It’s National Underwear Day, And Curvy Kate Is Having A Times Square Lingerie Party!

Today, August 5, is National Underwear Day — and to celebrate, British bra maker Curvy Kate is featured at FreshPair.com‘s huge underwear party in Times Square with giveaways and record-setting goal. (Men and women are both invited to strip down and break the record, with Z100’s Greg T.!)

On National Underwear Day, Curvy Kate may be a new name to US lingerie fans. But if you aren’t familiar, today’s #BodyLove event from 5 PM to 7:30 in Manhattan may pique your interest and catapult the brand to bigger heights across the pond.

Curvy Kate’s beautiful designs, reasonable price point, and amazing construction is catching on hard with US fans. (I personally own eight Curvy Kate bras, and love every single one of them.) Part of the reason is that their cuts far outshine American prestige brands in both quality and design, and many American bra buyers are coming around to the more accurate sizing methods used in countries like the UK.

We often hear that 80 percent of women are wearing the wrong bra size, but few people think the stat applies to them. In actuality, not many women can find their true bra size through US lingerie retailers, and the dated habit of adding four inches to band size puts many women in the incorrect bra.

The result? Overly loose bands, small cups, spillage, and discomfort. Curvy Kate’s bras have become somewhat of an underground sensation with American consumers because of their fit and the gorgeous detailing, and today’s Times Square event is likely to create more fans. (Which we really hope doesn’t translate to lessened availability of Curvy Kate bras!)

In order to break the Guinness World Record for “Largest Gathering Of People In Their Underwear,” FreshPair.com has teamed up with Curvy Kate and Z100 to throw a National Underwear Day party, and more than 2,270 people are needed to smash the existing record.

Krista Cousins, is the winner of Curvy Kate’s Star in a Bra model competition in 2012, and she will be at the National Underwear Day Times Square event to represent the brand. One notable about Curvy Kate is they use “real women,” not models, to model their wares. (This is not to say models aren’t “real women,” but Curvy Kate uses actual non-models who look just like us in their advertising, and it is so cool.)

Cousins says that the right bra gives women of all sizes a confidence boost, commenting:

“As a Curvy Kate model and shapely girl, I’m so excited to represent the brand and show just how great curves look in lingerie. I’m looking forward to telling the curvy women of New York about the brand, and showing just how confident the right bra can make you feel.”

On National Underwear Day, Curvy Kate retailer FreshPair.com is offering 25 percent off many styles — including Curvy Kate’s popular line. And if you haven’t had a fitting in years and want to take advantage of the sale, there are many resources online to get you in the right size bra and revamp your look.

Curvy Kate offers a Fitting Guide on their Facebook page, and the brand’s Hannah Houston tells us that the bra experts at Curvy Kate advise bra buyers to think more about fit, comfort and support than a specific size — she says:

“It’s about the fit of the bra, not numbers on a tape measure. Every woman is so different in shape and size – that it needs to be about how it feels more than a calculation. It’s also about education and knowing where the support should come from. So many women think that if they hoist up the straps it’ll hold up their boobs – when actually the support needs to come from the back band.”

Houston explains that 80 percent of support should come from the back band, with 20 percent from the straps. (The brand’s video above illustrates a proper fit.)

If your National Underwear Day plans include buying a new bra (or several) and you don’t know where to start, there are other ways to calculate an accurate bra size. The SizeM app allows you to plug in six measurements and supplies an accurate size to start — one that is likely to surprise you given the differences in European and American bra fitting.

You can even do a faster, easier “starting size” measurement by measuring overbust and underbust, and subtracting the second from the first. Most American bra fitting calculators would tell you that 30? underbust and 37? overbust (a very average size) would put you in a 34C — but a far more accurate fit would be had in something like a 30G. (Just don’t forget to swoop and scoop!)

If you can’t make it to Curvy Kate’s National Underwear Day event in Times Square, you can follow its progress on social media with the hashtag #BodyLove or #NationalUnderwearDay. You can also like Curvy Kate on Facebook for lingerie news and pics of National Underwear Day in Times Square.