How could I have been in NY for 22 years and never have heard of her?
NEW YORK (AP) - Selma Koch, the Bra Lady who fitted generations of women without tiring or tape measure and became famous in old age for refusing to regret or retire, has died at 95. Koch, who died Thursday, had been hospitalized since last week, when she fell and broke her hip at the Town Shop, whose threshold she first crossed in 1927, when she married Henry Koch and his lingerie business. Her grandson Danny Koch said that after doctors warned her of a long recovery, “she just sort of decided to throw in the towel.”
With great charm, she would smile and nod to customers at the store at Broadway and 82nd Street who carried in newspaper clippings bearing her photograph. After they walked away, she would turn to her grandson and grumble, “What’s the big deal? It’s just a bra.” She worked 10 hours a day, six days week, right up to last week. She wore crimson lipstick and plunging, but tasteful, necklines. She prided herself on being able to determine a woman’s bra size just by looking. “We don’t measure anything,” she said. “We’re trained to know.”
She was an independent woman before anyone called it that. She graduated from Columbia University’s School of Journalism in 1925 and landed a job as a copywriter at an advertising agency. That is how she met Henry Koch. She went to his successful business - there were four stores then - to handle his account. He asked for her home number. She haughtily turned him down. Then she learned he was one of New York’s most eligible bachelors. “So I went back,” she said. “With a little more charm.”
“I always liked people. No sales pressure - that we don’t allow,” she said. “The whole secret is having a relationship with people.” She is survived by sons Peter and David, six grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren. Funeral services are scheduled for Sunday. The store, her grandson said, will be closed that day.
