Baroness of the brassiere fit countless area women
Earlene Moore, Austin’s celebrated bra fitter and lingerie saleswoman, has died.
The direct, dynamic and energetic Moore, 94, died Sunday at Hospice Austin’s Christopher House after a brief illness. If anybody in a city that likes to let it all hang out ever earned the honorary title of “grandma of bras,” it was her.
“She was a force of nature, really,” said her son, Mike Gillespie. “She was unbelievable.”
“She was still helping customers until a few weeks ago, blowing and going and coming to work and driving herself,” said Melinda Snell, manager of the Julian Gold store downtown where Moore had most recently worked.
“She came dressed to the nines every day — oh, my Lord, fully made up, every hair in place,” Snell said.
“She believed in not sitting in a chair. Even in the hospital there’s that tray table, and she moved it out of the way and made a little desk. She was never in the bed. She said she needed to keep moving.”
Moore worked with countless customers over her long retail career and served several generations of families. Some came from hundreds of miles away to enjoy Moore’s fitting expertise, which started by eyeballing the customer’s bust — “I don’t need a tape measure,” she had said — selecting two or three brands to try as she supervised the fit.
“You’re darn right I go into the dressing room with them,” she told the American-Statesman in 2010.
Snell recruited Moore to her store after Saks Fifth Avenue, where Moore had worked for 15 years, closed its Arboretum-area location. In the two years at the downtown store, she never missed a day of work or called in sick, working five-hour shifts three days a week.
“I thought it would be wonderful for Julian Gold to have her celebrity,” Snell said in 2013.
The shop got more than Moore’s celebrity. Her customers followed her downtown.
Moore was born in Kentucky and moved to Falfurrias when she was a year or two old, her son said. She grew up near Corpus Christi and came to Austin around 1940. She had her own lingerie, sleepwear and casual attire business in Jefferson Square until she was about 75, when she sold it, Gillespie said.
Retirement stuck for about a year. If that.
“She called me and said, ‘I’m going back to work,’” Gillespie said. “‘I’m not one of those ladies that lunches and plays bridge. I’m going to work for Saks.’
“She worked at Saks until they closed and I thought surely that was the end,” he said. “That lasted a few months and she said, ‘I’m going to work for Julian Gold.’ I said, ‘Mother are you serious?’ She said, ‘Don’t worry, it’ll only be three days a week.’”
In addition to Gillespie of Fredericksburg, Moore is survived by a daughter, Judy Crown of Houston; a brother, Randolph Cooper of Louisville, Ky.; four grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
Services are at 11 a.m. Friday at Tarrytown United Methodist Church, 2601 Exposition Blvd., with burial in Austin Memorial Park Cemetery.