As many of you know, we are a family-run company: my husband designs the stores and oversees all building and branding, edits the final draft of all copy and placement of each chair (oh, you think I’m kidding?) and I’m CEO and Head of Marketing.
We have grown organically, without investors, by investing the profits back into the business and into our people. We cross-train everyone across all departments, giving each employee the opportunity to master new tasks
In each Jenette Bras store, one wall in the front room is painted with a simple grid. The direct inspiration for that was the gridded notebook paper I used for my earliest inventory system, but the real message of it is order, logic, engineering, planning. It’s a subtle counterbalance to the riot of emotions and sensuality that I intend should hold sway in the fitting room.
It’s a reminder of the other side of the culture I’m working to build here: we talk straight. Jokes,
This Underwire is late. I am late. I can’t find my phone charger, my keys or even a can opener. This is because I’ve just returned to Los Angeles after an unexpected stay in Atlanta of over a year and half, and now I find myself in a house with five working adults, one shower, one pick-up truck and six cats. We are gingerly staking out our territories – the cats and I – so unpacking my life contained in two suitcases was about all I could manage last week. So this is going
I love trends. I hate trends. I suppose I’m old and crotchety, but if I see one more Influencer’s underpants yanked up above her hip-bones, I might will an old Jane Fonda workout poster to life, like the ghost of trends past, calling a moratorium on that kind of camel-toe and reminding the youth that the ’80s were indisputably the worst fashion period in all of recorded history–I know, it was my
“Amazing, joyful, unbelievable”
“…had me going into a Wikipedia spiral at 7am”
“What in the world?”
“This has layers”
“If you come at the (bra) queen, you best not miss.”
Whee! Twitter is fun! I haven’t had notices like this since the ‘80s. If you’ve an hour or so for rabbit-hole exploration, please feel free to click on this tweet from the very funny Josh Frulinger. Otherwise you can just jump to my summary below.
So this is what
Happy May everyone! I’ve been enjoying maskless post-vax hikes & distanced outdoor gatherings in the perfect Georgia spring, and I hope similar blessings have befallen yourselves. You may note, however, that my portrait to the left is still firmly masked.
Jenette Bras remains an indoor experience, so until outdoor public bra fitting becomes a trend or the CDC guidelines change, we will require masks during your appointment regardless of your vaccination status. With
As we approach the final night of Passover and Easter Sunday, my mind turns to the overcoming of tyrants and plagues, the wandering towards freedom, and the miracle of resurrection – in other words, the past year. This year’s little Atlanta backyard Seder with fully and partly vaccinated attendees was a vast improvement over last year’s Zoom view of Bubbe’s elbow filling the middle square as I poured myself a fifth glass of wine. Dayenu.
You might imagine
I’m feeling a tiny bit sunny! Los Angeles infection rates have come down, more vaccine is on the way, hints of the beautiful Georgia spring are starting to emerge.
The past three weeks, for the first time in a year, I’ve been attending large in-door gatherings of hundreds of people. Super-spreader events, you ask, darkly?
Well, sort of — spouse and self have been volunteering one day a week at Atlanta vaccination centers, super-spreading
Running a successful business is a trait that runs counter to the Goldstein Family tradition. In fact, growing up, my relatives gleefully one-upped each other with stories about failed ideas, missed opportunities, and cursed concoctions that poked a finger into the eye of the rheumy cliche of “Jews are good with money.” Well, we showed them!
My favorite was my grandfather’s attempt at the haberdashery trade. With a loan from his boss, Mr. Dutch Schultz
I began writing this the day before the election, assuming I would need to revise and then possibly revise again. Now, as I write, it’s two days after the election. Vote counting continues in several states, including Georgia. The tally appears to be running against the incumbent, who, as promised, will not accept the results. Instead he is spreading conspiracy theories, filing frivolous legal challenges, dividing the nation, and doubling down on his deployment of schoolboy rhetorical tricks. What is left to say about the lowness of his character? I have a craving for decency. The radio, tuned to NPR because I’m a blue-state liberal, drones from the bedroom as I listen to my podcasts, scroll and refresh my Twitter feed, and swing wildly from anxiety and dread to mania and fury to (now and then) hope. I try to turn my focus away from our trembling democracy and on to the work of buying, selling, and marketing fine brassieres, sexy garters, elegant harnesses, and fancy stockings.
My husband and partner, Aaron, went back to LA last month to put some finishing touches on the Burbank store, take care of our random cat assortment and, quite unreasonably, get some time away from me to paint in his studio. I’ve been living in Atlanta, unplanned, for almost a year now and am surrounded by the legacy of the Civil Rights Movement, not just the murals, churches, and street names, but the actual men and women who lived through that vital struggle and now are passing on–notably the great John Lewis, Congressional Representative of Georgia’s 5th district (my district now!–both house and store) for 33 years. The facts of his life can only inspire awe. Already a seasoned activist and Baptist Minister, at the age of 21 he became one of the original 13 Freedom Riders. Two years later he became chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and in that capacity was one of the organizers of the 1963 March on Washington, where he was the last to speak, save Martin Luther King. In 1965 he and Hosea Williams led the first of three Selma to Montgomery marches across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. On the far side of the bridge, Lewis’ skull was fractured by Alabama State Troopers in the incident which became known as Bloody Sunday.
It’s worth remembering that the Selma to Montgomery Marches were demonstrations for the right to vote, and ultimately led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act, which protected Americans from Vote Suppression until it was compromised by the Supreme Court’s Shelby County v. Holder decision in 2013. In the last few years of his life, Lewis was still working tirelessly to get the Voting Rights Advancement Act enacted into law as a way to guarantee every American’s right to vote. He died this past July 17. We were fortunate to be with a group of friends and alongside hundreds of mourners lining the streets of Montgomery, Alabama as his hearse passed by on its final tour of the stations of his life.
“Ours is not the struggle of one day, one week, or one year. Ours is not the struggle of one judicial appointment or presidential term. Ours is the struggle of a lifetime, or maybe even many lifetimes, and each one of us in every generation must do our part.”
― John Lewis on movement building in Across That Bridge: A Vision for Change and the Future of America
