"One morning I woke up and said to me husband, 'We have to take bras to the city of Detroit... women need them.'"
Lee Padgett has long been an entrepreneur and for years she ran a coffee shop in Detroit.
"We lived in the city and one complaint was people would say 'where can I even go to buy a pair of underwear, I can’t buy a pair of underwear in the city.'"
Lee decided she wanted to change that. She took her idea to Hatch Detroit, and entered a contest that awards $50,000 to a retailer to open a brick and mortar store in the city. She didn't win, but at the encouragement of so many, she opened the shop anyway.
"I literally woke up one morning and said it’s going to be called "Busted," which some people said was a little too edgy, but it works," Lee explains "If it goes under your clothes, we sell it. We’ve got your foundations, your slips, your shape wear, your hosiery, your bras, your panties, your bathing suit, your lingerie, we have your naughty, your nice," she says with a smile."
They carry Neubian Skin, which includes bra and panties for women of color.
"Nude means different thing for different people," she says.
You'll find the Busted Bra Shop on the first floor of the Park Shelton Building in Midtown, on Woodward and Kirby.
This is Lee's third year in business. Busted now employs eight women, who are all certified bra fitters. They have bra cup sizes from AA to O.
Her mission... to serve Detroiters with pride...
"750,000 people, 53% of them are female, which means there are more boobs than people, and there’s not a place... there wasn’t a place to buy lingerie, and now we have it."
AND THAT’S WHY WE SAY… MOM’S A GENIUS.
