7 Reasons Women Over 70 Quietly Stop Wearing Bras (Hint: Every Bra Is Made to Fit a 25-Year-Old)

The finger test

Try something for me. If you have a bra on, slide one finger under the band. Feel that ridge? It's there every day. And it isn't your shape.

Who your bra was made for

One morning, fighting a patient's hooks, I finally said it out loud. "This bra was never made for her. It was made for a 25-year-old."

Her daughter Susie was in the doorway. She had spent years at one of the biggest makers of women's underwear and bras, and she went quiet, because she knew I was right. Every bra pattern starts on one young woman, the fit model. In all her years there, Susie never saw one over 30.

Nothing is wrong with you at 75. The bra is just cut for her, so the cup gapes, the wire sits on you and the band climbs your back.

So Susie built the bra into the front of a soft tank, with no band, no hooks and no wire, and fitted it on women 70 to 89. These are the seven things they showed us.

🪞 Marion Didn't Know It Was Her

Reason 1: She looks smoother, because no band cuts her in half

Marion is 77. On the third fitting day she walked down Susie's hall in a sample and stopped at the mirror. "Who's that?" she said. Then she laughed, because it was her. I'd walked right past her myself.

A bra squeezes you with a tight band and hangs you from two thin straps. You get a shelf where the band sits and a bulge right under it, and your blouse hangs off you like a sack.

This tank has no band. Its molded cups shape you in front, and the long, snug body runs smooth from under your arms to past your waist. It won't hoist you up like a push-up bra, but it holds you where you belong.

Marion has a drawer of shapewear that squeezes like a tube of toothpaste. She hasn't opened it since.

📸 Darlene Turned Around in the Mirror

Reason 2: The roll on her back was the band, not her weight

So many of my ladies hate that bulge across the upper back. It's in every family picture, and they blame their weight.

That roll comes from the band. A strip of tight elastic presses into soft skin and pushes it up and over itself. On a firm young back, a band sits flat. On an older back, it digs in. Take the band away and the roll goes with it, on the same body at the same weight.

Darlene is 72. On a fitting day she put a fitted blouse on over the sample, then went to a store and turned around in the three-way mirror. "Same me," she told Susie. "The roll just wasn't there anymore."

That was the day Susie decided there would never be a band in this tank, not even a soft one.

🦴 June Was the Hardest Test

Reason 3: It holds a 42DDD with no wire

A wire is shaped for a chest that sits high and round. On a softer, fuller chest it doesn't sit under you. It sits on you, and you feel it by lunch.

I've seen the rest of it in every home I visit. A bra hangs the whole weight from the same three spots: two thin straps and one band. The heavier you are up top, the deeper those three spots dig.

June is 71, an old friend of Susie's, and she wears a 42DDD. She stood in Susie's kitchen and swore nothing without a wire would ever hold her. She was the hardest test.

In this tank, the molded cups, the wide flat straps and the long, snug body each carry a piece, so no one spot takes it all.

Then June served her family's whole Thanksgiving dinner in it, three hours on her feet. "Never hiked a strap once."

Your first day in it

Picture tomorrow morning.

You pull it on over your head. One arm, then the other. Tug it down, tuck it in. Nothing to hook, nothing to reach behind you for.

You run your errands. You meet a friend for lunch. Somewhere around 3 o'clock you notice you haven't thought about your bra once. You were held the whole time, and nothing dug in.

📏 Nobody Knew Her Cup Size

Reason 4: There's no bra math. You order by shirt size.

The first fitting day, Susie asked every woman her bra size. She got a different answer from each of them, and a few shrugs. Ruth said 36C. I've been dressing Ruth for six years, and she hasn't been a 36C since the Johnson administration.

Start with the size in your favorite T-shirt. Then check the chart.

So Susie threw out the bra math. You start with your shirt size, then check the chart. No band number and no cup letter. It runs from S to 6XL, and Susie wears a 3XL herself.

Gail is 70 and was between two sizes. The bigger one felt roomy, so Susie tried her in the smaller one, and that was that.

"Nobody measured me," she said. "It just fit."

🕒 Dottie Used to Sneak Off by 3

Reason 5: Nobody sneaks off to unhook her bra by 3 o'clock

Dottie is 84, and she's one of my patients too. For years, every afternoon around 3, she slipped off to the bathroom wherever she was. At the doctor's office, at her daughter's, at the beauty shop. She was unhooking her bra.

A bra band feels tighter every hour you sit. Two thin straps and one band hold the whole load, hour after hour. By afternoon you're counting down to taking it off.

This tank has no band and no wire, and the straps are wide and flat. The whole tank does the holding, a little bit everywhere, so nothing gets tighter as the day goes on.

The first day Dottie wore hers, she went all afternoon and never slipped off once. When I came by that evening she told me, "I forgot I had it on."

☀️ July in Norma's Kitchen

Reason 6: She stopped dreading July. No band to sweat under.

Norma's kitchen has one box fan in July, and it points at Norma.

Norma is 76. A band holds tight elastic around your ribs all day. On a hot afternoon it's a damp line you peel off your skin, and it's still red at bedtime. That was Norma every July.

Some of my ladies just stop wearing bras in summer. Then they wear a cardigan all through July, in case somebody comes to the door. I see that sweater by the door in half the homes I visit.

This tank has no band at all. Nothing wraps around your ribs, and it still holds you.

"I won't say it's like wearing nothing in July," Norma told me. "But that wet line under my chest is gone, and so is my cardigan."

🪝 The Last Thing Susie Needed

Reason 7: Nothing to hook, so Ruth gets it on in one try at 89

Ruth is 89, and her left shoulder won't go up past her ear. For six years, every Tuesday, I was the one hooking her bra. So she was the first woman I brought to Susie.

Susie's first tank was cut from a pattern made for a young body. On Ruth, it stood away from both sides like an open envelope.

Susie stood there with a pin in her mouth. Then she threw that pattern away and started over on Ruth. Then on June. Then on more of her friends and my ladies, the youngest 70 and the oldest Ruth.

A bra hooks in the middle of your back, where you can't see. That's easy at 30. It's hard with stiff fingers or a shoulder that won't bend back. The CDC says nearly half of Americans 65 and older have arthritis. Ruth has it in both hands.

So nothing on this tank goes behind your back. No hooks, no clasp, no wire. It goes over your head, then one arm, then the other. Tug it down over your hips and tuck it in.

The day the last sample was done, Ruth sat on the edge of her bed with it, and I stood back with my hands in my pockets. Over her head, good arm, bad arm, tug, tuck. One try.

She held up one finger at me and grinned. That's the day Susie said the tank was done.

What all seven have in common

Read all seven and you saw the same cause every time. The shelf in the mirror, the roll on your back, the wire you feel by lunch, the wrong size, the 3 o'clock countdown, the damp line in July and the hooks behind you. Every one comes from a bra made for a young body and worn on ours.

Going without fixes the hooks, but then nothing holds you. My ladies needed both: nothing to fasten, and something that holds a 70-, 80- or 89-year-old body the way it is now.

Susie's says more than 50,000 women have ordered it since.

The questions women ask me first

🏡 You Don't Know Her Yet

Who you're buying from

If I were you, I'd want to know who's on the other end before I ordered anything from the internet. My ladies ask me that all the time.

Susie is 67. She spent years inside one of the biggest bra and underwear makers there is, so she knew how a bra gets built. She used all of it to build one for women like her mother and Ruth. Every tank was tried on real women over 70 before she sold a single one. I was there for most of it. Nobody in that kitchen was 25.

⚠️ Copycats Even Took Susie's Photos

Why you won't find it on Amazon

Susie's is only sold on susies.co. It isn't on Amazon or Walmart, and it isn't in stores.

Copycat sites have copied the look, and some even took Susie's own photos. What shows up in the mail is a thin shelf cami with two loose pads that slide sideways after one wash. Not one of the women Susie fitted would wear it.

So get it from susies.co. That's the only place the 90-Day Guarantee and the Buy 2, Get 1 Free apply.

What they keep in their drawers

Once the last sample was done, every woman Susie fitted ordered three. One to wear, one in the wash and one saved for going out. June took one in each color so she could match every outfit.

You've spent your whole life looking after everybody else. Your bra shouldn't be one more thing you put up with.

Right now Susie's is running its Black Friday Early Access sale. It's Buy 2, Get 1 Free, so the third one costs you nothing. If you want five, it's Buy 3, Get 2 Free. Shipping is free in the US, and you can mix the colors any way you like.

I don't know how long they'll keep that going, and the popular sizes go first. If your size is in stock today, that's when I'd get it.

How to order in one minute

1. Pick your shirt size. Check the chart right above the sizes.
2. Pick three colors. Mix them any way you like.
3. Check out. Shipping is free in the US.

The way I see it now

You can close this page and keep going the way you are. Tomorrow you put on a bra that was made for a 25-year-old. The wire sits on you, the band climbs your back, and you count the hours until you can take it off. Or you leave it in the drawer and keep a sweater by the door.

I've watched my ladies live that way for years.

Or you can do what Ruth, June, Darlene, Gail, Marion, Dottie and Norma did. Pull it on over your head, tuck it in and go about your day.

Nobody ever made a bra for the body these women have now. So Susie made one in her own kitchen, on women 70 to 89, and most Tuesdays I was standing in the doorway.

Peggy

P.S.

Ruth wears hers every Tuesday when I come by. The other week she told Susie, "You should've started with me in the first place." Susie laughed and said she was right. I haven't done Ruth's hooks since.

P.P.S. Start with your shirt size, not a cup size. And every tank comes with the 90-Day Guarantee.