What Do You Do With A Broken Bra?

A lot of bra damage is preventable, thank goodness. I’ve covered those tips here (and elsewhere on the blog) if you missed them. But what if you’ve done everything right, and something goes wrong anyway? Here’s what to do with a broken bra.

Ask for help.

A seam that’s seen better days.

Tell your fitter about it as soon as you can. The earlier you tell us that something’s wrong, the more likely it is that we can help! Wash the bra and bring it by for us to check out. We’ll do our best to determine the cause of the problem and help you fix it. It’s usually one of two scenarios:

Scenario #1: Your bra is worn out. Sadly, no bra lasts forever. Depending on how it’s worn and cared for, a reasonable lifespan for a good quality bra could be a few months or a few years. (The difference is often due to those tips I linked to above.) If your bra’s reached the end of the road, thank it for its service and let it go with love.

Scenario #2: Your bra is busted. We have the technology. We can re-build it! Probably. If an underwire is poking out, or there’s a small tear, or some stitching needs to be reinforced? We’ve got you. Our alterationist can do little repairs like this easily. Depending on the repair and the cause, we might cover the cost or you might. If the problem is more severe, like a snapped underwire, you’ll need to replace the bra. (Replacing underwire sounds simple, but is basically impossible. You can’t buy just one underwire or one pair,  and they come in different sizes and shapes. Bras: they’re complex!)

Timing is key, and so is patience.

An underwire that’s escaped from its bra.

We’ll do everything we can to make things right for you, and we’ll have the best shot at it the sooner we know there’s a problem. However, it may take some time to get things resolved. We’re a tiny business! Automatic replacements aren’t something we can realistically offer in most cases. We very rarely stock duplicates of an item in any size, because everything we have in store is something we’ve bought! Keeping duplicates on hand at this stage — under two years in business — would inhibit our ability to bring you new things and continue to grow. “Slow but steady,” you know what I mean?

So if something’s gone really awry with your bra, we’ll probably talk to the supplier and ask them about replacing it. If you’ve had the bra for more than six months or so, they’ll likely chalk up any problems to wear’n’tear. But if it’s newish and well cared for, they may send you a new bra. We also want to alert them to issues in case it’s not just your bra — it could be a batch error, there may be recalls, etc. If that’s what happened, it doesn’t mean the bra or brand is bad! It’s just that bras are made by humans, and sometimes humans make mistakes.

Don’t panic!

When a bra breaks, especially if it’s a favourite, it’s easy to freak out. But try not to! All may not be lost. And we’re always here to help.