Charnos

When the Sherwood Group, the maker of Lepel lingerie and swimwear, agreed to buy underwear company Charnos for £585,000 ($1.02m) in March 2006 they unleashed a media wave of attention that has yet to subside.

The reason is that Charnos, once a household name on coats and housecoats, are also an iconic, cutting-edge lingerie designer house whose bioform bra, released in 2001 re-shaped all notions about a woman’s cleavage (pun intended).

Charnos' Bioform bra, which substitutes plastic inserts for underwiring, acts not just as a fantastic chest support but is comfortable to wear and creates an alluring enhancing effect that turns every woman into a Page 3 goddess. The Mirror gave this ingenious invention its full support over two lavishly illustrated pages and awarded the Bioform 8 out of 10, neck and neck with the Wonderbra Variable Cleavage, which owes its reputation to a pulley system.

The fact is that the female world is split in two. One type of research suggests that women of today are outgrowing their mothers in every way, including being taller, heavier and having bigger feet. In the last 50 years the average woman has grown an inch taller, 14 pounds heavier and wears shoes one or two sizes bigger.

Your bust is expanding at an even more alarming rate! One leading bra manufacturer claims that the average size has gone from 34B to 36C, or even 36D, in only the last 10 years. They are finding that more and more younger women are needing the fuller cup sizes - DD and larger.

Another type of research suggests that there are many petite women who just need to look bigger, not just when they go out on a date but every day. Which makes an enhancing bra pretty much an everyday underwear item.

Charnos understand this well, which is why so many women swear by the effects of their highly scientific approach to designing quality lingerie. Because they have consistently insisted on putting the kind of brains that design working parts for the space shuttle to work with problems that usually are of great concern to women who want to have a perfect figure, they have managed to retain a cult-like following amongst fans of quality lingerie.

Is it going to work for you? Possibly. Charnos have never tried to cater to everyone, the best way to find out is to try them and see!