Why Bra Fitting is Not A One Off Experience
When you’ve been wearing badly fitting bras for most of your life, it’s a revelation when you find out your ‘true size’. Getting properly bra fitted and wearing the ‘correct bra size’ is a topic frequently discussed within the lingerie blogging circuit, and because of this increased knowledge there is a changing attitude toward how we shop for lingerie: our better body understanding reflects in our purchases and even influences the launch of new specialist retailers and brands.
Beholding the new found truth of your ‘proper bra size’ is essentially life changing. It’s like coming to terms with having surgery whilst you slept through the night, suddenly bearing a new chest. In reality it’s your same old boobs, but because you now need to shop in a different style, quite possibly meaning you can no longer shop your favourite bra brands, you may as well have been gifted a new set of boobs you’ve just said hi to.
And that is that. Or so people may lead you to believe. The fact is, our boobs will always change. Hormones and medication will always threaten to wreak havoc whether you’re ovulating, pregnant, menopausal or treating an illness. A good bra fitting is definitely not reserved solely for the young and can literally lighten your load whatever your age or stage in life.
Good lingerie brands and retailers do recommend a fresh fitting between every six months to a year because of this very common fact your boobs are not always the same shape and size. If you experience breast tenderness and fluctuate in fullness at certain times of your menstrual cycle you may even need to wear a different size bra than you wear the rest of the month.
I’ve recently found myself in this very predicament. Over the past few years I’ve been professionally fitted several times and I’ve very happily worn a 28H or 30GG bra size. Then I changed my contraceptive Pill at the beginning of the year and something’s been going awry with my lingerie wardrobe. Bras have been sliding down my ribcage, wires have been digging, even breast tissue has begun spilling from cups I used to contain. A few months on I appear to be settled on my new medication but my boobs are no longer content: a new bra fit is on the agenda. It’s time to re-evaluate the boob situation to enjoy my new best bra size – until next time, of course.
Aleks
April 26, 2014 at 3:12 amI never have been, actually… I’m embarrassed to get a fitting and not buy a bra from the shop since I can’t afford nice bras…
Upsidedown J
April 26, 2014 at 1:45 pmIt’s important to note though that some women have to alter their bras in order to get a good fit, regardless. Take me for example, I have very narrow shoulders, I am very high set and I have what I would call a “full on top top” shape, basically FOT with the breasts extending higher up the chest and definitely too much fullness to be regarded as having shallow breasts. I also have a need for narrow underwires, Comexim’s the only brand so far that has fitted my root perfectly.
I will probably never find a bra off-the-rack that doesn’t have excess material in the armpit (remember, high set plus very narrow shoulders), so I would always have to cut up that material and sew the straps to a new position.
Finding bras with enough depth in relation to the narrow underwires I need is almost like finding the holy grail, I don’t really have projected boobs though, it’s just that my frame is small and my breasts fill out the “deep” cups not only in the center, but more ball-like.
These two factors complicate bra fitting enough as it is, but there’s more to consider. What do I consider comfortable? What styles do I find visually pleasing? I greatly prefer bands with 3 hooks but my size suggests I should wear bras with 2 hooks, ugh. I find that the support is much better that way and it’s much comfier to me. So that’s a hurdle! And I’m definitely picky when it comes to the visuals!