I want to start off with something I tell every woman who walks into one of our fitting rooms: you are never the problem, the bra is.

It sounds simple but that one sentence took me years and many many fittings to say with conviction. For most of my life, like most of you, I was told the opposite. The lingerie industry had a very specific body in mind when it designed its pieces. And if yours did not match, well, that was your issue to solve.

It was not and was never your body’s issue.

Where Lingerie Started

Let us be real about where the industry started. For decades, lingerie was designed for a narrow idea of what a woman’s body “should” look like, medium-busted, minimal curves, a shape that slotted into a 32B sample size. If you fell outside that mould, you got three options: bras with gapping cups, a beige minimiser or a heavily structured underwired bra, basically nothing that actually fits.

Sizing stopped at a D cup in most mainstream stores and extended band sizes were a rare find, tucked into a corner of a department store like an afterthought. Beautiful lingerie, the delicate lace, soft fabrics, styles that made you feel something that was reserved for one kind of a body only. 

The message was unspoken but loud: If you want to feel beautiful in your lingerie, first fit the mold.

The Shift That Started - and the gap that remained

Over the past decade or so, the conversation around body positivity has grown. The body positivity movement pushed brands to take notice. Slowly, we started seeing campaigns featuring a wider range of body types. Brands also began extending their size ranges which became a selling point.

But here is what I have observed from 15 years in this industry- extending a size range is not the same as designing inclusively. 

Too often does a brand’s “inclusive” collection is the standard design but scaled up with little thought given to how the fit actually changes across different body proportions. A DD cup has different structural needs than an A cup. A 38 band carries different tensions than a 32. Lace that drapes beautifully on a straighter frame pulls on a fuller bust. These are small details, but the entire experience of wearing lingerie. 

Why I Started PBk in 2012- and what drove every decision after

I started Perk By Kate because I could not find a bra that actually fitted me. I am petite and the options were either way too large in the cup, gapping, or so basic they made me feel nothing. I assumed for years that I was the difficult one. I was not. 

What I discovered when I started fitting other women was that nearly every woman had a version of this story. The one with a fuller bust who was told her only option was an underwire with thick bands. The woman who was postpartum and could not find anything that felt like “her” anymore. The petite woman who kept swimming in cups designed for someone twice her size. 

These were not minority cases but instead the majority. So from day one, I knew that inclusive sizing was a reason why Perk By Kate exists.

When we developed the padded bralette in 2015, a style that genuinely did not exist in the market at that time, we made sure it was fitted on real women across a range of sizes before a single piece went into production. When we launched the Curvy Edit for D/DD cups and above, we did not just extend the pattern. We redesigned it, rethought the structure and made sure the lace sat the way it was meant to. When we go up to 42B and have sizes ranging from XS to 3XL, those sizes are not afterthoughts but instead are the intention.

Every style we create is tested on real women. Real women with real bodies, real lives, real wishes for what they want to feel when they get dressed in the morning.

What “Inclusive” Actually Means To Me

The word “inclusive” has been softened by overuse. It has become a marketing language, something that you put in captions or brand description to signal virtue, without necessarily backing it up. 

To me, inclusive sizing means a woman with a 30A and a woman with a 42B can both walk into Perk By Kate and find something that genuinely fits, flatters and makes her feel the way beautiful lingerie is supposed to make you feel. It means that the designs are not identical pieces stretched across a range of numbers. It means the fabrics, structure, placement of every seam and strap have been considered. 

It also means representation. For years, The Perk By Kate community, the Perk Squad, has been filled with women of every shape, age and background, showing up in their pieces and showing others: This is what it looks like on me, this is how it fits, how it makes me feel. That real women representation matters more than any campaign image I could produce.

But I want to be honest with you about something. Getting representation right was one of the hardest thing I’ve had to do. 

For 13 years, I wanted to show our Curvy sizes properly. The fits and sizes were there and the pieces were designed with intention and care. However, finding models here in Singapore who actually represented the women we design for, women with fuller busts and curves, with the body types that so much of our Curvy sizes were built for, was a genuine struggle. The modelling industry, even here, reflected the same narrow default that the lingerie industry had always favoured.

And then something cut right through me. Customers started telling us they did not even know we had curvy sizes and that they thought Perk By Kate was only for petite women. When they looked at our imagery, they did not see themselves and hence assumed there was nothing for them.

That one stayed with me. So we did not give up, we searched further. We took the time to find the right woman whose body would show our pieces the way that they were meant to be shown. When the first images came back from our Curvy Edit shoot, I felt pride. And I saw strong, feminine confidence. And that is exactly what every curvy woman deserves to feel in her lingerie. 

How Far Have We Come?

The industry has shifted and conversations that felt radical 5 years ago are now more mainstream. More brands are extending their range of sizes and more campaigns feature bodies that were not there before. However, there is still a long way to go. Inclusive sizing still frequently stops at a comfortable point. Beautiful, delicate designs still disproportionately appear in smaller sizes while fuller bust options get steered towards function over feeling. The assumption that women over a D cup do not want lace, sheer designs is still quietly embedded in many brands' designs.

I hope that the day comes, and I believe it will, where a woman does not walk into a store with a resigned sense that she will probably have to compromise on something. But instead where the design, sizing, and the experience have all been built with her in mind from the start.

We are not all the way there yet but every woman who finds a bra that actually fits, that has that moment in the fitting room where she thinks ‘Oh, this is what it is supposed to feel like’, is proof that it is possible. That moment is why we will keep going with what we are doing at Perk By Kate.

Explore our full size range from XS to 3XL, 30A to 42B and beyond at https://www.perkbykate.com/

Whether you’re standard, curvy, petite or in between, there is a fit here that was made with you in mind.