Follow the Bouncing Bra

(This is the second of two posts about Title Nine, the sporting-goods company for women. Read the first post here.)

I’d been thinking about Title Nine for a few days before I visited the Berkeley store, because I’d recently received an email from the company that looked like this:

 

Bounce—jiggle lines and all—turns out to be the name of Title Nine’s everyday bra brand.

It’s an odd name for a bra brand, to say the least.* And it’s especially strange coming from Title Nine.

Some background: Title Nine built its reputation on selling sport bras that have been tested for various activities and assigned “barbell” ratings. The more barbells, the more support. There’s a four-barbell bra called the “Bye-Bye Bounce Bra”; another is called the “Bounceless Bra.”  The maximum-strength bra—a five-barbeller called “The Last Resort”—is said to “completely eliminate bounce.”

So why is the non-athletic bra brand bounce-positive? Where’s the consistency? Or is the name a joke I’m not getting?

Here’s another odd thing.

Each bra style in the Bounce department has a name, and many of the names are, yes, jokey: Get Busted, M.F. (not what you’re thinking), Full House, A Bolder Holder. (Who else remembers “over-shoulder boulder holder”?)

Then there’s the Things Unseen Bra.

 

I’m a nonpracticing Jew and no expert on Scripture, but I do recognize “things unseen” as a New Testament catchphrase. It appears—as “things not seen” in some translations—in Hebrews 11:1 and in 2 Corinthians 4:18, and it refers to faith (“the evidence of things not seen”).

If this is a dog whistle, it’s a pretty irreverent one. (I’ve seen no sign of Bounce or Title Nine having a religious mission. Christianity isn’t part of the T9 brand manifesto as it is for, say, Sierra Trading Post, Chick-fil-A, and some other well-known US companies.)

Then again, I notice that Bounce also carries an Amen Bra—for A cups only, haha—and a skimpy, secular Blessings Top. And the company’s bra-fitting experts are Bravangelists. So maybe what we have here is a little wink-wink, nudge-nudge—some tittering, if you will—about “uplift.”

But “Bounce”? Sorry, it’s just flat wrong.

__

* Yes, I know that Procter & Gamble makes a Bounce brand of clothes-dryer products. Not a concern: it’s a variation on the but-that’s-a-car-name non-issue. Different categories; zero conflict. (But see also Jessica’s observation in the comments section.)

___

Previous posts about brassieres: Mr. Bra, Brayola, Why Bra Sizing Makes No Sense, Bra-llelujah.

Comments

[Jessica]

I'm not entirely sure there's NO conflict with the P&G dryer sheet, but I'm conservative that way (and in virtually no other way ...)

But having spent a lifetime trying to minimize bounce, I agree that their adoption of "bounce" as the name of the line is strange when their sports bras' names seem to be anti-bounce. I don't get it.

[patricia]

based on the photos, the Bounce line is targeted to women who really have a blast eating fattening foods while in their skivvies.

[empty]

To me "bounce" is about men looking at breasts, which seems antithetical to the original goals of this company. But maybe they know what they're doing, know how to sell bras.

[heydave]

It's a little-known fact that all of the actresses in Bergman's Through a Glass Darkly wore Things Unseen bras.