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So what DO you talk about when you're fitting the Queen's bra? (And other dilemmas faced by the firm who are bosom buddies to the famous).

Article Excerpt
Byline: by Jane Fryer

JUNE KENTON is a small, sparkly, grey-haired lady of 73 with a tendency to get very worked up about other people's underwear. 'First of all you see the bounce when they walk along -- everything moving underneath the sweater or coat. And then you realise that as well as the bounce, there are two at the front, two more popping out at the top and another two under their arms ... 'Whatever they've grown in the front department should be firmly in the cup, not jiggling around like a great big meatloaf at the front. It's madness!' June is talking bras. And bosoms -- 'I never call them breasts -- it's such a hard, medical word'. And the nightmares that confront her and her staff on a daily basis behind the heavily swagged curtains of the Rigby & Peller fitting rooms.

'Sometimes they're falling out so badly it's barely covering the nipple -- I call them nipple-warmers, though I'd never dream of saying that to a customer.

I just try to explain that they need to be divided and separated. They don't need to get together in the middle and talk.' If June seems a bit,well, overexcited about bosoms, bras and nipples, it's understandable.

She's spent almost 60 years working in the brassiere business and, as the matriarch of Rigby & Peller -- the company will celebrate its 70th anniversary in October -- has fitted everyone from Dawn French to Margaret Thatcher and Joan Collins to the Queen (the company has held the Royal Warrant of Appointment as Corsetieres to HM Queen Elizabeth since 1960).

She is also on a one-woman campaign to encourage women to buy bras...

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