Back in January, the daughter of a breast cancer survivor started an online petition to ask Victoria’s Secret to design a bra for women who have undergone mastectomies. She wrote that she wanted the retailer to create the bra for her mother, and other cancer survivors because often “shopping for bras is such a discouraging, time consuming and frustrating ordeal.” Despite that petition garnering over 120,000 signatures, however, Victoria’s Secret says it’s opting not to make a mastectomy bra, because it doesn’t feel up to the challenge.

In a statement included in a Change.org press release (via Racked.com), the company explains its rationale in deciding not to go ahead with the idea championed by the petition:

“Through our research, we have learned that fitting and selling mastectomy bras in the right way…a way that is beneficial to women is complicated and truly a science. As a result, we believe that the best way for us to make an impact for our customers is to continue funding cancer research.”

On the one hand, it’s kind of like, c’mon, Victoria’s Secret. You can engineer ginormous angel wings for your supermodels to wear on the runway but you can’t get bra scientists to develop a real product that would mean a lot to your customers?

But on the other — it’s somewhat refreshing for a company that admits it can’t do something right, and would rather not do it at all than do it the wrong way, just for the good PR.

What do you think?

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