I’m Sarah Zelvey, creator and owner (and sole employee) of Hugs for Your Jugs. I’m from Oxford in the UK where I live with my sister and my poodle.

I was 14 when I discovered I was wearing the wrong bra size, with the help of the A Bra That Fits online community. Armed with the results from their measuring guide, I went into my local lingerie shop wearing a 32D and came out wearing a 28FF. The feeling of comfort and support was life-changing, and I instantly knew I had to share this knowledge with as many people as possible, and I’ve been involved in bras ever since. 

So I stuck with that community, learning all I could about bra fitting and starting to create resources of my own. Along the way I created their bra size calculator and started my blog, Hugs for Your Jugs, as a place to review bras and write fitting guides.

As I got older and my boobs grew – G, GG, H, HH, I became increasingly dissatisfied. The well designed bras that I had previously enjoyed slowly became unwearable as I replaced them in my new sizes, and I often ended up outside their size ranges altogether. I found myself more and more locked out of the market and became acutely aware of just how many others were in my position. I turned to making bras instead.

While I ventured into bra making, I found myself wanting more technical guidance than what was on offer, and wanting more styles and a different fit to what was on the market. I ended up putting my engineering degree to work, pivoted my blog, and started pattern drafting: first for myself, then for friend and fitting clients, and now I’m releasing home sewing patterns directly.

From my years of ready-to-wear fitting comes a deep understanding of body and breast shape, and of what the average woman needs from a bra; from my mechanics-informed study of commercial and custom patterns comes an appreciation of the complexities of large-cup bra design. It’s so much more than just scaling a smaller bra up! To make a design successful requires an understanding of every component, its structural role, its position in 3D space, and how the materials stretch and move under the weight of the bust.

I love nothing more than hearing someone say “It fits!” And to that end, my goal is to release high quality patterns alongside high quality educational materials. I would love for any bra maker to be able to make a bra that fits them – one they feel great in and want to wear every day – from complete beginners to seasoned lingerie sewists. I want to push designs not to any commercial limit but to physical ones, so we are not restricted by the cost-cutting measures ready-to-wear brands impose on their consumers. Our bodies are not too rare, too unfashionable or too difficult to work with. I want to help you.

Love,
Sarah xx