A personal appeal to Gok Wan

All new mums at some point have to do one thing: buy new bras.

Those boobs have been all over the shop during pregnancy, the first few weeks of having the baby and potentially during the months of breastfeeding. So it’s a shame that buying new bras is so soul-destroying.

I’m no Dolly Parton, but I’m also no ‘two aspirins on an ironing board’ type of girl, either. I’m somewhere in between and I won’t lie, I’m happy with what God gave me. During my 20s, I went on a number of occasions to various department stores to be measured – usually by some 50-something, kindly lady with a measuring tape – and I was always told the same thing. ‘You’re a 36C.’

Jolie bra, Freya, £29

Then, three years ago, I went to Bravissimo to be measured and I don’t think it’s any exaggeration to say it changed my life. After spending ten minutes with them (with no measuring tape in sight), they told me I was a 34E. I’ve been back there a couple of times since, then last week went to Leia in Bluewater to buy some ‘I’ve got my body back at last’ bras and was measured as a 32FF.

But here’s my problem. Walk into M&S (because let’s face it, that’s where we all buy most of our underwear) and there are a tiny selection of bras in my size. To look at, I’m very average in the chest department, and I can’t help but think that if more women were measured correctly at places like Bravissimo and Leia, they’d be much smaller in the back than they think, and much larger in the cup than they think. So why do M&S (they’re not the only culprits – most shops are the same) pedal this myth that we should be wearing 36Cs instead of 32FFs?

So, Gok Wan. I’m appealing to you. You need to help the nation’s bangers. Please do a TV show on Channel 4 that challenges the underwear industry to start making bras that fit our real bodies. It would be great – you could set up huge measuring stations in The Bullring and then show M&S how many women need a bigger range of small-back-large-cup bras.

I’ll only take 10% as my fee.