Atelier letters: notes on the spring fit

At MATAN, a single bra can live on the fitting table for seventy days. We build each silhouette on a house pattern that has been refined — gram by gram, seam by seam — since the atelier opened in 2019.

The first thirty-seven fittings

Every new style starts with a ritual. Our head pattern-maker, Ana, sketches the first silhouette in charcoal on paper. She'll cut twelve muslin samples before the first silk is even sourced. Between samples eight and twelve, we bring in a rotating panel of thirty-seven fit models spanning seven dress sizes.

We listen more than we measure. How does the band feel after three hours? Where does the strap press? Does the cup hold its shape through a run for the bus?

Centimetres of grace

Ready-to-wear grading assumes bodies scale uniformly. They don't. Our grading adds what the atelier calls centimetres of grace: small adjustments at the side seam, cup apex and strap placement, tuned to how a given size actually behaves on a real body.

It sounds small. It feels enormous.

Why the right underwire is revolutionary

Most underwires are wire. Ours are a composite of memory polymer and steel core, shaped on a last we commissioned from a lutherie workshop in Cremona. They remember the curve of your ribs, not ours.

If a single thing about a MATAN bra surprises you on the first wear, let it be this.