Underwire: June 2022 ‘Leave the Bra, Take the Cannoli’

From the Desk of Jenette The Rest is Commentary Underwire
Take the Cannoli

“It’s not personal, Sonny, it’s strictly business.” So spoke Michael Corleone in The Godfather and, by my count, nearly every business book I’ve read over the past thirteen years. And yet I struggle with this every day.

Employees are wonderful and I want to pay them more than the company can afford. Employees depart and I feel abandoned. Our vendor starts selling to a competitor without telling me? Knife in my Back.


It’s my company. I spoke ...continued

Underwire: May 2022 ‘Part 2 + Parties’

From the Desk of Jenette The Rest is Commentary Underwire
Person in an Alien costume

My Other Job, Part 2

{Last month I described the ins and outs of signing autographs with other B-listers on the horror-fantasy convention circuit. Occasionally the glamour quotient ramps up…}

For the Aliens 30th anniversary in 2016, a con in Calgary invested an ungodly amount to pull together very nearly the entire cast, including the stars. Sigourney Weaver is a fabulously tough autograph to get, and Bill Paxton was a hard one as well. Fans who ...continued

Underwire: April 2022 ‘My Other Job, Pt I’

From the Desk of Jenette The Rest is Commentary Underwire
group of fans with Jenette Goldstein


As you may know, I had parts in a couple of genre movies in the ‘80s that did exceptionally well: Aliens and Terminator 2, both directed by James Cameron. These were thrilling opportunities in their own right, of course, but what I didn’t know at the time was how those roles, the former shot in a couple of months, the latter in a couple of days, would be grafted to the rest of my life, thanks to the trans-generational loyalty of the science fiction fan community (fan is ...continued

Underwire: February 2022 ‘What do Clothes Mean?’

Events From the Desk of Jenette The Rest is Commentary Underwire

If you’ve been a client of ours for more than two weeks and read our emails, no doubt you will have heard about Glamour Gowns, the annual event where we dress hundreds of young women and men living in foster care in brand new attire for their Senior Prom. If you missed the email about volunteering, here’s the link. No worries if you can’t make it this year, but for those ...continued

Underwire: December 2021 ‘Friction vs Non-Friction’

From the Desk of Jenette The Rest is Commentary Underwire
Burbank Jenette Bras Blue Hour Hour

I’m in a business coaching program, have been for years. My daughter calls it “the cult”, but it’s not. I mean, cult-lite at the most. There’s a little jargon involved, but we don’t get branded. I was talking with another member last month. She’s a beautiful “woman of a certain age” like myself, charismatic and accomplished, world traveller, owns two companies, holds a double M.A. from Stanford, has homes in Hawaii and Silicon Valley, and possesses a smashingly ...continued

Meet our Managers!

The Rest is Commentary

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 ...continued

Underwire: October 2021

From the Desk of Jenette The Rest is Commentary Underwire

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, ...continued

Underwire: August 2021

From the Desk of Jenette The Rest is Commentary Underwire

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 ...continued

Underwire: July 2021

From the Desk of Jenette The Rest is Commentary Underwire

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 ...continued

Underwire: June 2021 Mom’s Gone Viral

From the Desk of Jenette The Rest is Commentary Underwire

“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 ...continued