Boobs, I mean, Bras, and the eternal frustration

i'm so happy about your boob/bra revelation!
i've had fittings and currently have two really great bras right now, but need a few more, so will go back to a couple of boutiques where knowledgeable ladies work. yaay well-fitting bras!

xp i know, i just can't quite work up the courage :/ so lame

The boob revelation has also helped me come to a conclusion about a "Weight Watchers vs. New Pants" thing that I have given more thought to than I really should have. I almost wrote about it in the sandbox on the no boys thread or whatever thread it was that we were talking about body image stuff, but I held off. . .

Anyway, FUCK THIS SHIT, I am buying new pants. DEAL WITH IT.

Justine, in my imaginary bra shop, I would be uber-sensitive to ladies who did not feel comfortable stripping down--that's not lame, it's just where they are! You work with people where they are!

So if stripping down didn't feel right, I would help you find a great bra by having you go into a dressing room and take off your top and bra, then don a button-down oxford, and I'd do measurements over the shirt. When it came time to try bras, I'd have you put them on privately and then put a thin, stretchy white T-shirt over it, and I could have a look (without seeing bare skin) at the bras under it and go from there.

Yeah it is so hard to find trousers that fit and are comfortable, whatever size you are. I seriously have to take off any trousers as soon as I get home, apart from my 'fat jeans' which are just jeans that are from Old Navy and therefore fit terribly.

Thing is, I can spend money, time, energy, and mental strife on losing 8-10 lbs to fit into my pants, or I can buy new pants.

Buying new pants for me is a bit of a committment, because my job requires business attire; new pants basically means I need new *suits*. These are pricey and a pain in the ass to find for a chick who is almost six feet tall, and they *always* require tailoring, which is more cash.

But I am going to use common goddamn sense (along with embracing the "Body Acceptance 2012" motto) and just buy new clothes rather than trying to fit my (not overweight) body into my old clothes.

Can I get a "hell yeah" from the crowd?

Hell yeah!

HEEELL YEAH!

p.s. hurry up and open your bra boutique already, i really need some bras

sure!

Thank you for the votes of "wtf is wrong with you, just buy bigger pants!"

It is frightening to me that I was really thinking that the "correct" answer was to lose weight to fit into my old pants.

ILXchixors have been a really great influence on me, and I thank you.

Meanwhile, problem with bra boutique would be sourcing great, high-quality bras that ANY lady could afford. I realize I am lucky and exceptional in that I could go to Nordstrom and drop, er, upwards of 200 bucks on 4 bras. Note that I did have some x-mas returns that offset that. But c'mon, 50-60 bucks per bra is not part of my hypothetical bra boutique plan.

hell yeah!

xp
lol the four bras i have right now that fit me properly and look good are two $50+ bras i bought at a montreal boutique and two $12 bras i bought last fall at a walmart in southern ontario. though the latter aren't going to hold up for much longer, i'm feeling.

and they are all the same size! 36C!

Anyway, FUCK THIS SHIT, I am buying new pants. DEAL WITH IT.

― quincie, Wednesday, January 11, 2012 11:21 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

hell yeah!

another vote for Hell yeah!

I checked this morning and the cups def don't go back far enough under my arms. Total boob flesh contact! >:O I think I'll wait until next month when I have $$ again because I want to get some nice ones but I'm v excited now to see what happens.

I like Natori bra styles, but they're definitely $50-70 each. And that's not that expensive--other bras I like are 80$-100, not that I've ever bought one in that range.

When I was in college I worked in a clothing store on Fire Island where I met this lady (friends with the owner) who owned a really fancy shmancy lingerie store in the city that I always wanted to go to. It used to be in magazines and stuff. Pretty sure I wouldn't have been able to afford anything there but I'm sure it was all amazing.

Oh I just remembered that it was on University Pl. This is is: http://nymag.com/listings/stores/la_petite_coquette/

Wish I could go there to check it out.

ENBB, I was looking at night gowns on their website and thinking well, those might be what I'm looking for, oh hang on $325?? For cotton??

lol, yeah

IIRC the shop used to be by appointment only at one point. The lady was European and nuts but she sure knew her stuff about lingerie. If I knew then what I know now I'd totally have tried to score some free (or heavily heavily discounted) loot.

And another hell yeah here.

I had a couple of bra fitting sessions when I was young and thin(ner) and I was nervous but both times I got awesome matronly ladies in their late 50s or early 60s which was just fine.

But now my town's department store lingerie dept is staffed entirely by super-skinny, super-made-up teenagers, who I imagine spending their breaks going "oh my goddddd, I know, right" about their more unreasonable or whale-like customers, and, oh, the thought of baring this much flesh, and asking them to probe its saggier folds... (shudder)

I suppose I have been lucky that my GP's practice nurse has always been older than me by enough to feel only slightly terrible about smear tests etc, but it's getting increasingly untenable to hope to be measured or felt or scraped only by people at least a decade older than me. ho hum

For some reason GYN appointments and bra fittings (I've done it before just years ago) have never bothered me at all even though I'm pretty modest body-wise in most situations. I just remind myself that they've seen it all before and that's it's their job. They're not even looking at your really - just going through the motions of the task at hand. That's always helped me a lot.

I think that assisting with/being present for gyn appointments drove this point home even more for me when I realized that I had just seen a total strangers most intimate parts but that I really hadn't even noticed or registered it as strange at the time.

if you're getting fitted in a dept store, best to go somewhere that they have a wide range of sizes. once i got fitted at von maur (midwestern suburban store) and they put me in a size that they carried rather than my actual size. much easier to sell me lots if they have a variety of choices in my size, i suppose. it was a bigger size than i'd been wearing, but still wrong!

i've heard that this is common. victoria's secret is known for sizing like this, but other places too. (so it's good to measure yourself in addition to having it professionally done, to have an idea)

Space Cadet, I would not want a tittering youngster to size me for a bra, either.

Lane Bryant will TOTALLY lie about your bra size to sell you their shitty bras*. One aggressive sales person was pushing their bras during a BOGO sale. When. Told her they didn't carry my size, she insisted that my size was wrong and that I should try on some 42DD bullshit.

God I hate that store.

*I think I've mentioned this, but on days when I can't mentally deal with strapping into a proper underwire, or when I don't care what my "silhouette" looks like, I wear LB cotton no underwire bras. They are not the correct size but they're comfortable and close enough.

I think that assisting with/being present for gyn appointments drove this point home even more for me when I realized that I had just seen a total strangers most intimate parts but that I really hadn't even noticed or registered it as strange at the time.

I just this morning put my finger in an older gentlemans butt and it was the most w/e situation

Heeeellll yeah, Quincie. Also: which Nordstrom? Friendship Heights? I am the :-( silhouette in the illustration above.

i have never even considered doing this, but you guys have me almost convinced. why do i want to do this (have my boobs measured by a pro) again? i'm not averse to the actual measuring, i just don't feel like going out of my way to do it.

Well, if you're not having any problems with bras fitting or clothes fitting over them, then maybe there's not much reason!

Since the professional guidelines advise most people to go down like 4 band sizes, I'm wondering if that could solve my strap-losing probs, which haps to me every 10 minutes and is a quality of life issue. A smaller band should have straps spaced closer together and less likely to slip?

yeah, i guess i don't have any of those problems tbh

Also I have some bras that the wires dig painfully into my soft tissues, which I realize now isn't because I gained weight or something*, it's because the wires are supposed to be like 3" further back under my arms.

*I like how I immediately thought of a reason that clothes not fitting would be my own fault. o_O

Laurel you might also shop for bras with a "leotard back," in which the straps are attached closer to the middle of the band.

Why am I only now noticing that "leotard" looks like an insult aimed at intellectually challenged leopards?

I have a lot of requirements for bras, enough that being limited to racer-back ones (is that the same thing? I have to google "leotard back") would probably mean there was only 1 in the world that worked for me.

Not racer back. Herroom.com has a leotard back explanation. It's a regular bra, just with the straps set closer together.

This tends to be available in more utilitarian styles.

lol "leotard"
lol gbx's proper doctory nonchalance about buttholes - med school works!

I think I need to up a cup size. :/

So I got fitted yesterday but I think she did it incorrectly!!

She measured me right under my arms and across my sternum instead of under the boobs where the band goes. I have seen some ppl do it like that online but I don't think that it would be accurate for me because I have a sort of pronounced sternum so that that measurement is def bigger than where the band actually goes. At the time tho I was like - you're the expert - and listened to her as she recommended that I go up both a cup and band size. I walked out with two bras in said size and while I really like the way the cups fit, I think the band is too big. It's sort of riding up on the tightest hooks. That's not right. I'm frustrated!!

she did it incorrectly, definitely. that sucks.

can you return the bras?

I'm definitely going to try. I left the tags on the other one so that shouldn't be a problem. It's not a huge deal but I'm bummed because I went out of my way to go to that particular store and everything.

I think she was right about needing bigger cups but I'm going back to my old band size. Question - when new they should fit on the loosest hooks so that as the elastic stretches you can tighten them, right?

YES! That is what my lady told me and it makes total sense!

Yep. And so the fact that I'm wearing this brand new on on the tightest hooks and have to keep tugging it down is definitely not right. Boo!

eesh that is annoying! wtf "experts". i guess not all fancy lingerie stores are alike...

During my brief flirtation with pregnancy, I switched to using a couple of my sister's old maternity bras, no underwire. I'm having trouble switching back. My bras just feel so uncomfortable, even though they look like a perfect fit, don't move around, and are flattering.

Someone should invent bras that support without making you feel trussed up.

Strange. I've never been uncomfortable in underwires, unless the wires were poking out though the fabric.

It's not painful, just this awareness of something tight and rigid around my chest I really do not like. Anything loose or soft enough that I don't feel it round me, clearly doesn't fit, i.e. boob flesh does not sit in the cup, straps fall down etc.

I can't help but suspect there is a better way.

Been enjoying maternity bras for sure. Have one breast feeding bra and love it as well. I may never switch back...breast feeding trap door can be sexy, teehee

Right so went back and asked for my old band size but they said that meant I needed to go up a cup size and now somehow I have three D size bras which is just insane since I've thought I was a B my entire adult life. Ds! Wut?

Love the bras though.

E THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I JUST WENT THROUGH!!!!

Loving my smaller band/bigger-cup bras, btw. It is like the secret of life, for realz.