Taylor Swift’s posture-correcting bra costs $185. A posture historian shares why she’s skeptical of ‘one-size-fits-all’ solutions.

While rehearsing for the Eras tour, Taylor Swift wore the $185 posture-correcting Forme Power Bra.
The bra is designed to “immediately improve upper body alignment” and fix your posture.
Beth Linker, author of “Slouch: Posture Panic in Modern America,” is skeptical of such products.

It appears that even global pop stars may have a hard time standing up straight.

In Taylor Swift’s profile for TIME’s 2023 Person of the Year, photos revealed that she wore the Forme Power Bra while rehearsing for the Eras Tour last year. This is a sports bra designed by an orthopedic surgeon to help improve body alignment.

It comes with a hefty price tag but, at least, for Business Insider’s senior editor Conz Preti, it’s worth it. “I love this bra so much,” Preti said after wearing it for nine months to help prevent her shoulders from hunching forward too much when playing tennis.

The author, after a workout, wearing the Forme bra.Courtesy of Conz Preti
For $185, wearers should feel their upper body alignment “immediately improve” as the bra “activates and supports key muscle groups, helping guide the body into proper alignment naturally, without any discomfort,” according to Forme’s website.

This bra isn’t the only posture-fixing product on the market. In fact, there’s an entire industry built around posture-enhancing devices and fitness programs, totaling $1.25 billion spent annually worldwide, Beth Linker reported in her new book “Slouch: Posture Panic in Modern America.”

If you find that one of these products works for you, then go ahead and use it, Linker said. But otherwise, she advised against shopping for a quick solution because you risk wasting money and injuring yourself while using a product that may not be right for you.

Linker is an author, medical historian, and former physical therapist. In “Slouch,” she takes readers on a journey through the history of our societal obsession with good posture. From her point of view, trying to fix posture with pricey, one-step products isn’t the best approach.

“The kind of bra that Taylor is wearing is incredibly expensive,” Linker told BI. Companies can get away with marking up products like this by promising that they’ll fix posture, she said, but she’s not convinced they’ll work for everyone. Forme didn’t respond to Business Insider’s request for comment.