
In the process of making Maia, Frances and I often fell into the pit of bra sizing dilemma.
At the bottom of the bra sizing pit is a tangled spiderweb full of wasps. And it's on fire.
Let's start with how sizing works.
To get your bra size, first, put on a bra that fits you well (you heard me). Then you measure around your ribcage, just below your boobs. Then you round down to the next even number. OR! Depending on the brand, round up to the next even number. That's your band size. Probably. Now measure around the fullest part of your boobs (parallel to the ground) while holding your breath (but don't fill your lungs with air completely, also don't let all the air out). Now take that boob measurement and subtract your band size. If the difference is 1", you're an A cup. 2" = B, 3" = C, etc.
Nothing confusing there.
Now, it really seems like a D cup would be a D cup no matter what. Nope! A 28D fits completely different sized boobs from a 38D. D does not measure a volume, but a difference in size between band and boob. This means you can use what's called sister sizing. To get a bra that holds the appropriate boob volume, you can, say, wear a 40A or a 30DDD instead of a 34D.
Of course, the way different brands do sizing is, well, different.
It's a dark snake pit guarded by mummies. That are on fire.
You've probably heard the statistic: 80% of women are wearing the wrong size bra, and after having gone over this with me, you may be thinking: "of course we are! Bra sizing is fucking impossible!"
Solving the fit problem is like the white whale of the lingerie industry and a lot of money and technology has gone into hunting down a solution.
Companies like True&Co and ThirdLove exist as brave exterminators, forging ahead into the lava filled scorpion's den of bra sizing, theoretically fixing life for the 80% of us blundering around in the wrong set of honker hankies.
I respect the hell out of Heidi Zak, founder of ThirdLove, for setting out to make the "perfect" fitting bra. It involves a lot of measuring, engineering, precision manufacturing and so so so much testing on real, live boobies. To sell the perfect fit online, it also requires a lot of software engineering and AI to help match a customer with her perfect bra. It is a complex challenge. ThirdLove now has more than 80 sizes to choose from.
But I have a problem with the entire premise.
Do you know what I hear when somebody tells me something like 80% of women are wearing the wrong size bra? Well, actually, the first thing I hear is that we're blaming women because they're not wearing a product made for them by men the "right way," which might not be a totally accurate or fair interpretation on my part, but you know.
Next I'm thinking, says who? I know that I've had myself measured for a bra, only to find that the "perfect fit" isn't comfortable on me. I know women who aren't comfortable unless the band is loose and some who aren't comfortable unless the band is tight and the same goes for cups.
Then I think, from a business perspective, if we're saying that 80% of customers don't have the right product, something is really fucked up industry-wide if it's failing so hard to meet customer needs.
Women's bodies change. This is not a thing we should be ashamed of or fighting against or disguising. Aging, exercise, weight gain, menstrual cycles, and of course, PREGNANCY AND CHILDBIRTH as well as nursing, cause shifts in proportions. That means whatever your "perfect fit" was a few months ago could be different in a way that's making you uncomfortable in your bra. I know my sizes have been especially shifty lately.
So how can a thing be made to "perfectly fit" a moving target?
This is why bra sizing is bullshit.
Should we really be attempting the complicated remeasuring of our gorgeous selves and re-investing in lingerie multiple times a year?
I say fuck no!
Instead of focusing on how complicated it is to create custom birdcages for all the different shapes of women there are and hiring teams of engineers and making 3D body scanners for bodies that are fluid and changing, let's maybe take a customer-centric approach to the problem.
What if we embrace the changes a woman's body makes over time? What if we consider flexibility as an essential aspect to sizing? Flexible bodies need flexible lingerie, not rigid fabric that fits to precision at one moment in time.
So to the 80% of us wondering if we've done something wrong, here's what I think. If you are comfortable in your bra then fuck the measurements, you're wearing the right size. If you are uncomfortable in your bra, maybe you want a different size, but maybe you want a different bra, because maybe that bra is failing you.
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