M&S Bra Fit Guide
The TL;DR
The details
The problem
In the initial stages of the Covid-19 pandemic, M&S physical stores began to close their doors with all customer-facing services suspended, including bra fitting, one of M&S's most trusted in-store services.
With stores shut, customers lacked the expert guidance they relied on to make confident purchase decisions online.
The context made this critical: M&S is the UK's lingerie market leader, with a 22.9% market share, selling 21 million bras a year. This is the equivalent of 40 bras every minute.
Losing that touchpoint without a digital alternative risked both customer confidence and lingerie sales at a moment when online was the only channel available.
My role
As Lead Product Designer, I was embedded into an agile working group of senior stakeholders, Product experts, Content Designers and Developers. I was responsible for the overall UX direction, responsive layout design, and creative direction of the visual assets — from initial brief through to delivery.
The working group was given 2 weeks to design and launch the guide.
Under normal circumstances, a project of this type would take approximately 2 months.
The process
To ensure an informed design direction, I examined the UX team's existing research, competitor analysis and M&S brand guidelines. Common themes in the research included a minimal visual style utilising negative space and skin tone geometry, giving a clear direction for the visual language
I also worked alongside the in-house content Illustrator to establish the creative direction.
With model photoshoots paused due to social distancing restrictions, a key challenge was sourcing visual assets that could carry the guide without product photography.
To solve this, we adopting a hand-drawn, evergreen illustration style; imagery that would remain relevant regardless of seasonal product changes, removing any dependency on future photoshoots. Written content was implemented alongside the illustrations to provide a descriptive narrative, helping users understand fit guidance in an accessible, conversational way.
Exploration and design decisions
Pulling together the content elements, I explored various compositional layouts to determine the most effective structure for the guide.
An early direction mixed stock M&S photography with the custom illustrations. Playing this back to the working group and senior stakeholders, it quickly became apparent that the combination was visually inconsistent and distracting — undermining the credibility of the guide.
Taking that feedback on board, I recommended creating additional illustrative content to replace the mixed media approach entirely. This gave the final design a coherent, distinctive visual identity that felt premium and on-brand.
The final page design alternates image composition left and right throughout the guide, harmonising the content assets within M&S's visual language. The fluid responsive layout was designed with a mobile-first focus, complementing baseline screen sizes across devices.
To give users a jumping-off platform to explore the range, category links were placed at the base of the page alongside direct navigation to the M&S Bra-Fit calculator.
Launch and Impact
The digital bra fit guide launched in Q1 2020 — delivered in 2 weeks from brief to launch. By Q2 2020 it was averaging over 20,000 customers a month, providing the only digital alternative to M&S's suspended in-store service during lockdown.
The guide formed part of M&S's broader digital bra fit response during lockdown. Trials of the associated online bra fit service, run during the same period, showed exceptional customer satisfaction: 100% of customers polled rated the experience 9 or 10 out of 10, with an average bra fitter rating of 4.97 out of 5 stars (based on 100 customers).
The online bra fit service was covered by Grazia, Drapers, and M&S's own corporate press office.
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© 2026 Simon Wessely