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Strapless Wonderbra around pounds

Fashion creates many dilemmas for the modern woman, and this spring and summer designers have, en masse, forced us to address several. The first - how do you wear sheer clothes? The answer of course is to wear things that are not sheer underneath them - which raises the question, why wear sheer anyway? The second - how do you wear ragged handkerchief hems without looking as though a car had pulled away with your skirt trapped in the door? Answer: don't. The third fashion dilemma, however, is not a dilemma at all. How do you wear one-shouldered tops or boob tubes if your bust size is more than 34A?

Answer: wear a bra. But not just any old bra. Oh no. Wonderbra from Playtex has, as part of its range, a bra that pushes you up and out without the aid of any heavy duty elastic straps. It may seem obvious, but most women will immediately assume that a one-shoulder top is strictly for skinny women with no boobs. That is not true. A friend of mine, who stands at 6ft in her stockinged feet, who is a healthy size 14, and has 36C breasts, looks amazing in her top, which she now wears with a white strapless Wonderbra or a seamless bra with one-strap option from Marks & Spencer. Last month she complained that the one-shouldered look is something she could only imagine wearing. Last week she swanned around Rome looking every bit the cosmopolitan character she is, wearing the ensemble.

If, like my friend, you have seen the fashion stories heralding asymmetric and strapless looks only to dismiss them with a flick of the page for being size-ist and age-ist, don't. The bra revolution, especially in Wonderbra's case, has meant that 1.5 million women a year have been reintroduced to their curves, which can't be bad

Melanie Rickey

Strapless Wonderbras are available in black or white in sizes 32A to 38C from major stores nationwide including Debenhams, Miss Selfridge, Allders, Principles and Top Shop.

Special offer: Playtex has kindly offered a Strap,less Wonderbra and Summer Survival kit to the first 10 readers who respond on a postcard to: Wonderbra Offer c/o `The Independent', Fashion, 1 Canada Square, Canary Wharf, London E14 5DL. The kit contains a Fuji one-time-use camera, lip balm, blusher brush and a face mist.