Is your fit a bust?

Jeneen Interlandi stood in a bra and jeans in front of the dressing room’s three-way mirror while a bra-fitting specialist tugged the straps and adjusted the lacy cups of her brassiere.

“See how it digs into you here?” said the fitter, who gave her name only as Adrienne, pointing to the side panel of the 28-year-old graduate student’s bra. “You have too much separation. You’re an A-cup in this bra, but a B-cup in the Donna Karan.”

The racks and benches in the Saks Fifth Avenue dressing room were cluttered with bras in blue, pink, nude and lace. This was the ninth bra that Interlandi had tried, and the fit was still not quite right. As many women know, finding a bra that fits is no simple matter. It’s hardly surprising given the shifting standards for bra sizes. Every brand fits differently, as can every style within a brand.

Ever since Oprah Winfrey broadcast last season that 80 percent of women were wearing the wrong bra size, shoppers and stores have snapped to attention. The show spurred a demand among women to be fitted by in-store experts to ensure that they were buying the right size.

Chantelle Lingerie, a French company, increased to 20 from six the number of women who travel the United States instructing store salesclerks on how to fit the company’s bras. High-end department stores like Nordstrom, Saks Fifth Avenue and Bloomingdale’s all have increased the number of bra-fitters trained and stationed in their lingerie departments.

Lorraine Duckworth, the assistant manager of the lingerie department at Nordstrom in Scottsdale, Ariz., said that on a typical weekend day the department fitted 50 or more women for bras. In the last year the store has hired four additional fitters to meet the demand.

A year ago Alexis Harraka, who was working in the lingerie department at a Nordstrom in New York, had to struggle to convince women that they needed to be fitted for a bra. “Before, women were looking for fashion—-how cute something was,” said Harraka, who now trains fitters for Chantelle. “They weren’t looking for ‘How’s this going to support me?’”

Bras that don’t quite fit can look bad and hurt, too. The wrong size can make a woman sag in the front, give her that dreaded “back fat” in the rear, dig into her shoulders or strain her lumbar region.

But with bras, choice can be a curse. Underwire, no-wire, unlined, padded, one-strap, no-strap, racer-back, push-up, minimize, full-coverage, demi, front hook-—the mind boggles at the task of finding the right bra for each woman, and for each outfit.

Phyllis Debiase, the owner of Brief Encounters, a specialty lingerie shop in New York, points out that every brand of bra fits differently. A 34-B in Chantelle may be a tighter fit than a 34-B in Bali. Worn too much, some bras lose their supportive spring. Weight gain or loss? Time for a new bra.

Even if they can find a bra-fitter, women have to worry that the fitters know what they’re doing. There’s no industrywide certification for bra-fitters, although at Nordstrom, lingerie saleswomen undergo several weeks of training.

“Our fit specialists must be certified in every kind of fit, body type and every style of bra,” said Erica Rios, assistant manager of the Nordstrom lingerie department in Paramus, N.J.

Bra sales exceeded $5 billion last year, an increase of more than 4 percent from the year before, according to the NPD Group, which tracks retail sales. However, bra sales in high-end department stores declined in 2005 as sales in mass-market chains like Target and Sears increased. That suggests that many women are still out there on their own when choosing a bra.

Debiase pities these women. “It’s not just about the tape measurer,” she said. “It’s about what bra complements your lifestyle.”

As confused as bra shoppers may be, fitters take the Byzantine choices in bra fabrics, styles and brands in stride. Back in the dressing room at Saks, Interlandi asked Adrienne, her fit specialist, if she ever just guessed at the size she recommended to clients. “Oh no,” the expert said. “There’s a real science to it.”

E-mail: alg2113@columbia.edu