Pushing bras for a lifetime

The Town Shop motto: "We know your size"

By David Schepp BBC News Online North America business reporter

As part of a weekly series on women in business, BBC News Online talks to one native New Yorker who's been sizing up her customers for 75 years - and is still going strong.

It is nearly moving day for Selma Koch.

After 66 years in the same location, the 95-year-old owner of one of New York's few remaining old-style bra-fitting shops, is looking forward to opening a new store just two doors down.

A fixture on Manhattan's Upper West side, the Town Shop has been in continuous operation for more than 100 years.

Selma Koch: We provide an unusual service

August's move is 10 years in the making, but it also comes as the Town Shop has seen its business expand in recent months.

Ms Koch's advanced age and outspoken demeanour have brought curiosity seekers in droves to her shop after her April appearance on the Rosie O'Donnell Show, a syndicated television talk show taped in Manhattan.

"Two weeks ago on a Friday and a Saturday, I had as many as six or eight people on-line outside this office," she says.

"All they wanted to do is meet me. For what?" she asks, perplexed by her new-found celebrity.

Unique service

Nevertheless, she is happy about the "tremendous amount of interest" her modest stardom has generated for her shop.

This area is a small town - everybody knows everybody

Selma Koch

The Town Shop has seen a dramatic rise in foot traffic and telephone orders "from all over", she says.

First opened in 1888 by Ms Koch's father-in-law, she signed on in 1928 when she married his son.

Since then Ms Koch, who says fitting bras is her specialty, has strived to make the Town Shop the best place to shop for a bra, underwear or a swim suit.

She says department stores with their armies of sales people are too impersonal. Employees of her shop, 17 in total, strive to be different.

"The unique aspect of our store is that when you come into our store, you're immediately approached by a salesperson," Ms Koch says in her distinctive New York accent.

If a client is shopping for a bra, Ms Koch explains, the sales clerk does not pull out a bunch of brassieres from a drawer or point to wall of them on hangers.

Keeping it in the family - Ms Koch's grandson

"She immediately takes the customer into a fitting room for a fitting."

Ms Koch says all her employees are expert fitters - "our girls are all trained" - and all alterations are done without charge to ensure proper fit.

"Now that's an unusual service," she says, noting the same service is offered for underwear and swim suits.

Small town

It is also unusual for Ms Koch's family-run business to have survived four generations, which today includes her son and grandson.

"The history of businesses... is they don't survive that many generations - for many reasons," she says.

But even as her business has grown over the years, it remains an intimate part of the neighbourhood.

"This area is a small town," she says. "Everybody knows everybody."

Ms Koch and her staff - some of who have been with her as many as 30 years - have developed a cosy relationship with the women of the Upper West side.

"We remember birthdays and babies and we send flowers - we cater to our customers."

Enormous sizes

Her devotion to her consumers comes from her innate zeal for business.

The Town Shop is amidst a big moving sale

Ms Koch began working in the late 1920s, when few women left children at home to pursue careers.

"I was always in business," she says. "I was in advertising originally as a copywriter."

In her early days at the Town Shop, Ms Koch worked 13 hours a day in the hopes of ringing up $100 in sales - $200 on a good Saturday.

While her business has changed in numerous ways over the years, Ms Koch says the biggest change is in her customers.

American women's breasts are much larger today than when she first started in the business 75 years ago, she says.

Back then, her shop kept a minimal number of D-cup bras on hand because there was not much demand for them.

Today, among the 7,000 bras she has in stock, those large-sized bras are among the most popular.

"We go up to E, F, G - which is enormous," she says.

Wake-up call

Those who think 95 is well beyond retirement years might be surprised to learn Ms Koch has no plans to do so.

"It's a great way to get old," she says, even as she admits her age limits her ability to do some things.

Ms Koch relies on a walker to get around, but hers is still the first voice heard when a customer rings up her shop.

She would love to sleep beyond her six o'clock alarm, but she says getting up early everyday is a goal.

"It's a way of staying alive," she says. "I'm as active as I can be."