Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Julia Mastalski. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Julia, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?
My mission is to help women by providing bra fittings and education on how a bra is supposed to fit, benefits of a proper fitting bra and the health issues a bad fitting bra can cause. This became my mission before I even owned the store. I started as an associate where I learned how to do fittings and the importance of everyone getting one.
A lot of people have the misconception that all you have to do is a few measurements of your rib cage and breast and you find out your bra size, which you will be in every bra that exists. The problem with that is our bodies are all shaped differently as well as our breasts. Besides our bodies all varying in size and shape, so do bras. There are an average of 15 different cup sizes and 13 different band sizes that exist in our store (There is a wider range in some other stores/companies). There is also an average of 15 different style bras that are available in these different sizes. These styles are all different shapes that can change how the cup and band will fit on the body. Not every body will fit in every style, not every body will fit in every style in the same size. What I am getting at is, it is confusing for the average person to figure out what bras they should be wearing.
I have heard countless stories of women who tried it themselves, did the measurements, went to the store or ordered a bunch of different bras online and none of them worked. They end up in tears, thinking something is wrong with their body and they will never be comfortable. I found my love for doing bra fittings by being the place that they can come to for bras that actually fit! We explain to them why we chose the size we did, how to put their bra on properly and what styles work and why. We are trained fitters with years of experience who know how the products we carry fit on all different bodies. So when women come to us for a fitting, all they have to do is tell us what they’re looking for and what issues they are currently having with their bras. We pick out the sizes we believe will work and the styles we think will fit the best and we try them on you until we find the correct bra size and style that works best for your body and that they will like.
Bra fittings are necessary for almost any age of woman too, from a girl’s first bra to the 90 year old woman whose body has changed over the years and they just want something comfortable . We have had women come in, in their 60s that we put into the correct size for the first time and they say “I can’t believe I have gone this long in life without having a bra that fits” The customers that validate we are providing an important service are the ones that ask to give us a hug at the end of their fitting and tell us they’re going to tell all the women they know that they need to get a bra fitting. We have had women report back to us that after they started wearing their new bras their back and neck stopped hurting for the first time. We have even had women cry in the fitting room because they’re feeling comfortable in their bra for their first time in their life. They come to us often hopeless and insecure and leave feeling happy and more confident. That is how it became mine and my associates mission to help as many women we can with their bras.
Julia, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I graduated from Moore College of Art and Design in 2010 with a BFA in Fashion Design and a major love for lingerie. After spending some time in Philadelphia for a few years I moved back to South Jersey where I discovered a new lingerie store in Somers point. I started working there right away and was trained to do bra fittings. During my time working as an associate for this store I got to attend lingerie trade shows, learn how to do buying for the shop and fell in love with doing bra fittings . I purchased the store in 2017 and moved it to Mays Landing, where I poured all of my love and energy into getting more customers to know we existed and could help them. Since we have been in Mays Landing, my associate Dani started working for me and doing fittings and she also fell in love with the process and getting to help our customers. The proof of our love and dedication is in our reviews from customers who have gotten fittings with us. We make a connection with almost every woman we get to help.
What sets our bra fittings apart from the standard style of bra fittings big name stores do is, we do not measure for cup size, only band size. We use our knowledge of the products that we carry and our experience fitting thousands of women to start with a cup size that we think will fit. From there we follow proper fitting rules, making sure the band is fitting properly around the ribs, the straps are in the correct placement and breast tissue is properly smoothed into the cups. From here we determine if the underwire is sitting in front and behind of the breast tissue, not sitting on top of it. We also make sure that you are filling in the cups all the way or not spilling out of them. Our approach is to treat each customer as an individual and make sure everyone leaves satisfied with the experience, not to just try to sell them anything.
We have noticed women who have never been to our store or have been lucky enough to get the recommendation from someone who has had a fitting with us, they think that our prices must be really expensive. We make sure our prices are following the average of the other retail stores around us as well as being the highest quality available at this price point. We have thousands of bra in stock in the store at all times, in cup sizes A-O and band sizes 28-52 in a variety of styles. We are also able to place orders for items or sizes that we do not have in stock for individuals.
During bra fittings we do not see your bare breast, we have you face away from us while you take your bra and shirt off. When you are ready we hand you the bra you will be trying on, you will put the straps on your shoulders, your breast in the cups and we will do all of the fastening and adjusting on the band and straps. After everything is in place we have you turn around and will show you on ourselves how you will scoop and swoop into the cups. This is where you use your hands to smooth your breast tissue up and forward into the bra cups, making sure the underwire is sitting flat behind and in front of your breast. After we do all of these steps we will make sure you are filling in the cups all the way and not spilling out.
From there we will determine together if the bra is comfortable and fitting properly. We repeat these steps with a few bras until we have a few good fitting bras for you to choose from.
Besides for bra fittings which is a major part of our business we also carry shapewear and lingerie and provide fittings and stylings of these garments for outfits, a special night or for boudoir shoots. We try to be the full service boutique of all womens lingerie and undergarments. We are most proud of all of the wonderful reviews and recommendations our customers have provided, we truly do love what we do.
How do you keep in touch with clients and foster brand loyalty?
We keep in touch with customers in a few different ways, we have an email service and texting service that we have all of our customers sign up with. We send out monthly coupons and inform our customers of new products and any events we have going on. These work as reminders and incentives for the customers that can not afford to buy everything they wanted or needed on their first trip to the store or for those women who just love to shop and get a deal on their purchase. We have had many customers tell us they were due for new bras and were putting it off or couldn’t find the time. After receiving one of our texts/emails it provided the reminder and the little nudge for them to book a return customer appointment or to stop in. We also have an Instagram and Facebook page where we post what’s new in the store, what events we have going on and post our latest reviews from one of our customers. We hired a social media manager to handle these posts so that we can focus most of our attention in the store with our customers or getting the best products into the store. We also use Tiktok to post informative and fun posts to attract more customers and entertain current customers.
Another key way that we keep in touch and foster brand loyalty is by keeping track of each of our customers information including what items they bought so they do not have to worry remembering what size they are, what they wanted but couldn’t buy the last time or what they bought and wanted to get more of. We also keep a request book of items that we didn’t have at the time of a fitting that are put on a “Wish list” for us to order for them when we are putting in a bulk order for the store.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
A story that illustrates our resilience is the store started with very little inventory because I didn’t have a lot of capital to work with when I took over ownership. We had a few loyal customers already that continued shopping with us during our slow restart and helped us to earn enough money for more merchandise. The more we could make them happy, the more referrals we received. Over the first two years we were finally able to secure more capital to be able to fill up the store to where it should be, so when new customers came in they trusted we had enough inventory to be able to help them. Our sales have increased every year since opening.
Another story is during Covid, our business was doing great at this time, our store was full of merchandise, we had a good customer base and it seemed like things were going to continue to get better. Then we all had to shut down our businesses to quarentine. We do not have an online website for our customers to shop from so we had to be innovative to keep bringing in sales. During this time I also became pregnant and had hypersemesis, so I was very sick all day everyday and barley left my bed. I also was determined not to loose my business so I posted our merchandise that we had available on engaging ig/fb posts multiple times a week and offered to do sales over the phone. Since we were still on no contact orders I would either ship the items to my customers or I would drive to their houses and deliver them to their door step. Luckily we had very loyal customers who still wanted and needed bras and other merchandise. We made enough sales during the shut down to pay all of our bills and keep us afloat. After we reopened our sales slowly came back so we could buy more merchandise and make a profit again. I was still pregnant and still very sick when we opened up and I would come to the store with my mask on feeling horrible, do my fittings pretending to be okay and then would have to run to the bathroom to vomit after the left. I persisted because I love my store, doing bra fittings and my customers.
Contact Info:
- Website: Brafittingsnewjersey.com
- Instagram: @Thebraboudoirnj
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Thebraboudoirnj
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/the-bra-boudoir-mays-landing?utm_campaign=www_business_share_popup&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_source=(direct)
- Other: Tiktok – @Fittergals Google – https://g.co/kgs/E2LNhez
Image Credits
I took these images of my store