How To Buy & Wear A Bra: A Guide For The Truly Ample-Bosomed

by Denise Balkissoon

If you think that double D is a generous helping of boobage, look away now: these words are for the truly ample-bosomed. We all have equally loveable mamms, but some of us would be sloppily intoxicated if we drank champagne out of glasses sized anything like our breasts.

My current cup is a cheerful F, meaning there are about six inches difference between the circumference of my ribcage and that of my perkiest point. As such, when it comes to bras, I am very demanding: it must have Herculean strength to protect me from neck ache, combined with wires or seaming that stamp out the dreaded uniboob. I’d prefer the thing to look like lingerie, not a support bandage, and I want to be able to afford it. Hahahahaha, what a good joke I just told!

I don’t understand why it’s so hard to make a useful, stylish, well-priced over-the-shoulder-boulder-holder. The cheapest bra I’ve ever bought was $30 and it gave me a shoulder ache in about four days. I’ve accepted that I’ll have to spend at least $80 to get something that lasts a season, a bra free of cheap lace that causes B.O. or underwires that pierce my soft underboobs. Please don’t tell me to go to Victoria’s Secret or I may pull out such an underwire and stab you.

To solve this mystery, I decided to ask some experts. Frederika Zappe is the Dr. Seuss-monikered, extremely enthusiastic U.S. fit consultant for Eveden, a British company that makes the brands Freya and Fantasie. Both get an honest endorsement for both fit and style from me, someone who last saw double D in the rearview mirror over a decade ago. And /r/ABraThatFits is an insane underwearpalooza of a subreddit that’s frequented by over 36,000 obsessive breast owners. Luckily for all of them, the three friendly moderators are very, very helpful.

Start here
A good bra begins with the all-important frame: the adjustable bottom band and outlines of the cups. As Oprah taught us back in 2005, the shoulder straps are not there to hold the weight — that’s the job of the workhorse bottom band. “Tiny filaments around the spine kick in when the breast tissue isn’t supported,” says Zappe, transferring the weight to your neck, shoulders, or lower back. A good bottom band means good posture.

There are two basic cup designs: three-panel balcony cups with seaming, which help achieve a rounder shape, and four-panel full cups, which keep the truly voluptuous from splaying sidewards. “Even the simplest bra has at least 15 or so different pieces,” says the Reddit moderator known as Otterhugs. “You have to be exact when sewing it too — if it’s off by even 1/16th of an inch, that can affect the shape.”

Comments
Many bra brands work from a central size, says Zappe. It’s usually 36C, and they grade different sizes either up and down from there. But Eveden makes cups up to K and bands from 28 to 56, so they don’t rely on one standard size. The company searches out a wide array of fit models, including their own employees. Test wearers wear their bras all day, then take them home, wash them, and wear them again. Swimwear gets tried out in the pool and sports bras are made to soak up sweat. This is meaningful to me, as a person who has spent $180 on one bra. Just one. And it wasn’t even for sex.

Undergarment University
Part of Zappe’s job is to run Fit School, a bra-fitting master class that happens at trade shows or at a boutique owner’s request. Those who aren’t naturally endowed are made to try on both Eveden bras and other brands, then stuff them with beanbag “barley boobs,” to experience firsthand the soreness that results of poor fit. “The mass of the breast in an H cup weighs about four pounds,” says Zappe. “When that’s hanging from your neck, it’s considerable.”

Bra wearers need to be schooled, too: the most common refrain of newcomers to ABraThatFits is disbelief at their new size — the cup is usually way bigger than what they’ve been wearing. “Consider the possibility that the size you’ve been labeled as your whole life isn’t the best size for you, and give it a chance,” says Reddit moderator Wambrita who lives in Utah, but now, thanks to the board, only wears a Polish brand called Comexim.

If you’re shopping at a bra boutique, swallow your shyness and let the nice lady have a good look — it’s important that there be no double-boobing (when a tight cup cuts your bosom in half horizontally) or back-boobing (pretty much what it sounds like). If there isn’t any place close by with a good range of sizes, consult the very detailed guides at ABraThatFits, then order online. “Many of us live in ‘bra deserts’ that just don’t have a store that would cater to our size within 3 hours traveling distance,” says moderator Noys, who lives in Estonia.

Bra math
Wambrita estimates that there are about 200 unique different bra sizes. Most major brands offer 22 options. Part of the reason B, C, and D cup bras can find their scraps of lace in every fast-fashion store is that those sizes are more or less universal. After double D, things get internationally confusing. According to Zappe, a British H-cup is eight Ds, an American H is five Ds, and Japanese brassiere masterminds dictate an entirely different sizing system.

Hey, good-lookin’
The combination of frame design and fabric choice is where greatness lies: Zappe says budget brands often pick apart Eveden bras stitch by stitch in attempt to reconstruct the designs at a lower cost. The resulting undergarment may look similar, but it won’t be able to do the same work.

Eveden’s designers attend the same fabric shows as other fashion houses, but the textiles they home — as in homing pigeon! — in on need to be strong and stylish. Laces can’t be too sheer and fabrics can’t be too rigid. Still, the whole point of the line, which debuted in 1998, was to offer youthful colours and patterns, rather than “some awful sickly pink,” as Zappe says, that full-breasted women endured for decades.

Even an old bra hound like me can always learn new tricks. Thanks to Reddit, I now know that the place where the breast meets the chest is called the root, and its width also affects whether my cups runneth over. Thanks to the baby human I birthed last year, I learned that the only thing that’s harder to find than an affordable, pretty F-cup bra is an affordable, pretty H-cup nursing bra — and that, oh yeah, my breasts have a purpose beyond looking ravishing.

Sure, I sometimes wish I was a freewheeling A-cupper, skipping around in a tube top with thousands more dollars in my bank account. But if I must wear a bra, I’ll proudly sheath my bosom in a 16-part feat of engineering and technology. Bra-wearers, choose your undergarments with sobriety and research, please.