So here's the short version: you go there to get the best damned bra fitting in your life. You want the lacy display models, mood music, and the saleswomen who will tell you that you look great in everything? Go elsewhere. You like to browse? Go elsewhere. You want a true New York shopping experience and get good value for your money? Shop here. You hate to shop and want it over with as quickly as possible while making sure you get what you need? This is your bra mecca.
Here's the long version:
I first learned of this place 10 years ago through a story in New York Magazine. Since I'm an intrepid tourist in my own city, I added it to my list of places to go the next time I was on the Lower East Side.
I walked in on a cold, blustery day, wearing a banker's wool coat over a sweater and blouse. Ralph, the proprieter, looked at me, I told him I was shopping for bras. He sized me. Right there. Did I mention the coat over the sweater over the blouse? Yeah. He sized me, turned around, pulled down two boxes, handed them to his mother, Magda (who has since retired), and waved me to the back of the store. I tried the bras on behind the sheet that was hung over a clothesline. They were perfect. The best fit I've ever had.
***
I believe in sharing the love. So, I brought my partner there. She's the butch one, doesn't want her rack to be protruding out. They fitted her with a great sports bra, to keep everything compressed.
***
Then, we bring her mom and aunt in. So now, four women in a shop that can hold maybe 6 people comfortably... provided we line up in a row. Never mind; it's a party! While we're there, some youngsters from the NYU film school are there doing a project. They are grateful that we arrive because - well, they're NYU film students! Not a one of them over size 4, and maybe the largest bust size among them is a 32C. We are all *ahem* ample women. The students are delirious: they want to film us and talk about the store. Ralph and his wife hustle the film-nervous mom and aunt to the back of the store to try out bras while we regale the students with our joy of finding Orchard Street Corsets.
Now, the mom and aunt live in Florida. They come up once a year, and insist on an annual pilgrimage to Orchard Street Corset.
***
A few years back, my partner and I have a wedding. I need a wedding corset. Where else should I shop? I go to Orchard Street Corset! I tell them: "functional." (I say this because I have previously purchased a bright red satin corset from them in the past, which I adore, but is not suitable for the gown I'm going to wear for the wedding.) I walk out with a piece I can only describe as the most severe underwear I've ever owned. (Which is not a bad thing in my book!). Shot through with steel supports, it was as plain a corset than I've seen outside a 1908 Sears Roebuck catalogue. Just what I asked for, and more: cotton next to my body - which wicked the sweat away from my dress - and satin on the outside, allowing my dress to flow beautifully across my waist and hips.
***
MY mother comes in from Michigan. She needs a new bra and a strapless bra for the dress she's planning to wear at my wedding. Mom and Ralph argue: she is convinced that she wears a 38D, he tells her she's a 40C. Finally, with a sniff, he pulls out the one HE thinks she should wear. She stamps her foot and makes him get the one SHE thinks she wears. He tells her to try both of them on.
She buys the one he recommends. As she's purchasing it, Ralph says "what... just one? Your daughter here tells me you're from out of state! You'll want three." My strongminded mother disagrees. He tsks, and tells her "you'll want three."
Six weeks later my mother calls me and asks me to pick up two more of bras of the type she got at Orchard Street Corset.
***
Last year, my partner lost about 125 pounds, and was a brand new size everywhere, including in the bust. Off to Orchard Street we go! Ralph and Fayge exclaim and comment and do all the things that "mishpocha" do. Fayge tells me: "you take good care of her."
For lesbian couples out there, you know what a big deal this is. Especially from Orthodox Jews! Always and ever since, if I stop by there by myself, I'm always asked "how's your friend doingk? Best of health to her!" (doingk - because, ya know, Yiddish is the first language here.)
***
Today, I brought the mother of a friend down to Orchard Street Corset. She's 79. She had been to a special "one-day fitting" event at a local chain women's store, and was unhappy with the result. We squeezed into Orchard Street Corsets, and Ralph got her a chair to wait until his wife was free to help her. As she looked around, her eyes brightened when she saw that a favorite brand (one not carried by previously-mentioned chain) was one he carried - and in the long line that she prefers. She walked out with four of them.
I will never shop anywhere else for bras. read more