Does Your Bra Undermine Your Self-Confidence?

Getting the support you need from your lingerie and no, it’s not underwire).

- LEIGH NEWMAN

So much of my buoyant, beautiful optimism shriveled one night due to a strapless bra. You would not think this could happen. I was in Paris for work. Paris!) I was newly and happily separated. Happily!) I was scheduled to go on a date with a poet. A poet!) As it happened, the morning before the date the temperature in the City of Light skyrocketed to 103 degrees. I fled to the aisles of Monoprix, the French version of Walmart, to buy a light blue sundress that was long and flowy and cooling— and would not show sweat stains while I was sitting in a romantic, un-airconditioned café.

In the dressing room, I looked charming and summery. Back in my Airbnb, I looked dumpy. The straps of the dress were skinny, so skinny that you could not wear a bra under them. And if I didn’t wear a bra, my ladies visibly sagged under the cheap, almost see-through fabric. I’d had two children. I had breastfed them both.