Beware the 'quadraboob'! Lingerie boutique warns against the perils of bra malfunctions in unusual new campaign



Beware the sagging! Run from the shelf! Live in fear of the quadraboob!



They may not be the usual images we have come to expect from an ad for a lingerie shop - but they are the kinds of scenes many women are all too familiar with.



An enterprising bra boutique in Newfoundland, Canada, has made a series of mock horror movie posters to highlight the peril of a badly fitting bra.

Boobie trap: The new ads poke fun at the lingerie industry's usual perfection while mocking badly fitted bra syndrome - a condition many women will know only too well

One shot shows the dreaded 'quadraboob,' another the feared 'shelf.' Lit with eerily haunting light and mimicking famous movie artwork, the ads show uncomfortable-looking bras and misshapen breasts with comic drama.



Targeted at just women, rather than the both men and women - there are few men who idly ignore a lingerie ad, after all - the ad breaks usual conventions.

Competing with marketing images such as those for Victoria's Secret that show only immaculately fitted bras on almost impossibly perfect bodies, the ads poke fun at the industry as well as the daily problems of the larger chested woman.

We have to give the St John's store marks for originality - there aren't many fashion advertisements that make a show of ill-fitting clothes.

The horror! The Sagging, The Shelf and The Quadraboob - all eerily-lit move horror movie posters - point fun at ill-fitting bars and their awkward-looking discomfort

Developed by Target Marketing and Communications, the ads hit Canadian print this week.



There are also a range of horror flick-style short films, all making light of the very feminine wardrobe malfunctions.



Fans of the boutique applause its bra-fitting prowess, with one, Susan Veitch Gregg, saying 'every women needs to visit' the small shop. The team behind the campaign no doubt agrees.



Studies have repeatedly highlighted the health problems, not to mention social taboos, of a incorrectly sized bra.

Not the quadraboob! One study found that 80 per cent of women wear the wrong sized bra - and bigger the breasts, the smaller the bra

A 2008 study by Katherine Wood and colleagues, published in Chiropractic and Osteopathy journal, looked at correlations between breast size, bra fit and chest pain.

They found that 80 per cent of their sample respondents wore incorrectly sized bras, with 70 per cent of the women wearing bras that were too small.

Perhaps unsurprisingly - and certainly in line with what the Boobie Trap ads suggest, breast size was negatively correlated with bra size and fit, meaning the bigger the breasts, the smaller and more poorly fitted the bra.