KEY POINTS:
All you need to know about becoming a bra-ologist - a bra-fitting expert - from our careers pages with Bendon's Carol Rashleigh.
Name: Carol Rashleigh
Age: 50 plus
Working hours: Normal retail, around 40-50 hours
Employer: Bendon
Pay scale: Starting from $35,000
Qualifications: Retail experience, people skills, Training on the job
Prospects: Retail opportunities here and overseas
Describe your job
Bra-ologist means a bra fitting expert. I make sure that everyone is wearing the correct size and the right style. I also train the people in the stores to fit bras.
Why did you choose the job?
I love working with people. To get someone wearing the right bra is so rewarding. It's not for everybody. You have to be comfortable with bodies - because I can assure you that what we see in fitting rooms is not always the glamour job that it might appear to be.
What is your background?
I started with the company 22 years ago. I moved from nursing into sales and management, then retail.
What does the job involve?
I opened our Newmarket store and worked on the floor, and learned what people wanted. People are discerning now. They have busy lives and want the experience to be good. They are in the fitting room, taking clothes off and they don't want to have dash out to the shop to find another bra. So it's about learning different figure types, and different breast shapes, of course. They're not all just sitting up there pointing forward. The 12B perfect figure is the easy fit and that's not the majority of the people.
What training do you need?
Training is provided on the job. A new employee would need to work in our stores for at least 12 months before they could be let them loose in the fitting rooms as a bra-ologist.
They can travel the world with this job. We employ people to work in Selfridges in the UK and in Saks on Fifth Avenue in the US.
Why is the job important?
It's hard to get good people in retail. It's a fashion industry now, the market is huge. People walk into a lingerie store and they are daunted by the choices. We wanted to make people feel OK about going into fitting rooms again. Bra fitting is such a dying art and we wanted to make it modern.
What's the best part of the job?
I love the product, I love people and I love the reward of having a happy customer.
How many bra-ologists are there in New Zealand?
Bendon has 25 and is training more.
Any interesting tales?
One lady came to me, saying, 'Dear, I don't know what to do. Everything is heading south, my face, my boobs, my bum'. And it was so true because as you get older everything does start to head south. There was another, an elderly lady, who popped into the fitting room and when we went back in, she was stark naked. We said, 'We'll just get you to pop a few more clothes back on'. But you couldn't print most of the funny stories in our industry.
Don't people imagine bra-ologists being like Mrs Slocombe in Are You Being Served?
The old word corsetiere is gone. We have trademarked this new word bra-ologist that is being used in New Zealand, in the UK and the US. I still get called a corsetiere but the product was different 20 years ago. It was rigid and you did need help to get in and out of garments. You didn't leave people in the fitting room, and some of the garments had 50 hooks down the back. What people want these days is a good fit; a comfortable everyday bra.
They want to be able to get into it in two seconds, not two hours.
Is it suitable to younger women or more mature?
I run training courses for David Jones and Myers in Australia and I go to Dubai and train people who work there. Those are the nice parts of my job. We say you need different ages and even different nationalities because it is so personal that people unknowingly will choose someone who looks approachable. Or they think that a small person won't know about big-busted people. We try and have a mixture of ages but it is suited to someone who has a more mature outlook.
Do you hear a lot of puns?
It is an interesting conversation opener. I fit bras probably more from a male perspective. When we did a press release last year in Australia, the FM breakfast boys asked 'What's a bra-ologist?' Then they wanted to know how to get that job. Lingerie always fascinates people.
What qualities does a bra-ologist need?
Empathy and people skills. There's a lot of product knowledge to learn but that can all be acquired on the job. A good rapport with women.
