bra sizes: Ekim 2012

13 Ekim 2012 Cumartesi

Bra Shopping: Why I still don't love it

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(I wrote this a while back and then debated about posting it - it felt too much like a rant. But after rereading it and seeing a recent post on The Lingerie Addict along the same lines, I do feel like it has a point to it and might spark some thoughts/discussion...)

When I was a teen, I loathed bra shopping. Desperately. Passionately. Nothing seemed to fit me right - and no wonder, as I was squeezing myself into ill-fitting and painful 36DD soft-cup and sports bras.

Now that I'm wearing the correct size, I don't have the same passionate hatred and fear of the bra department that I once did. I do feel more empowered because I know what I'm looking for and not just blindly trying to figure things out. I also do feel that there are more options in general now than there were even a few years ago. And, yes, I can now even say that I love bras!

But does this mean that I love actually going bra shopping now? Sadly, not really. And there are a several reasons why.

I haven't yet found a store in the U.S. that carries my size.
I'm sure that bra stores that carry 28H-HH bras exist somewhere in the US, but unfortunately, I've never had the pleasure of shopping at one. The best I can do in stores is look for sister sizes to try on to see if I can get something close so I can either alter it or order the correct size online. But even the sister sizes of 28H/HH (30GG/H) can be difficult to locate.

When I do go into a store to check it out and try on bras that are at least close to my size, nearly every bra fitter has tried to convince me that I am a size that they carry rather than the size I actually am.
Fitters, please - admit when you don't carry the size that your customer needs, especially if the customer is able to tell you what size she is and that she knows you don't carry it! If I knew nothing about bra fitting and left it in the hands of fitters from Victoria's Secret, Nordstrom, or even most bra boutiques, I would be miserably squished into sizes like 32DDD, 36DD, 32FF, 30G - or worse. Nordstrom fitters still invariably bring me 32 bands and try to put me into 30G's, and they don't seem to realize that the bras are ill-fitting until I point it out (this happened just last week). I generally have to be very insistent to even get 30 bands and above a G cup to try on.

I've yet to have a truly great experience with a fitter.
The closest experience I've had to a great bra shopping experience was at a Bravissimo in the UK last year - but even then, the fitters seemed a bit rushed and, frankly, I didn't feel that the store lived up to my high expectations. I was pleased that they didn't insult me or get "weirded out" by my "strange" size (as happens often in the US). But they could've been friendlier; they could've told me what my options were instead of agreeing with me that certain bras didn't fit and then moving on without giving me other options or suggestions. I left one Bravissimo store in tears because I wasn't able to find a bra that worked for me; the next store was a bit better as I found one bra after over an hour of trying on bras (mostly left to my own devices).
In regards to the US, while I've had nice and personable and even understanding fitters before, the vast majority of them have bullied me into trying on (and even buying) sizes that I know won't work for me, made comments on how I was wrong (about my size or about the fit of a bra), and even insulted my body/breast type. I'm a fairly quiet person, but I'm by no means painfully shy or adverse to being helped in fitting rooms. But I also hate feeling rushed and pressured to buy something, and I'm not keen on being insulted.

I often feel like I know more than the fitters.
I frequently come across fitters (even in "good" stores) who don't know that certain bras run big or small, don't know what size range certain bras or brands come in, don't understand how sizing works (US vs UK, or larger cup sizes in general), and even don't know that bras in a 30 or 28 band exist. In my mind, this is fairly inexcusable for any fitter who is at all educated in bras.

In short, I wish bra shopping could be a fun and enjoyable experience for me. But in more cases than not, I've ended up being mocked, insulted, pressured, ignored, and ill-fitted. There have been the handful of decent and even pleasant experiences, sure, but more often than not I leave a bra store feeling discouraged and embarrassed. Shopping for bras online is definitely easier and less painful in more ways than one (I can actually find my size without being insulted about it!).

Now, I truly understand that my bra size is fairly uncommon and thus will be carried in few stores. I don't mind (and even enjoy) going to bra stores/departments and just looking at bras close to my size, learning about what bras and styles are available, and perhaps trying on a few in my sister sizes. What I do take issue with is those fitters who spread misinformation about how bras are supposed to fit, are unaware of what sizes exist, insult me and other customers, and pressure me and others into buying ill-fitting bras. And believe me, I would not be complaining if these were isolated incidences. At least one of these things happens to me nearly every time I set foot in a bra department or store. (But yet I still keep going back... I guess I either really love bras or I'm a glutton for punishment! :P)

What have your experiences with in-store bra shopping been like? Is bra shopping something you enjoy doing?

In-Store Bra Fitting: Victoria's Secret

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If you've read this blog much, you know that I tend to talk about how bra-fitting methods used in U.S. stores are all too often grossly inaccurate. Almost all stores use the incorrect and outdated method of adding inches to the underbust measurement (anywhere from 2-6+) to get a starting point band size, or they take an "overbust" measurement, which virtually does the same thing (adds 4-6 inches to bandsize).

One of the biggest "problem stores" in regards to ill-fitting? None other than that lingerie-giant Victoria's Secret (surprise, surprise!). June of Braless in Brasil recently followed the bra fitting advice on the Victoria's Secret website with less-than ideal results (the measurements put her in a 36C rather than her usual 28J). Maddie did a guest post where she (a 32JJ) was fitted as a 40DD at Victoria's Secret. And quite a while back (when I was wearing a 30G), I went and "got fitted" at Victoria's Secret into "a 34C or possibly a 34D". During that fitting in 2010, I expressed throughout the fitting that I didn't think the bras they gave me were fitting well at all in the cups, and I pulled on the bands to show how loose they were. The fitter back then gave me 32DD's to try, indicated they were mostly okay, and said I could try a 32DDD if I wanted (still way off, but anyway). However, I suspected that had I not sort of guided the fitting, the fitter would have simply just told me I was indeed a (horribly fitting) 34C.

But, after all, that was about 2 years ago. My size has fluctuated a bit since then (from a 30G, to a 28GG, to almost a 28G, to my current 28H/HH). Surely getting sized again at Victoria's Secret will indicate that I've at least changed sizes according to them, right? Surely they've learned something about proper fitting in the last couple of years? Maybe they'll tell me that I'm out of their size range and that I should look elsewhere for a bra that will fit me?

Measuring at Home

First of all, I decided to follow the bra measuring advice on the Victoria's Secret website. The instructions tell you to take an "overbust" measurement to get your band size. I'm not sure how taking an overbust measurement relates to anything since the band of a bra sits under the bust rather than over it, but here goes:

The website says "The resulting number is your bandsize. Hint: if the number is odd, round down to the closest even number." As you can see, I get a measurement of 35, giving me a band size of 34. Well, that's a full 7 inches bigger than my underbust measurement of 27 inches, and 3 whole band sizes up from the 28 band I usually wear, but Victoria's Secret must know best, right?

Next up, cup size.

"Measure completely around the fullest part of your bust. This is your bust measurement." I get a measurement of about 37.

Now, the website tells me to "subtract the bandsize from the bust measurement" to get my cup size. So, 37 - 34 = 3 inches of difference, which, according to Victoria's Secret, would make me a C cup. A 34C, to be exact.

In-Store Fitting

Wow! And all this time I thought a 28H fit me pretty well! But, it is Victoria's Secret after all... and they must know best! But still, after all, a 34C has a cup volume of five sizes smaller than I usually wear. Maybe there was some user error here in regards to figuring out my bra size? Let's see what a fitter at an actual store measures me as:

Well, I guess I was right! The girl there measured me pretty much exactly like I measured myself. She then asked me what kind of bras I was looking for (I said I wasn't sure, but probably unpadded) and told me to go ask for some 34C's at the fitting room.

I chose a fitting room (which, by the way, had unideal lighting for pictures, sorry) and pondered this sign whilst I awaited some bras in my "new size":

Okay, Victoria's Secret, I'm ready to be shown what the right bra can do for me!

As you can see (using for comparison the well-fitting altered 30GG bra I'm wearing underneath):
-The cups on this 34C VS bra are FAR too small to offer any sort of support (they were floating off my body and basically only served to cover the front of my breasts)
-I am getting all sorts of spillage out of all sides of the cups (falling out the bottom, top, and sides)
-The cups were so small that I had to lengthen the straps all the way to even get the bra on
-Even with the cups so small, the band was still so loose that I could pull the bra far away from my body
-The center gore had absolutely no hope of sitting flush with my sternum as it should in a well-fitting bra, and it stuck out several inches from my chest
-The wires were not touching my ribcage anywhere (they were sitting on breast tissue instead).
Honestly, none of the pictures I took (wearing a well-fitting bra underneath or not) could illustrate just how terrible the bra was fit-wise.

And yet, this bra was declared a "good fit" by the Victoria's Secret fitter. She saw the spillage, the way the center gore was inches away from the sternum, the way that my breasts were bulging out on all sides, and the way that the wires were sitting on my breasts, and said "That looks good!" She only offered to bring me a different size (34D) when I expressed some concern about "it feels a little loose" - I was trying not to "guide" the fitting too much, but I wanted to see what the fitter would say about a different size. I'll also note here that I did not "adjust" my breasts around in any bras to even better show how horrible the fit was; I simply sort of placed the bra over my breasts to see if the fitter would pull on and adjust the bra (as a good fitter should) to see how the bra was truly fitting.

Well, I felt pretty UNsexy in the 34C bra with all the spillage going on (and wondering what would happen if I actually tried, say, walking briskly or wearing a fitted shirt over the bra). But since Victoria's Secret knows what's best for me, the 34D should work much better, right?

34D (still bulging out on all sides, wires not even close to touching ribcage)

Unfortunately not. The fitter said it "looked good." Again, she didn't pull on or try to adjust the bra at all to better determine fit, and she only offered to bring another size when I pointed out how the center gore was still "floating" away several inches from my chest (I didn't point out the painfully obvious bulging out of the cups, or the much-too-loose band that was riding up, or the wires sitting on and cutting in my breast tissue and not sitting against my ribcage anywhere, or that the bra offered no support whatsoever, or that I was getting "underboob" from my breasts falling out the bottom of the bra). I'll point out to readers (but didn't to the fitter) that the thin straps are the only thing keeping my breasts up - the band was doing nothing to support me. The fitter said that the center gore floating "must mean it's too big for you" (what?) and offered to bring me a 32DD to compare (which, by the way, has the same cup volume as a 34D, but a different cup shape and a smaller band, but the fitter didn't seem to know this).

Now, the 32DD looked perhaps the worst of them all. That's because the band was not *quite* so large for me, so the cups were brought a little closer to where they should sit. Instead of floating/sagging quite so much off my breasts, the cups were held a little firmer against them (the wires still sitting on breast tissue instead of against the ribcage as they should, and the center gore still "floating"), which exaggerated that I was spilling out all sides (bottom included) of the cups. Despite the fact that the cups were so massively small that the band had to stretch to make up for it, the band still managed to ride up and I could still pull it away several inches from my ribcage both in back and in front.

It seems that logically, an educated bra fitter would see that a 32 band was at least better for me than a 34 (since I could get it on with no trouble) and would bump up the cup size until there was no bulging. Instead, the fitter looked at it and declared that "The 34C was a much better fit for you, so you're a 34C."

...What? A 32DD cup is obviously far too small, so a 34C cup is somehow the "right fit" for me? I don't even understand the logic in that, even without the visual aid that the fitter got of riding bands, overflowing breast tissue, etc etc. But logic didn't seem to pervade in Victoria's Secret. A 34C I was doomed to be!

Concluding Thoughts

The thing is, if I knew absolutely nothing about bras, I would be defenseless against the terrible fitting advice. I would remember that the 32DD felt tight and too small to me, but I would assume that it was a band issue like the fitter implied rather than a massively small cup, and thus think that "a 32 band is too tight for me" (even though I could pull the band several inches away from my body when I tried). I wouldn't know that I should adjust my boobs into the cup to see how the fit was. I wouldn't know that the function of a bra cup was to support the breasts.

Victoria's Secret, you are doing a huge disservice to women with your "fittings." I am forced to conclude that you teach your fitters methods that make the fitters unable to correctly fit women. There was just no logic to this fitting at all.

If I followed the fitting and measuring advice of Victoria's Secret, I might not even know how to wear a bra at all. I mean, if the band size is determined by the overbust, why not just wear the bra like this?

(And, lest you think that this was just a fluke fitting or a bad store, tune in soon for a follow-up guest post I'll be doing for Braless in Brasil!)

Have you ever experienced unknowledgeable fitters, or felt like you could do a better job fitting yourself than salesgirls at certain stores?

What are your thoughts on Victoria's Secret and their methods? Have you ever been fitted there?

What's wrong with U.S. bra stores?

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Sometimes, people will ask why I (and other bloggers) "hate on Victoria's Secret and/or [insert name of any well-known U.S. bra store here]." So what if those stores don't sell your size, people say. "You're just bitter because you can't buy anything from them. Just get over it!"

Honestly, I have no real problem with the fact of particular stores in the U.S. selling an incredibly limited range of bras. I know that bra departments and stores can't be expected to stock every size under the sun.

What I do have a problem with is these stores claiming that their size range will fit "every woman". That they'll push bras on to women to make a sale, even if the bras are a blatantly incorrect fit. That they use their position of supposed "expertise" to misinform women. That sometimes fitters insult women who are outside the small size range carried. That, in the U.S., there is an overwhelming amount of misinformation about bras, bra sizing, and how bras are supposed to fit - and it's spread largely by the bra stores (and the media) here - the very ones who are supposed to know better.

[I'm going to add here that I'm in no way trying to put down the stores I mention in general, but just bring attention to their incorrect fitting methods they use to keep customers within a very small range of sizes. Also, there are great boutiques out there with dedicated owners committed to meeting the needs of their customers in terms of fitting and sizes stocked. In this post, however, I'm just speaking in broad terms of what I and others have generally experienced, mostly in the larger, well-known stores - the stores that, unfortunately, tend to carry the most influence.]

Limited Sizing

Stores like the ever-present Victoria's Secret, for example, sell a grand total of 33 bra sizes (yes, I counted) - but only about 15-18 of those sizes are actually really found in the physical stores. Victoria's Secret often claims (overtly or by implication) that they have bras for "all" or "almost all" women.

Do they think that there are only 15-18, or 33, different body types that women have?

Other stores I've seen have an even more limited amount of sizes - in the 8-12 range. Again, I don't really have a problem with stores carrying a very small range of bra sizes. What I do have a problem with is their implication that all or most women should fit into this incredibly limited range. And that you're "fat" or "weird" if you don't.

In reality, there are more than (just counting band sizes 28-40 and cups A-K) 105 bra sizes that are made by many companies - and that's not counting the under-28 and over-40 band, under-A and over-K cup bras. Factor those in, and the number is in excess of 150 bra sizes that are made and worn.

This means that many U.S. stores like Victoria's Secret only stock about 10% of all bra sizes available. They also do not stock under-32 bands (besides a few A and B cups) - odd, since studies indicate that 28-32 bands are the "average" size that many women of "average" weight would ideally be wearing.

Thus, Victoria's Secret, Target, Kohls, Walmart, Macy's, Penney's, Frederick's, Soma, etc. etc. only carry bras that will truly fit a small percentage of the population. However, these stores repeatedly incorrectly fit women (generally by giving them a band that is too large and a cup that is too small) in order to make sales. They act like women are strange if they don't fit into the incredibly limited range that they stock. And really, why should they stock more sizes when they can get away with selling their 10% of sizes to around 80% of women?

Incorrect Fitting

If you were ever fitted at Victoria's Secret, I can pretty much guarantee that you were fitted incorrectly. Heck, I'm not trying to pick on Victoria's Secret in particular - I could pinpoint almost any U.S. bra store for incorrect sizing methods. Nearly all stores will add around 4 inches to the ribcage measurement (adding inches is unnecessary for most women) to get a band size. Using these incorrect "fitting" methods, I would be deemed around a 32DD, a size that is completely, totally, laughably wrong. A woman who needs a 28D would be put in about a 34A, also completely and totally wrong. And on it goes.

I would honestly mistrust most larger bra stores in the U.S. in terms of bra fitting - yes, including Nordstrom (which, although better than most, still tends to push too-big bands and too-small cups). That's why I pretty much always just recommend that women measure themselves instead of leaving their fittings in the hands of stores that have limited ranges and incorrect, outdated sizing methods.

The reason that (statistically) about 80% of you reading this are (or were at some point) wearing the wrong bra size is at least in part because of the poor fitting methods in U.S. stores. What makes it worse for me is that too often, the poor sizing and fitting seems very blatant. That makes me just a little annoyed at them.

Misinformation about Bras

I can't tell you how many times I've come across women who think that "all D cups are the same" (not true - a 30D, 34D, and 38D are all very different sizes). How many countless times I've come across women who adamantly refuse to believe that they're a "D cup" or above - because "a D cup is HUGE!". Or who think that being a larger cup size means that they're fat, or a freak.

This is simply not true, lovely readers. "DD" doesn't equal being a large-chested bimbo, a porn star, a fat freak. (If you think I'm using strong language or being dramatic here, I'm not - I run across people who think this almost daily). I'm not going to get into correct all fitting misinformation in this one blog post, but suffice to say that cup sizes mean nothing without a band size. All a "DD" means is "about 5 inches difference between underbust and bust measurement." A 28DD woman will be built very differently than a 40DD woman, but both will have about 5 inches of difference between their underbust and bust measurement. Doesn't sound too scary now, does it?

But where does all this misinformation come from? Women have to be learning it from somewhere. In my mind, it's largely the "fault" of bra stores. In my experience, I've frequently come across fitters who have little actual knowledge of correct fit (not knowing that bands should be firm and straight, or that wires should not be touching breast tissue). I've frequently experienced fitters telling me outrageously incorrect things, such as:
-Bands below a 32 don't exist
-34 and 32 bands are for "tiny" people
-28 bands don't exist
-28 bands are for super, super tiny people
-Cups above "DDD" don't exist
-Cups above a C are huge
-The only options for D+ sizes are these ugly beige bras over here
-There is no demand for under-32 bands
-D+ women need to wear minimizers
-You need to wear a 36 band (with a 28" ribcage)
-You need to add anywhere from 3-7 inches to your underbust measurement to get a band size
-Women who wear D+ cups are usually large all over

This is not a one-time thing, everyone. This is constant. This was/is almost every time I go into a bra store. These are the fitters saying these things. Some of these are things I've heard even at stores that have a better range of sizes than most U.S. stores, like Nordstrom, Dillards, and boutiques No wonder there is so much misinformation out there. No wonder so many women are wearing an incorrect size.

Insulting/Shaming Customers

I'm sure this is going to be a bit controversial, but I'm including it anyway because I personally have experienced this when shopping for bras, and I know many other women who have as well. Of course, there are many women who haven't - but I feel that the number of women I've come across who've experienced this is so large that it deserves mentioning.

I've experienced fitters/employees outright telling me that I'm not a 28 band/over a G cup (I'm actually a [insert a wildly-incorrect size that they actually stock]), telling me I should get a breast reduction, assuming I have implants, laughing at/disbelieving when I tell them what size I'm looking for, telling me my breasts are too large, and more. Again, these are supposed to be professional, helpful people. Imagine the effect these words would have on an uncertain busty teenager who's desperately trying to find a bra that fits well. Bra fitters (or anyone) should never, ever be insulting to their customers. I would hope that would be obvious.

In my opinion, it's bra stores who play a big part in spreading this (mis)information. And it's very, very damaging to women. The misinformation spread is my major problem with U.S. stores - the pervading poor fitting methods lead to an abysmally small selection of sizes offered and countless women who hate bras because "nothing ever fits" and "bras are uncomfortable", and who won't try a different size because "a fitter told me I was a 36C" and "wearing a larger cup/smaller band would mean I'm fat/weird".

So, why do you think there's so much misinformation about bras and sizing out there? Do you think that stores play a big part, or are there other factors at play?