Men of Lemmy, how old were you when you found out that bra cup sizes are not standardized in the slightest?
Men of Lemmy, how old were you when you found out that bra cup sizes are not standardized in the slightest?
It's so bad that my fiancée has some bras that say she's a B cup and others that says she's a D cup. In order to go bra shopping, you have to actually try them on to find out if they fit.
If I had to try on underwear to see if they fit, I might not bother with underwear at all!
Today years old
Today years old.
It's also the fact that cup size is not necessarily independent from band size, that's where the trick is. I used to think I'm an A with a high band size as I'm huge with no booba, like a 39A or something but those never fit that well.
According to ABraThatFits methodology I'm actually 36C, which somehow does fit and super well, though by common and dudebro methodology I'm most certainly more of an "A cup" if that makes sense.
Oof, yeah I was about 23 and wanted to help my now wife to get some of the correct size, which was an almost impossible ordeal. Wanna hear the story? Fine:
Taking the two measures was the easy part (and doing it again during her period, because of course the size changes during the cycle, anything else would be too easy). Then I read that the cup size is the absolute difference between bust and band measurement no matter the band measurement. Furthermore since the material is elastic, for a good support, the band should be a tad below the measurement*.
So far so good, went to the store and there are only A-D cups everywhere, E if you're lucky. So basically no matter what exact measure they take between the cups, you're ok if you're thin and have small or somewhat big breasts, or you're a bit fuller and have tiny breasts. Everyone else is automatically screwed. If you're lucky enough to fall into those categories you then have to try on so many to sift through different positioning and forms of breasts until you find one that is comfortable. We had to order some all the way from the UK because it wasn't possible to get anything coming near the correct size here.
*women who wore normal cloth bras before and continued wearing the same size have felt that the elastic hasn't made things better necessarily. Can't find the source for that one right now though.
Well, today years old. Thanks.
It’s not that they’re not standardized, there’s a thing called sister sizes
Here https://www.sizechart.com/brasize/sistersize/index.html
Your actual size is the lowest sister size
Just now.
Just now.
News to me
4, listening to my mom bitch about bra shopping on a bench in JC Penny's to my nieces.
Big women with big busts had a pretty hard time finding shit in the 90s.
Trying to buy bras for my wife has been an eye opening experience.
One thing that I haven't seen mentioned here yet is the Wild West of standards once you get to big cup sizes. Apparently DD is the same as E, DDD is an F, and I've even seen a DDDD, which would be a G. Depending on cuts, brands, and styles, her size can go from a DD to an I.
Not to mention these things are like $100 for a "cheap" one. The amount of engineering it has to take to design that shit is probably a few years of grad school.
Men's clothing sizes are a little dumb sometimes but I can usually take a tape measure to my waist and correctly order pants. Your guess is as good as mine what the difference between "boot cut" and "relaxed fit" are, and I would swear T-shirt sizes have shrunk since I was a teenager. As in, I can compare a Medium I've had since the Dubya administration to an XL today. But getting fitted for a suit, they measure me in inches and the clothing is more or less sized in inches.
Women's clothing sizes have had two different ice pick lobotomies. Women come in a wider range of sizes and aspect ratios, women's clothing is pretty much universally designed to fit tighter, but on the rack they're given one meaningless size number. a 12 is bigger than a 10, who knows by how much, and there's nothing on the girl you can measure with a tape to get that number, and there is no standard here at all. Why they haven't revolted I have no idea.
Right now reading the title of this post.
Today
Right now. I just tuned out all the complaining and assumed that it was a skill issue.
The cup size SHOULD be the difference in inches between the circumference below the breast and circumference around the breast.
3" difference would be a C cup
5" would be DD.
Why they double up some letters and not others, I couldn't tell you. 🤷🏻♂️
My ex used to sell underwear.
When I was 25, my girlfriend complained about buying the same bra, same size, same material, same URL, from the same company, on their website, 2 years apart. The first ones fit really well, the second ones didn't fit at all.
Meanwhile, there's a shoe that I buy a pair of every few years. They release a new "version" about once per year, but the fit has been consistent, so I'm over a decade, and 6 pairs, into my purchase of them, with no problems.
I never knew per se, I just assumed that like with all women's clothing sizes are a convenient fiction
Most of the bras that my girlfriend gets fits on her first try, although she does tend to prefer sister sizes over her real size. If your girlfriend is having issues with bras fitting, it might be worthwhile to read up on how bra sizes are actually calculated and do a measurement yourself. Funny enough, most girls don't seem to know how the bra size system works either and they just get their sizes through trial and error, which seems like what has happened here.
The letter by itself is fundamentally meaningless. A 32D is equivalent to a 34B! And most girls severely underestimate their actual size. What would colloquially be called a B or C is actually an E
Now but I had my suspicions considering the trend with women's clothing.
It was a long time ago that I realized that women’s clothing sizing was largely fiction. Trying to buy clothing for a girlfriend or (later) my wife based on the tag of something they already owned was an exercise in futility.
I just learned today since I've never been compelled to look up any sort of conversion chart, but I had a hunch because dress/pants sizes are all over the place. One brand's mostly-honest 12 is another brand's flattering 4, shit like that
Right now..
Its even different in different parts of the world. Related Wiki: wikipedia-bra size
I'm both fat and tall. None of my fucking clothes have consistent sizes that fit. I'm not the least bit surprised that the clothing industry's greatest minds were defeated by breasts.
They're definitely defined differently between some countries. Japanese cup sizes are different to US ones
When going for brands, like Lounge Underwear or even more expensive ones like Marlies Dekkers, Aubade or Lise Charmel (instead of cheap imports from China) there's almost never a problem with the size. There have been maybe 2 or 3 bras (cheap ones) that did not fit in the last twelve years and everything else has the same size and fits her.
I'm gay, so current age I guess
Just now
Grade 9- girlfriend at the time was "blessed" so to speak. Learned e women have a much more difficult time finding bras and underwear that "work" than most men do.
I really want a law that requires clothing sizes to include actual measurements. And it's insane that I would have to specify that these measurements must be accurate, but the clothing industry has made lying about sizes the norm.
There shouldn't be anything preventing me from figuring out women's bra sizes with a tape measure aside from the fact that I don't know them and they probably don't want a stranger obsessively measuring their boobs.
Around 19, I’d say. 42 now.
My understanding is that some European countries have laws standardizing bra size.
Teenager. I'm an artist. I was drawing some characters. Had to find some references.
Sorry for posting a subreddit but R/ABraThatFits. Immensely helped me years ago
This old.
It is well standardized around here.
I think this is filed in my head under "no two manufacturers' sizes are the same (even if they're supposed to be to a standard)", and "this is especially true of women's wear", so while I may have known about bra cup sizes specifically at some point in the past, I'm not sure I did at the time I arrived at this post, and yet am thoroughly unsurprised to (re)discover it.
Probably around 14 or something. For whatever reason, people will often name DD as a large bra size around here. It also doesn't exist in our bra size system. Some girl pointed out that non-sense at school.
Europe, my beloved...
The same time I learned it was like that for all women's clothing. So about 18
I always figured it was like pants where a 34 waist from company A wouldn't fit like one from B.
However old i was when I first heard my mom complain about bra's
Wut
No clothes shit in my country is standard so why would the bra's be?
This might go some ways to explaining why I've never known a woman who liked buying or wearing bras. I'm comfortable blaming the patriarchy, which can absolutely get fucked.
@ThisIsAManWhoKnowsHowToGling I don't remember exactly, but I was well into adulthood.