Marks & Spencer Celebrates Five Years of Post-Surgery Lingerie

This summer marks five years since Marks & Spencer became the first high street retailer to launch its own collection of feminine and pretty post-surgery lingerie.

The range was developed in response to a customer letter sent to Stuart Rose, the then CEO of M&S, which outlined the challenge of finding pretty, affordable lingerie suitable for wearing, post-surgery. Stuart Rose took action by challenging the M&S Lingerie Department to develop a range tailored to meet these needs, and so M&S launched its groundbreaking collection in the summer of 2006.

To celebrate this important anniversary, M&S has published a guide to Post-Surgery Bras, created in conjunction with Breakthrough Breast Cancer, on its website. The downloadable PDF offers suggestions as to which styles of bras may be most suitable for women after surgery, explains why the right bra is so important and highlights the different components of post-surgery bras. The guide can be downloaded from the ‘lingerie features’ area of www.marksandspencer.co.uk.

In addition to the guide, April saw the high street favourite raise further funds for Breakthrough Breast Cancer, as it launched its 2011 collection for Fashion Targets Breast Cancer. The range focuses on versatile, on-trend monochrome pieces and 30% of sales will be donated to the charity.

M&S is dedicated to supporting women affected by breast cancer, offering an extensive range of post-surgery lingerie, which is updated each season. The retailer raises over £2 million for Breakthrough Breast Cancer each year via donations on a wide range of products in October for Breast Cancer Awareness Month, employee fundraising, Christmas card sales and a Change 4 Change scheme, which converts foreign and outdated currency into funds for Breakthrough.

Debenhams has revealed that embarrassment is causing 85% of the female population to wear the wrong sized bra

Despite Debenhams carrying out over one million bra fits a year, the majority of women would rather spare their own blushes than go and get measured for a bra that does the job.

The findings came from a survey by Debenhams, which showed that going topless, feeling uncomfortable and being made to feel embarrassed came out as reasons women felt reluctant to go for a professional bra fitting - all three are completely false.

Debenhams head of lingerie buying and design Sharon Webb commented: "The results of our survey were shocking - it's astounding how many myths there are surrounding how a bra fit works.

"What's more a woman can go from a 36B to a shapely 32D in a matter of minutes by getting a good bra fit - no drastic surgery required."

Britain's first lady of lingerie, designer Aliza Reger added: "Fit is of paramount importance, a great fitting bra makes you look good on the outside and feel fantastic on the inside. 

"It really is staggering how many women get it totally wrong.  There really is nothing worse than an unsupported bust or spilling over the top of an ill-fitting bra."

Until the 22nd May 2011, the hundreds of expertly trained lingerie fitters at Debenhams are fitting as many women as possible, to raise awareness of the importance of wearing the right sized bra and the dramatic difference it can make to a woman's figure.

Women can take advantage of the free bra fitting service in all Debenhams stores, and those who do so during May will receive £5 off bras when they are fitted.