Underwire: Nov ’22 ‘Jenette Bras Pin-Up Planner’

I think I’ve mentioned before the idea that Jenette Bras is a hybrid of business and art project. The pressures of pandemics and economic downturns may at times—for years!— force us toward the bottom line side of the equation, but through it all, we’ve always kept at least half an eye on the aesthetic vision. Each new buildout has been a study in shaping idiosyncratic old storefronts into arenas for the social theater of bra fitting, always at a cost that most retailers would find unacceptable.

When we were still doing our inventory with pencil and paper, we printed up several reams of grid paper with our own logo and design, because none of the commercially available grid papers had the right mid-century look and hand feel to it. This at a time when we only had two shops!

Our Care Guide, AKA Owners Manual, now in its third printing, was a true labor of love. We researched washing machine and kitchen advertisements in 1960’s women’s magazines, and found old appliance manuals on Ebay for reference. Jenette and Maisie posed for the illustrations.

We once, in 2011, spent $10,000 to mount a modern dance performance with an original score and custom built stages, to introduce a cutting edge line of product. Then, in 2019, we did a follow up, with another cutting edge line, working with the daughter of the original choreographer. We’ve held storytelling events, flamenco dance performances, comedy performances and guest lectures in our shops.

We’ve recently started to do billboard advertising, and it’s been gratifying to have clients and even non-customers poke their head in to say “I don’t need a bra, but I just want to say that’s the best billboard in Pasadena!”

Well, all this is just to say that whoops we did it again: an ancient whim to make a lingerie pin-up calendar bubbled back up to the surface, passed through the hands of some of our Westside staff and emerged transformed into…

The Jenette Bras Pin-Up Planner

…a practical, functional, traditional undated weekly planner book with a subtle emphasis on dressing for the weekend and an overt agenda of sensual transformation and celebration of feminine power (gentlemen may also use this planner, if they behave). The whole project was driven, shot, and modeled by your Jenette Bras fitters, and it looks fantastic! It will be available in-store and online for holiday gifting, but it’s undated so you can start planning for your life of Ovidean metamorphoses whenever you feel the need.