to figure out how all of this works, but now that I have, I want to share it with you.  The great new look is taking your skinny jeans, putting a pair of long socks OVER your jeans, then putting on a pair of tall boots while making sure the tops of your socks are higher than the boots.  It’s really a smart look. My favorites are the Hue Over the Knee Sock 12417 and Over the Knee Bootliner Socks 6491.

For my shorter boots, I have found taller socks and then rolled the top down over the top of the boot to give them a kind of a knit collar.  My absolute favorite socks for doing this are the Hue Luster Furry Socks 12329.  They are super soft and fluffy looking. Our images are not really accurate because the sock comes up at least an inch higher than we are showing.  Though they look thick, they smoosh down and are not bulky.  I don’t feel like I have a really thick sock inside my boots.  I have every color, but find I use the red a lot.  Great fun look.  I also use these socks with my clogs.

Want a new look for all your boots?  The simple solution is to have a great collection of socks.

Find Hue at HerRoom in these departments:
Hosiery

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Many women (and men) fall in love with the shape and look that demi and balconette bras can create. Their objective is to expose your upper breast tissue for sexy full cleavage and give a mounding effect to your upper chest that is a sign of youth.  Unfortunately, this bra style, that comes with wide-set straps, is not right for every woman to wear. Oh, and demi bras and balconette bras are one and the same.

Demi bras look best on women with average to small bust sizes and whose upper breasts are rather full. If full coverage bras leave your cups half empty or cause a wrinkled look, then demi styles might also be an answer because the small cup shape is more forgiving of a woman with less breast tissue.

If you love the demi look but want more coverage, go for a semi-demi cup bra. This is a great solution for women with large areolas that might peek out in traditional demi cups.

If you’re hunting for a great demi bra, I recommend Le Mystere Francesca, Chantelle Icone 3855, Cosabella SN1171 and La Perla 901634.

For full-busted women, demi bras can actually give you an overflowing look or cause an unflattering indentation at the upper breast so I recommend avoiding this style altogether. Keep in mind that Fantasie, Elomi and Freya brands call their bra styles with a low front or sweetheart neckline a balcony bra, but these are not true demi styles. These brands specialize in bras for full-busted women for the very best fit and support.

Finally, if you have issues with your straps falling off your shoulders, a demi or balconette bra is simply going to exacerbate this – this bra style always comes with wide-set straps.

If you are not a candidate for this type of bra, take heart.  You can still look sexy in other styles such as plunge bras, pretty lacy styles, and the ever-popular sheer bras.  There’s more than one way to do sexy.

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It’s October!  Did you also know it’s the month for the second annual bra recycling campaign?

This month, along with the traditional Breast Cancer and Domestic Violence Awareness campaigns, The Bra Recyclers, based in Gilbert, Arizona have decided to help bring awareness to these issues by collecting and recycling bras. There are women across America without a clean and properly fitted bra. The Bra Recyclers say that last year’s collection gave self-esteem and strength to the thousands of women who received the gently-used or new bras that had been donated.

This year, the Bra Recyclers are hosting weekly raffles to give away prizes.  Each woman who makes a donation is put into the drawing for a chance to win the prize.  To see the updated list of prizes, go to The Bra Recyclers website .

Last year, more than 7,000 bras were donated to The Bra Recyclers. And the hope is that this year, they will more than double that number.  “This year our goal is to collect 10,000 recycled bras,” said Birks-Mitchell. “We know we can do it, because this is a simple way for anyone to support Breast Cancer and Domestic Violence Awareness.”

For more information about The Bra Recyclers, including charity organizations they support, and more Bra Recycling Month details, please visit www.brarecycling.com.

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There are 6 Knock Out panty styles – each with a liner made of "No Trace" fabric.  This technology is built into the fibers and therefore does not wear or wash out.  And, the line is made in America. Check out the Knock Out line at HerRoom.

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Well, now my bubble has been burst.  I learned recently that a size 0 today was a size 8 back in the 1970′s.  As a child, I remember one of my babysitters telling me that she once waited on Jackie O for a bathing suit and sold her a size 10.  So, for years, I thought as long as I stayed under a size 10, I was just fine.  Well, now I’m finding that her size 10 of the 70′s is today’s size 2!

So, what’s going on? According to Ed Gribbin, President of Alvanon Inc – a clothing size and fit consultant to the fashion industry, the industry is playing with the sizing numbers so that more plus-size women can fit in sizes that sound more standard.  Today’s size 14 has a bust measurement of 44 inches, a waist of 38 inches and hips of 46 inches.  So, though 1/3 of the American population of women are plus-sized, only 15% of clothing sales go to clothing classified as plus-sized.  In other words, they have shifted the sizing scale downward, created sizes like 0 and 00 at the bottom of the size scale so that traditionally average sizes like 10, 12 and 14 are actually fitting plus-sized women.

However, getting the right fit in these new sizes is a challenge.  As I blogged about before, once a woman gets to a certain size, she starts to hold her weight in a variety of areas.   In contrast, the smaller sizes tend to put on weight proportionally in the same areas and this allows the manufacturer to know how to grade a pattern for the different sizes.  We’ve all heard about the fruit shape comparisons.  The apple shape means you have a large tummy.  The pear shape means you have large hips.  These two silhouettes do not fit in clothing the same way – the weight distribution is diverse in these larger sizes.

Lane Bryant, a retailer of plus-sized clothing, has been making 3-D scans of many of their customers’ bodies since 2004. They now have more than 65,000 unique body measurements for comparison analysis.  What they found is that 15% of women in the plus sized category had more than a 10 inch difference between their waist and hips.  70% of these women had a difference between waist and hips within an 8-10 inch variance, and another 15% only has a 4-6 inch variance between these two measurements.  That’s a lot of variation!  So, there is no one dress shape or pant style that will fit all plus-sized women.

The lesson in all of this is that plus-sized women need to know not only their size, but their body shape.  The latest thinking is that there are 4 shapes – round, curvy, bottom-heavy and straight.

Since I sell underwear, once I learned this, I immediately thought of the challenges plus-sized women have with shapewear.  Shapewear is really made with the assumption that you are for the most part pretty straight up and down.  So by figuring out her body shape, a full-figure woman can make the right shapewear decisions  If she has a fuller bottom, two pieces of shapewear – one for the top and one for the bottom – will give her the best results. If she’s more straight, a one-piece shapewear will probably work.

So, say goodbye to the fruit analogies, and figure out what body shape you have if you are plus-sized.  This will go a long way in helping you find the best-fitting and figure-flattering clothing.

Find Shapewear that fits at HerRoom in these departments:
Shapewear
Plus-Size Lingerie

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Before I was in the lingerie business, I had given birth to two girls. I distinctly remember the maternity lingerie I bought. Few if any stores had maternity lingerie.  So, I went to Target, found 3 awful looking white bras and these big white granny-panties that came up and over my belly.  As I purchased them, I felt resigned to giving up on anything pretty or sexy for the next 6 months.

Boy, is today’s maternity lingerie different.  I look at it and it almost, ALMOST makes me want to think about having a baby again.  Gone are the institutional-style underwear pieces.  Replacing them are beautiful looking bras and panties in a variety of styles, colors and trims.  In fact, they have become so pretty that I suggest them to all my friends with pregnant daughters. I can’t imagine a better gift for a mother to give her daughter once she hears of the pregnancy.  What an emotional lift to a mother-to-be to see that she can still look pretty during this special time.

Taking this one giant step further, I ran across these great videos by HotMilk Maternity. What I love about them is that rather than a woman dealing with her condition and feeling like she’s sort of all alone, these videos bring the man in their life into the whole experience.  I know you’ll love watching both.

Find HOTmilk lingerie at HerRoom in these departments:
Bras
Panties

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