Buying bras is an absolute mine-field, so news that underwear-giant Jockey has launched a new at-home kit that measures not just size, but shape is no doubt music to many a gal’s ears.

Not least the team at Never Underdressed, who have their fair share of fear-inducing bra-tales to tell. When being fitted by an abrupt saleswoman, news editor Harriet Walker was callously told her breasts were ‘the sort of size normally seen on much thinner or petite women’. Possibly not the best technique to get someone to drop the big-bucks a good bra can cost you. 

Not all fitters are so fierce, but that doesn’t necessarily make the experience any less emotionally fraught. On shopping for her first bra, editor Carrie Tyler remembers ‘I was desperate to wear a bra so my mum sympathetically took me to my first fitting at Marks & Spencer where my first bra size was revealed - A 28AAA. And bless M&S they even had a proper scaled-down miniature bra waiting for cases just like mine. I was so proud of the visible bra line under my school shirt the next day, I didn’t wear my sweater all day’.

Over on twitter, @TheNeverTeam followers have met similar horror when restocking their underwear draws. @LucePR described ‘turning round bare chested while being measured and having a man walk in thinking it was his gf's changing room...mortifying’, while @ionadavis balked at ‘being made [to lean] forward and jiggle myself into one to make sure it fit’.

And as for me, my jaw hit the floor when a Rigby and Peller fitter once stared at my bare chest and revealed that instead of being a 34D, as I’d been guessing for a decade, I shared a bra-size with Jordan. That said, the correctly-fitting 30F Empreinte lingerie they sent me on my way with made me look about a stone lighter and my clothes fit a million times better, so I’ve never looked back since. 

Staff writer Lynn Enright confesses ‘I’ve never been measured! I’ve just always guessed as I go and I change from brand to brand’. According to M&S’ Lingerie Fit Expert Julia Mercer, however, being measured is important, as ‘wearing a well-fitting bra makes your outerwear look, feel and fit better, and can improve your posture’, so you’d be wasting every penny you spent on an Alexander Wang t-shirt if you weren’t trussed up correctly underneath it. 

But how do you make sure you get your hands on a bang-on fitting bra? Follow Mercer’s pro-tips and you’ll be well on your way:

‘A well fitted bra should sit with the underband perfectly straight, firmly around the chest but not tight.  You should be able to only fit two fingers under the band for the perfect pressure.  Your bust should be contained within the cup so that you have a clean simple line under clothes.  Wire should sit flat between the breasts, and frame the breast and not sit on breast tissue at the sides’. 

And as Jockey’s new sizing system suggests, breast and body shape is as significant as size. Mercer continues:

‘If you have a slight frame you will not find balcony bras comfortable and you will constantly feel like you are losing your bra straps, so plunges would be a much better fit and shape your breasts beautifully. 

If you have square shoulders and a slight gap between your breasts a balcony bra will be the best fit for you. 

One thing to remember if you need a larger cup, size take it, only you need to know your bra size, but the unsightly lumps and bumps can make you look larger and the perfect fit bra can actually make you look smaller’. 

Godspeed, bra shoppers! May you never leave the shop filled with self-loathing again.