
Post-Mortem for Bra Theory - hazelynut
http://bratheory.com/hiatus/
======
leeny
This story is heartbreaking to read as a founder, but boy oh boy are there
parallels between making bras and recruiting marketplaces. I"m the founder of
interviewing.io, and we think about stuff like this a lot.

1\. To scale, you must first become recruiters. And then, unless you're
careful, you are become Shiva, a recruiting agency. And then you can't scale
because you hired a bunch of in-house recruiters (maybe you're clever and call
them "talent advocates") and are forever constrained in the best case to
linear growth, growing as a function of how many recruiters you hire.

2\. AI-based recruiting solutions that claim to match candidates to companies
don't work for the same reason you can't use ML to engineer bras. The data
isn't there. Scraping LinkedIn and GitHub doesn't do it, and then you have to
bespoke "measure" a bunch of candidates. The hard part of that venture, in
this market, isn't doing the ML. It's getting candidates (who have more
leverage than you and don't need you) to give you interesting data about
themselves.

3\. "I thought that the likeliest outcome of launching is to end up like
Peach/Zyrra, in which they launched their patented custom-made bra service,
pivoted to a traditional lingerie product, and now sell women’s apparel
loungewear. While the concept sounded promising, they were in the end unable
to turn the concept commercial with the capital they received"... How many
recruiting marketplaces have pivoted to do SaaS hiring assessment tools? I can
think of at least 3.

Automating stuff by hand is hard. It's even harder when you don't have data
and when it was never done well by hand in the first place.

------
cjbprime
I remember reading and being impressed by some of the previous blog posts;
commiserations, I'm sorry it didn't work out.

Archive link to the post, is down at the moment:
[http://web.archive.org/web/20191223180103/http://bratheory.c...](http://web.archive.org/web/20191223180103/http://bratheory.com/hiatus/)

~~~
merlincorey
I remember sharing it with my partner who is in a less common cohort and had
done plenty of research prior to my sharing this with them... they were not at
all impressed and felt like there was something lacking in their methodology
and priors.

Specifically, my partner has found that the most consistent and predictable
sizings are from the UK -- everything else is more all over the place and must
be tested on a per brand and pattern basis.

The post by A Bra Theory states it can take as many as 9 attempts with their
system to achieve a fit.

With US sizes and her proper measurements, it can take 3-4 attempts for my
partner to find something that fits or determine that they do not carry
anything that will. With UK sizes and her proper measurements, there is
typically success within 1-2 iterations.

One can find more information about this on the subreddit wiki for A Bra that
Fits:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/abrathatfits/wiki/beginners_guide](https://www.reddit.com/r/abrathatfits/wiki/beginners_guide)

I find it strange that in the past nor in the present the Bra Theory hasn't
seemed to lean on A Bra That Fits or the UK sizings and patterns.

~~~
afarrell
My wife and I moved from the US to the UK a few years ago. My wife has also
found that bra shopping is easier here.

------
leoc
> While tailors have figured out a formula for men’s suits, bra tailoring is a
> younger technology with a smaller market and far fewer competitors. [...]
> But bras, coming after the Industrial Revolution, had no such history of
> custom tailoring.

Even companies trying to custom-make suits without multiple individual
fittings are apparently still very much wandering in the wilderness, so it's
not surprising (though of course disappointing) that an effort which started
futher behind didn't succeed. Maybe this also relates to Boeing and SpaceX's
parachute challenges
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21850831](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21850831)
: it seems fabric remains hard.

~~~
Robotbeat
Fabric is a very hard problem because it has an extremely high number of
degrees of freedom. Flexible materials are like this consistently. If you want
automation, with few exceptions, you want stiffness.

Tesla has been unable to automate wire harness installation because it's super
flexible with many effective degrees of freedom (they _hope_ to solve that
using a stiffer flex cable that consolidates the wiring). Even moving some
fiberglass fluff with a robot was an unreliable bottleneck they eventually
removed.

I even saw a project once that attempted to automate cloth handling by first
stiffening the cloth with starch so it could be more predictably moved from
place to place.

Cloth is fundamentally hard. It's not impossible to solve these problems, but
it's not at all trivial.

~~~
remarkEon
Interesting observations. For some reason I’m reminded of this (admittedly
pretty bizarre) concept car from about a decade ago by BMW.

[https://youtu.be/0pwabDeqVi8](https://youtu.be/0pwabDeqVi8)

~~~
floatingatoll
The BMW Gina was a direct-to-museum car that used 'polyurethane-coated Lycra'
wrapped around a hydraulic (modifiable) frame.

Previously on HN in 2008, and a bonus Wired link:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=214314](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=214314)

[https://www.wired.com/2008/06/bmw-builds-a-
ca/](https://www.wired.com/2008/06/bmw-builds-a-ca/)

~~~
remarkEon
So cool. Now I want to see one of these in real life. Thanks!

------
Thriptic
As a naive guy who is looking at this straight on with admittedly limited
reflection, it makes sense that this would be a complicated space:

* You've got a data capture problem - how do women securely and privately obtain and transmit shape data in a way that is culturally acceptable?

* You've got a modeling problem - how do you determine how much structural support is required on a case by case basis?

* You've got a manufacturing tech problem - how do you create bespoke products cheaply?

* You've got a culture problem - how do you address the fact that a large portion of the population is by definition going to be smaller than average?

There are probably a series of other things I'm not thinking of but each of
these are non-trivial.

~~~
floatingatoll
> _As a naive guy_

I intend this reply to supplement your list of challenges, all of which are
valid. I hope this helps convey an additional depth of complications in
designing women's elastic support wear that may not be immediately apparent.

> _You 've got a data capture problem_

The missing piece here is the intersection of: clothing "fit" problem, where
each person's body will interact with clothing at different points; the
gravity "g-forces" problem, where the clothing is required to bear weight at
every step without tearing apart; and the appearance "fashion" problem, where
different shapes carry that weight at different points.

I'll take apart t-shirts first, and then switch back to bras.

Given several men of slightly different torso composition, a simple men's
t-shirt can interact with their belly, lower waist (shirt length), ribcage,
nipples (ask any runner), armpit, upper arms, neck. At each of those
interaction points, the clothing must fit 'correctly' as _perceived by the
human being_. Each human being has a preference for each of the listed areas,
and will complain about poorly-fitting t-shirts if they do not fit
'correctly'.

I require loose armpit and long length shirts, among those seven options, and
have more or less given up on ever finding a solution for my abnormally-shaped
ribcage. So I typically end up in men's XL, because it provides enough
'airspace' to smooth out my torso and extends low enough to keep me from
flashing people.

Someone _else_ with the same torso length, torso diameter, and waist
measurements might choose a Medium instead, because they have a decked-out bod
and want to show off every curve. They'll need shirts made with more stretch
than mine, or else they'll rip the armpits open waving hello to a friend.
Shirts designed for a tight fit use a different 'cylinder' cut than shirts
designed for a loose fit, so you can't just put them in my sized-down XL
because I've been selecting for a different _cut_ of shirt than is appropriate
for their desires — and you can't just shrink all dimensions on an XL by 30%
to get a M because human body parts don't shrink at the same percentage rate.

So, you can evaluate the 'fit' of t-shirts based on these criteria, none of
which can readily be captured by 'shape data' alone:

* Does the shirt show off, or mute/hide, your physique to the degree you desire?

* Does the shirt rub uncomfortably, or rip/tear, when you move while wearing it?

* Does the shirt fabric irritate your skin, at your desired tightness?

You can custom-bespoke every shirt to a person's shape, but you'll still have
to make fashion decisions ('drape', for example) that will include some and
exclude others. If you end up deciding to print custom-fit "perfect mirror of
your shape" fashion, _that_ is fashion, too, and I would loathe it with all my
heart because that is _not_ what I want my clothing to express.

Moving on from the t-shirt analogy to bras, there are additional problems that
bras have to solve for, that t-shirts do not:

* Bras are held with elastic against an extremely sensitive area of skin for hours at a time (sweat is a primary concern)

* Bras need to provide front _and_ back appearances that matches the desires of the wearer (padded, unlined; demi, full coverage, balconette, push-up; longline, racerback, strapless)

* Bras need to provide support for 'weight' anchored to both sides of the chest (US average ~3lbs/side, K cup ~8lbs/side), that can cause pain every time you take a step, encounter small vertical G-forces (stairs, elevators, cars), or large all-directional G-forces (cars, subways, sports)

* Bra elastic loses stretch over time, due to wear and tear from the thousands of G-force events per day they intercept and reduce bodily impact of (adjustable straps, multiple rows of hooks, discard and replace occasionally)

So, not _only_ do you need shape data, you also need "fashion" data, "fit"
data, "fabric" data, and "gravity" data. You need data about composition —
density for compressibility, shape for support and fashion, total weight for
structural integrity — that you can't measure at home easily if even at all.
You need material that can stand up to being punched from within a million
times that also feels comfortable when held skin-tight all day. You need to
make it fashionable, while keeping it fashionable across multiple size vectors
(band size can vary from 24" to 48" or more, cup size can vary from 1/AA to
8/H or more). You need to transfer G-forces from the wearer's chest to the
elastic while not digging into their skin more than they can bear (bralettes,
underwires). You need to plan for elastic weakening over time (adjustable
straps, multiple sets of back hooks).

Many men only see that level of tailoring in bespoke suits/tuxedos, and wear
them once a year or less, and suffer no consequences the rest of the year.
Many women have to wear one every single day, or else they suffer chest pain
(F=m*a with only skin and ligaments to bear it) and/or societal outrage. It's
a really intense market to try and serve.

I hope this helps.

~~~
PappaPatat
As a married since 30 years and father of 3 girls in their 20's, I thought I
knew a thing or two about bras. I now know I knew nothing.

Thank you very much for this detailed write up.

~~~
floatingatoll
You have a loving family, don’t sell yourself short :)

If there’s one practical takeaway I would offer here for men in general —

Having read this it’ll be much easier to understand why good bras can seem so
simple yet be so expensive and fragile to care for and difficult to find.

Bras are maximally frustrating, and there’s nothing really equivalent at all
in men’s clothing. Be kind when shopping for them. Help with hand washing
them. Be encouraging in appropriate ways.

------
tranchms
“We could not automate that which we did not know how to do by hand.”

~~~
rossdavidh
There is a saying: "if you don't know how to do it, you don't know how to do
it with a computer".

------
joostdecock
I hope the effort to distill bra-fitting into an algorithm won't be thrown
out. Perhaps they could be donated to FreeSewing.org ?

Full disclosure: I am the FreeSewing maintainer

~~~
thringaversa
Yes, that would be really cool. I found some bras that fit me well for a time,
but seem to wear out. By day, I'm a composites engineer, so I would love to
use some really good patterns and see if I can make one with Kevlar or
something that will wear out more slowly.

------
entwife
A good source of data to build an algorithm for bra fitting, is women tailors
in India. Specifically, I would ask and observe how they fit women for cholis
(sari blouses). The fit of a choli is similar to a bra, although the silk or
cotton choli fabric is usually less elastic.

This November I got my first cholis; it took two fittings for an expert tailor
to make them fit correctly to my form factor.

------
soulofmischief
Sorry to hear that... I had high hopes for Bra Theory.

 _Our biggest challenge was not the technology, but the underlying
methodology._

 _We could not automate that which we did not know how to do by hand._

I like applying the inverse of this. If I don't know how to do something, I
try to automate/simulate it, and this creates for me an organic path to the
knowledge I seek by creating problems which can be solved. Perhaps your
algorithm simply needs further refinement.

 _I was brash, and thought that with the right team, we could accelerate
centuries of learning into six months and a trade secret_

Ah. You didn't give yourself enough time. A research project like this is 2
years minimum, 10 years on the long side. But it has to be done if we are ever
going to push the envelope.

Perhaps scaling down the company to just research and consulting for the time
being would provide a way to continue in your spare time.

~~~
nestorD
Reading the description, I though that there is enough interesting, high-
level, material for a few phD thesis (algorithm, material science,
industrialisation of a process, etc).

I would love it if the author found a way to keep the research effort going in
an academic setting.

------
bhouston
I think you needed more time and a more sophisticated approach. One could have
used a 3D scanner and acquired the body shape and then one could parameterize
it and then figure out the deformation you want to achieve from the bra --
even preview it for the customer, where do they want things to end up, and how
much stress that will put on their body -- and then one could figure out the
patterns to make again from the contact areas you wanted.

Basically it is a 3D problem and I think you didn't take a sophisticated
approach because you are likely not knowledgable in that area.

You tried to apply tailoring to it, but tailoring is not body fitting nor
shape changing as a bra is, nor is tailoring about stresses and weight
distribution (which is comfort.)

It is a solvable problem, but your approach was not the correct one, it was
simplistic.

It is an incredibly interesting problem though.

~~~
ISOcGAxAgO
I agree with your take on this. Facebook has done considerable work with their
Detectron / Dense Pose projects which can UV unwrap human bodies using AI.
([https://github.com/facebookresearch/DensePose](https://github.com/facebookresearch/DensePose))
Another is the smpl / smplify-x project
([https://github.com/vchoutas/smplify-x](https://github.com/vchoutas/smplify-x))

Further, by utilizing generated (synthetic) data with 3d scanned human models,
or generating your own with something like makehuman or daz3D, you should be
able to find a way to UV unwrap a distorted sphere. I've had a lot of success
with generating synthetic data like this with Blender 3D and training various
neural networks (Mask RCNN / Deeplab for example) with various combinations of
this synthetic and real datasets.

------
sundarurfriend
I genuinely thought "Bra theory" was some quantum physics theory with the bra
operation somehow being central to it, and this was going to be about how that
was disproved recently or something.

------
dang
Related from a year ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18599728](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18599728)

~~~
floatingatoll
Back in 2009, HN also discussed "The Physics of Bras" (2005):

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=925236](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=925236)

------
aasasd
I guess I'm somewhat confused about the path of this company. From the post,
it sounds like they didn't have any process for bra manufacturing at all, even
manual one, and barely found anything like that in the end. So then, from the
start the company was looking into automatic custom production of something
about which they didn't have any knowledge? And the whole thing was
essentially a wild shot at research for such production, from next to zero?

I mean, it wasn't my money to spend, but I'm curious as to if it's ‘normal’
now to form a startup while having only a goal and no expertise. That's a
dream of every ‘idea man’ out there, including me.

------
avgeek23
I am surprised how there isn't a fixed Industry standard for bra sizing. Maybe
bra sizing can learn something from Pcie,usb,sata standards.

Someone i was with for a long time used to always complain how all
manufacturers are different and that even using stuff like a bra that
fits(reddit thing) did not work in Asia as manufacturers here have different
sizing. She still hasn't found her perfect fit size.

~~~
martyvis
There definitely are standard sizes, but there is enough variation between
manufacturers and between wearers that comfort can't be achieved at the level
all can agree on. My wife has difficulty in finding the right bra and I have
difficulty in getting the right shoe ( which you also would expect to be
standardised)

------
dgellow
The article ends with a link to
[https://www.reddit.com/r/ABraThatFits/](https://www.reddit.com/r/ABraThatFits/),
a subreddit for people looking for well-fitting bras. Just a cool little thing
to know about if that's your (or your partner) situation.

------
goodguy1234
Can anyone explain to me like I am 10?

There is an algorithm for man suit?

~~~
meheleventyone
Clothing tends to be cut from patterns of 2D shapes that are then sewn
together. In theory if you measure certain key parameters of the customer you
can adjust a standard pattern to fit them without further refinement. Imagine
if you took a thin man, fat man and normal man then measured them all, and
designed a pattern based on the normal man. Then found weighting’s to scale
the pattern to the thin man and fat man. You could then (in a naive fashion)
interpolate between these weighting’s to create patterns for every man
inbetween. That would be your algorithm.

~~~
yjftsjthsd-h
But does that actually work for men's suits?

~~~
shantly
Not too well, no. Off-the-rack basically requires good luck and a good eye for
how a suit's supposed to fit to find something that works well enough to
_still be tailored some_ (rather than extensively, or simply being hopeless)
so it'll look alright.

Even shirts, if the sizing's not two-dimensional (trim, slim, regular, loose,
or some similar range of cut types aside from just S/M/L/XL and so on—so Large
Slim as a size, rather than just large, for example) you're not even gonna get
close to an alright fit, most likely. Good dress shirts provide more detailed
measurements, but even there, made-to-measure will give you noticeably better
fit than off the rack.

------
mncharity
Regards input, getting from a user to their happy regions of a high-
dimensional specification space, I wonder if improving tech might permit a
richer dialog, an more interactive and iterative process?

AR is improving 3D measurement, material modeling and property inference, and
VR motion and force sensing. So we might imagine a much richer input stream
becoming available.

Welcome to App. A video mirror. Let's go through your bras. We'll scan the fit
of each. What do you dis/like about it? Point out where. Let's apply force
measurement device X over here, yes, that's it, ok, got it. Move like so.
Apply manipulation like so. Adjust X. Let's do a motion scan when you do X.
Does X feel like X?

Virtual access to an expert fitter via "video phone", without direct touch and
manipulation, isn't ideal, but with enough tooling, might be sufficient. And
has advantages, like "watch bra fit during an entire workout". Or "today was
an unusual day - here's what chafed, and the current exact adjustments". Or
"here's real-time and prompted reporting over a month".

I wonder if there might also be a role for inexpensive prototypes or test
objects. I'm reminded of an optical trial lens set, with its very clunky
eyeglass frame, into which one inserts a variety of interchangeable lenses.
One might imagine buying properties of "highly adjustable" and "transparently
instrumented", with "clunky" and "doesn't last".

Basically, use tech to permit an expert fitter to succeed remotely, augmenting
and perhaps eventually automating them. In a setting of long-term
collaboration with the user. And perhaps input-side development might be
decoupled from manufactured output, by doing product recommendations?

------
_-o-_
I wonder if it's possible to scale measuring by replacing measuring process by
making a 3d scan (several versions - regular, with arms raised, etc.).

Then this data could be mapped to a simplified model which, in turn, could be
used to figure out measurements of the bra.

~~~
namibj
Actually, having multiple views/angles and just capturing how the skin moves
in 3d-space when forces are induced (through e.g. arm raising, jumping, or
various other methods) should allow for inferring some elastic properties.
This could allow detailed fitting with parametric stiffness/support trade
offs.

------
gbronner
There's a tension between solving the problem perfectly and burning your first
customers to gather data, fund development, and iterate.

The best product startups have a both curious perfectionist scientist and a
commercial sales person working together.

------
layoutIfNeeded
Reminds me of: [https://xkcd.com/1831/](https://xkcd.com/1831/)

------
jeffrallen
I hope progress continues in this space for my wife and my daughter. But I'm
also aware that my wife is a satisfied-enough bra user today, and I suspect
many other women are too. So maybe this is a problem worth solving, but not as
urgently as others... suppose I need to ask them to know for sure.

