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| - Over the weekend, I finally got properly fitted while traveling out of town. Because I was on the road, I didn't want to start replacing everything I owned right there and then. After poking online for a bit, I was pleasantly surprised to find that there is a non-VS lingerie shop right in my neighborhood. I went to the store with high hopes of revamping my wardrobe. Although I walked out empty-handed, I do recommend the store.
Gail, the owner of The Pussycat, is the earth-mother type. She is warm and friendly, and I think she genuinely wants to help her customers to find the best fitting bras. I am no expert, but she seems good at it. At the very least, her verdict on me concurred with my two other fittings.
However, Gail seemed to want to mold every customer into the Cinderella template (i.e., you show up ill-fitted and she magically transforms you into someone who looks fabulous by choosing for you the right bra). In my case, alas, she is too late. Because I exercised my newly learned knowledge, the first one I tried on fitted fine. This did not go with her script, and she seemed a little surprised. Nonetheless, she continued with her script -- explaining how much better what I tried on fits me than what I wore into the store. Actually, what I wore to the store was a new purchase, one that "fits." She went on to say that even in my street clothes, I looked way better with what she had me try on. I think she's just under the placebo effect.
In terms of the selection, The Pussycat is reasonable but not great. They don't carry too much in the ways of "fashion bras," and of the everyday ones, they are primarily pushing mid-level Chantelles and Wacoals ($60-$100). The pricing is the usual suggested retail value. If you know what you are looking for, you can probably find better deals online or at sales events at a dept. store.
In some ways, The Pussycat is lingerie's equivalence to the neighbor shoe store, Little's. Both have been in business for a long time. In the days before online shopping or even catalog shopping, they'd be the purveyors of higher-quality products in a smaller city. With a captive audience, their wares fetched premium prices. It's hard to run the same game now. Still, I do think that Gail and her shop provides a needed and useful service -- an accurate fitting right in Pittsburgh.
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