What Is Your Bra Size? - Brarista

Aim

Artificial Intelligence that does professional bra-fitting.

Women deserve a better way of finding bras that fit!

Help us make professional bra-fitting more accurate and accessible at your homes.

                              Our landing page at: www.brarista.co

Hi, my name is Bella and YOU ARE PROBABLY WEARING THE WRONG BRA-SIZE RIGHT NOW.

Me and my team, a troupe of professional bra fitters and tech-junkies that joined forces, want to help women with their bras. Currently, 80% of women are wearing the wrong bra and you are probably one of them. We're currently based at UCL Innovation and Enterprise.

We’ve got amazing traction so far from users at both ends of the bra-fitting journey - bra-wearers and the industry (think the biggest names!). However, we are not yet able to get private investments due to our product being in its R&D phase. Currently no accurate & diverse enough data-set exists for building the MVP and we have taken it upon ourselves to create this data-set.

Your funds will allow us to build the MVP to achieve proof-of-concept.

LET'S CO-CREATE THE WORLD'S SMARTEST AI-ENABLED BRA-FITTING SOFTWARE TOGETHER.

If you are unable to donate, consider joining us for data collection here and as a thank you - we offer complimentary professional bra-fitting.

We're partnering up with organisations like UCL, London of Fashion and Camden Collective on this. 

Spoiler alert: we won't be using any measuring tape, just eyesight.

I. What’s the idea?

Imagine - simply by taking photos of your upper body via your phones, laptops or tablets you can find out what bra size you are in every single intimate-wear brand in the market!

We want to make bra-fitting accurate, accessible and personalised.

What's better? No naked photos will be needed for the app!

II. Why do we need money?

Our proprietary technology is what is classified as DEEPTECH aka. ultra-complex.

... And it is very expensive to build.

Part of it is the data. Just like human beings, our algorithm requires loads of data to learn and get smarter!

However, there isn't enough accurate and diverse dataset of women's bra-sizes out there that we can use to build the vision we have for our prototype.

We want to team up with you for building our data-set where you, the real woman, comes in, gets fitted professionally and we get the data we need by our in-house tech team to build a solution for you.

                   Our data collection poster and our all-female data team

On average, it costs us £8/person; and we need 500 women for our first phase of development.

This does NOT include travel expenses and equipment costs. Our core team doesn’t get paid either.

III. Where are we at?

We've been getting overwhelming support on what we are building from women from all walks of life and support from the industry as well.

1. 40% of the industry players have validated our vision. Many brands and retailers have reached out wanting to test the software;

2. With a budget of £50, we managed to acquire 2,000 email signups from women worldwide saying that they want a solution like this to exist.

                                             Our social media content 

IV. Why is getting a professional bra-fitting important?

Just 2 years ago, I was one of the millions who wear bras that don’t fit.

It wasn’t until when I met a professional bra-fitter (who fitted me by sight and NOT measuring tape) did I learn that I was wearing 2 band-sizes too big and 4 cup-sizes too small. I went from a 36B to 32E.

Before being correctly fitted, I experienced back pain, skin irritation, and breast pain on nearly a daily basis.

I am not exaggerating when I say that the professional bra fitting experience changed my life. I felt better, looked better and appreciated my body in a completely different way.

I was so fascinated by this whole experience that I learned the art of professional bra-fitting by taking a job at Bravissimo.

This experience taught me that this skillset is not easy to acquire, and hence only less than 10% of high-street bra-fitters know how to fit by sight (which provides the most accuracy).

The people behind the movement - hard at work and winning at it. 

V. What have we done so far?

- First Runner Up at Royal Academy of Engineering / the first Femtech to ever been selected to the final round;

- We won Most Innovative Start-Up at Build Challenge at University College London;

- We got selected for exclusive mentorship trips and program by InnovateUK Women in AI&Data, and DeFine FashionTech Network.

GOOD-TO-KNOW FACTS

1. Why are 80% women wearing the wrong bra size?

First - the mainstream bra-fitters are doing it all wrong with the tape measures. Getting fitted using a measuring tape yields only a 30% accuracy rate. The method ignores different breast shapes and your physical conditions when sizing.

Second - there's inconsistency in fit across different products and brands. Knowing one's bra size doesn't guarantee fit or shape when trying out new products.

2. Why should you care about bras that fit?

Numerous research has shown direct causation between ill-fitting bras with muscle pain, breast pain, poor posture, limited physical performance and dampened self-confidence.

In my career as a professional bra-fitter I've witnessed all of this first hand.

This project successfully funded on 7th April 2020