While I completely agree that every woman deserves gorgeous lingerie, I disagree with the idea that Victoria’s Secret is the perfect company to handle every woman’s needs. As I’ve mentioned before, no one company can be expected to make every single kind of bra, and I respect Victoria’s Secret’s honesty in admitting that they are not the company best suited for this hard-to-fit market.

The honest truth is that not only is Victoria’s Secret ill-equipped to handle mastectomy bras, most lingerie boutiques and brands are in the exact same position, which is why mastectomy bras are a specialized area of the lingerie industry. The shape of the breast, the firmness, the tissue, the density…everything behaves differently once a woman has a mastectomy. And that’s not even getting into concerns from scar tissue, swelling, fluid retention, and reconstruction. Put simply, you can’t just throw together a mastectomy bra and hope for the best. It does require a lot of specialized research, testing, and trial and error. And of course, selling mastectomy bras also requires fitters with specialized expertise.

It’s easy to accuse Victoria’s Secret of not caring about women who’ve had mastectomies (an attitude which I think reflects, among other things, an unfamiliarity with bra design), but Victoria’s Secret was stuck in a Catch-22 here. Refuse to do mastectomy bras and have everyone accuse them of hating female breast cancer survivors, or do a line of mastectomy bras and deal with the inevitable criticisms surrounding fit (and, likely, the accusation that they should have never gone into the mastectomy bra market in the first place).

In addition, the fit issues that Victoria’s Secret already has would no doubt be magnified with the special circumstances of fitting women who’ve had mastectomies, and if there is any area of bras and bra fitting where women truly deserve a knowledgeable, sensitive, passionate expert, it is in mastectomy bras. And Victoria’s Secret can’t offer that. A company shouldn’t be punished for admitting they can’t do it all. In fact, they should be commended.

The bumper crop of plus size, full bust, small bust, mastectomy, and nursing bra brands that have popped up lately are a direct result of behemoths like VS choosing to avoid those markets, and the lingerie industry is better for it. Unlike what some other fashion blogs choose to believe, this isn’t an easy issue and Victoria’s Secret was in the right. So instead of encouraging this company to completely upend their business model, why not support those companies which are already making beautiful mastectomy bras?

“However, I must be honest and tell you the real secret behind the break up. While my issue with my former love is about size and also about quality (ask me about that another day!), it’s a deeper issue that burns my britches. What really bothers me about my ex, Victoria’s Secret, is that it even though it was about me, it was never really about me. From the fashion show to the ad campaigns, the purpose of displaying lingerie was not about me delighting in my own pleasures and feeling confident and empowered by the very articles I placed closest to my skin. Nor was it about me luxuriating in my femininity and choosing to own my sensuality as a woman without having to be overtly sexy or swing the other way to being puritanical and prudish. Nope!

It was, as it has been, about the male perspective. What does he want to see in lingerie? Who does he want to see it on? This limited perspective can be dangerous. I’m more than an object to be viewed and inspected, but a being of depth and dimension. A woman who dwells in the fullness of herself and deserves to be treated as such! Which is why I took my love, attention, and business to small boutiques, online retailers, and other stores that appreciated me for all that I was.”

(Read the full article on The Lingerie Addict.)