The Jenette Bras logo is based on Jenette’s handwriting.
… and I’m feeling sentimental. Let’s take a look back at our humble beginnings:
Jenette Bras was founded by me, Jenette Goldstein, and my husband, Aaron Noble, in 2009, at 4308 Melrose Ave, Los Angeles, CA. I was an actress; Aaron was a painter (we still are). Neither of us had ever run a business. Unable to get a business loan at the height of the recession, we financed the first shop with a single line of credit we had taken out years before to build a backyard studio.
Convinced that full-breasted women would go anywhere and pay any price for a bra that fit, we rented a cheap storefront in a bohemian corner of East Hollywood. Aaron’s interior for the store was cobbled together from a set of factory windows purchased from a Habitat for Humanity salvage outlet, pieces of mid-century furniture from junk stores and my Mom’s house, and a hacked kitchen unit from IKEA. Jenette’s childhood black lamp, Leo, still sits by the Man Chair at the Melrose location. We opened on April 30.
At a time when much of America thought there were no cup sizes above ‘D’, we decided, against advice, to sell none lower than that. We wanted to be the essential store for part of the market, rather than just another store for the whole market. Also against advice (lots of advice!), we decided early on not to sell online. Jenette Bras would live or die by the personal fitting experience.
To promote the shop, we drafted a manifesto, beginning “We are the gals who—,“ and printed up flyers. We thought of ourselves as fomenting a rebellion against a mass-market lingerie industry that was deliberately misleading women about their bra size. I took the flyers around to salons, nail shops, cafes and bridal stores. As word of mouth grew, we were fortunate to get a few pieces of good press, including substantial pieces in the LA Weekly, the KTLA Morning Show, and, remarkably, the Wall Street Journal.
In that first year, too late to order fashion, we sold mostly beige and black basics from Panache, Fantasie & Anita, plus whatever color and fashion leftovers we could scrounge. Our first employee was Miss Amber, who can be seen modeling something from Panache on the About page. The store went into profit sometime around the first anniversary, although we didn’t have a bookkeeper to tell us when exactly. All we knew was that we were getting great Yelp reviews and there was still money in the bank account, so we kept going.
In our second and third years we developed our key supplier relationships with brands like PrimaDonna, Empreinte, and Maison Lejaby and the store came into its own. In 2011, we opened a branch in Pasadena, and in 2014 we formed a non-profit, Hourglass Underground, for the purpose of giving foundationwear and fittings to girls in foster care through the annual Glamour Gowns event.
In 2015, following a year-long location search, we opened our third store in West Los Angeles, revamped the website, and incorporated the business. It was a really busy year.
We currently employ three store managers and nine fitters, and they are all dolls (see below), and we have served close to 13,000 women, which is 26,000 breasts… but who’s counting? L’chaim!
