Do you love getting measured and hearing you’re wearing the wrong size bra? Well, you’re in for a treat: Playtex’s website is the virtual equivalent of being trapped in a smelly fitting room with an overbearing saleslady.
Today Maura Johnston wrote a post on The Awl about her discovery that the Playtex website, “Seems to be the result of some brainstorming session during which the phrase ‘a more self-aware Cathy’ probably cropped up. Ack!”
Johnston was particularly disturbed by the video below, which is embedded on the front page. It starts out with a woman joking about the dangers of putting on a bra while drunk. Then she advises:
You also don’t want to put on a bra in front of a man. Because you really want to get those suckers in there, you know what I mean? And when you put it on in front of a man, you have to go, ‘Oh my God, look how cute and perky I am!’ … Never do anything in front of a man that you don’t have to. That is my rule for life.”
As Johnston points pit, “If one is in a position to put a bra on in front of a man, the whole illusion of cute perkiness has been kind of stripped bare? No?” She’s also right that the bra being loose enough to store a cell phone isn’t really a selling point (though I’ll admit, I actually have crammed a phone, lipstick, and a contact lens case in there when the situation called for being purse-free). Warning: If like most American women you’ve have had a traumatizing run-in with a department store saleswoman, this video will give you flashbacks.