Monday, May 25, 2015

What's my Bra Size???


If I were making a bra for myself, I would normally wear a 30I. When I purchase bras from other manufacturers, I purchase a 32H (Le Mysterie), 32HH (Fantasie), 30I (Bravissimo) or a 32H (Shock Absorber). Why do I appear to wear so many different bra sizes? Unlike shoes that are almost sure to fit regardless of the brand your purchase, the different fabrics, molds or pattern used to make bras will create a drastic effect on the overall size of the bra.

Do you ever wonder why 85% of women are wearing the wrong bra?

When I first began my career as a corsetiere, my mission was to make custom bras that fit women based on their individual measurements and sizes.  If it were simple to say that women were wearing the wrong bras because the bras were too big or too small, my job would have been simple… I would either size up or size down.
I received a call from a client one day who was suffering from PE (Pectus Excavatum).  I had no previous knowledge of the condition but decided to research it and see if I could find a way to help her.  PE is a condition where the bone of the sternum is inverted and it leaves a sunken “hole” in the ribcage.  This means that a regular bra, with our without under wires will not have a place to rest on the ribcage and even if the bra were to fit the breasts perfectly, the lack of bone in the sternum would not give the bra a place to rest in the front ribcage.

How do you like your underwires?

I spend a great portion of my day looking at women’s breasts and there is nothing more painful than seeing women suffer with blisters and bruises because of ill fitting bra underwires.
The underwire in a bra is designed to hold the bra cups in place against the ribcage while giving additional shape/support to the bra.  When making a bra, there are various sizes of underwires to use for the different bra cups.   Different styles of bras will also contain different styles of underwires.  (For example, a Demi bra will have a more shallow underwire, and a full coverage bra will have a more defined U shaped underwire.) When I began sourcing underwires from a manufacturer in China back in 2003, the sales representative would always laugh at me when I asked for a large size.  She could not fathom my need for an underwire larger than a D cup and though it was hilarious that women’s breasts could actually be bigger than a D cup. Thank goodness the lingerie industry has realized that women’s breasts are getting bigger and large sized underwires are now easier to purchase in the market.