Thesaurus Thursday: "Center Gore."/ Bras!

Yes, I know that "center gore" is two words!  This week I am combining a Thesaurus Thursday post with an educational... braducational?... post.

The center gore is the triangular (trapezoidal, if you're picky) piece of fabric between bra cups.

The center gore did not lie flush against her breastbone, and she correctly took this as a sign that her bra did not fit.

You can be nerdy about many things, and as crazy as it might sound, I am a bra nerd.  My obsession revolves around the amazing self-esteem boost and reduction of physical ailments that women can get from wearing a properly fitted bra.  For years I wore 34DD's and dealt with shoulder pain, didn't want to exercise because I had to wear three (yes, three) sports bras, and wore over-sized sweatshirts to try to hide (or alternatively, wore "normal" clothes for my age that looked anything but age-appropriate on me).  Then I started researching bras.  I was re-fitted into a 32FF/30G at the time, and it's been an eye-opening journey ever since. In the right size, a bra can actually make your chest appear smaller and fit into clothes easier; also it can keep you from damaging your back and shoulders!  Yet somehow women, especially in the U.S., rarely get properly fitted. This is because a) we've been trained to think that talking about breasts is taboo and must revolve around s-e-x, and b) fitting myths abound, sometimes held over from an era in which bras were engineered quite differently.  I hope to dispel some of these myths here.

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Myth: B cups and below are small, C's are average, and D+ cups are large.

Truth: Cup size is dependent on band size.  Two bras of different cup sizes can have the same cup volume. Going by cup volume is also called "sister sizing"; to find sister sizes, for every band size added go down a cup and vice versa. A woman who wears a 28D will have the same cup volume as a 34A, but will measure closer to 28" around the rib cage than 34".  

This woman is modeling a Curvy Kate bra.

Curvy Kate starts at a D cup.

She is likely a 28D/DD.

Victoria's Secret would probably first try to sell this woman a 34A because that's what they have in stock in a sister size. Sometimes women do need a sister size of a bra because it runs small or large, but just because a bra is a sister size doesn't mean it will fit.  A 34 on the woman above would be ridiculously large.

Myth: If you feel like you're being suffocated or pinched anywhere, it means that your band is too tight.

Truth: This is a quasi-myth, I suppose, in that if you have a cup that fits AND you feel like you're being suffocated, your band is too tight, but this is rarely the issue.  Usually, the band size is too large and the cup size way too small, making it feel like the bra is too tight overall.  Make sure that ALL breast tissue is fully encased in the cup with no spillage, including at the armpits.  A Sophisticated Pair has an excellent video of how to put on a bra that can help you before determining if your cup fits well.

Myth: You can calculate your band size by looping a measuring tape around from your back at band-level to the front of your breasts, the method shown on Victoria's Secret's website and used by their fitters.

Truth: Do you wear your bra band over your breasts?  No?  Then see the next "truth" to see the proper way to measure.  Looping the tape over your chest will almost certainly give a band size that is too large.  A too-large band will ride up at the back, can cause shoulder and back pain from tightening the straps to hold the bra in place, and can cause underwires to cut into breast tissue (often painfully) as your breasts start to fall out the bottom of the cups.The band should be firm and parallel to the floor on the loosest hook to extend the bra's life, and you should be able to slide just two fingers underneath it around the back.

A poorly fitting bra band.

Myth: You calculate your size by measuring beneath your breasts around your rib cage, adding 4, and then counting inch by inch to get cup size.

Truth: If you use a tape measure to determine your size (a good place to start but shouldn't be relied upon as much as look and feel afterwards):

1.  Measure snugly beneath your breasts around your rib cage with the tape parallel to the floor and add 0- nil, nada, nothing- to that to determine band size.
2.  To determine cup size, measure around the fullest part of your breasts; each inch above the band measurement is a cup size.  (*Edit*- this varies by brand, but most often will go <1"=AA, 1"=A, then for every inch after that: B, C, D, DD, DDD/E, F, FF, G, GG, H, HH, J, JJ, K, etc.)

It's probably best to do this without a bra if you only have ill-fitting ones, leaning over to get the full-bust measurement.  Remember that if this size does not feel comfortable, you can always try on other sizes around it to see what fits best.  I don't know a single woman who has been properly fitted who owns only one size.

Myth: Only preteens and super-slim women need sub-32 bands.  

Truth: If you followed the measuring directions above, you've probably realized that your actual band size is smaller than you thought, often closer to your waist size.  Seeing that it's not hard to believe that people like Brittany whom I mentioned in the last post, author of the blog Thin and Curvy, needs a 24 or 26 band with a 24" waist.  Also, if a woman has "squish" around her rib cage or upper back, she could need a smaller band size to provide enough support.  Conversely, some women do have very tapered waists and will truly have a band measurement 3-4"+ larger than waist size, but having done a lot of research into bra sizing, it's rarer than you might think.  In fact, some bra bloggers have started the Bra Band Project in an effort to show that the sub-32 market is a lot larger than most people think!  (*Edit*- see the underbust survey done by June of Braless in Brazil for even more information.)

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As you start to become more acquainted with bra fitting, remember, don't listen to people who say, "There's no way you're a/an __ cup."  As mentioned above, it's totally dependent on band size, and you know what feels best on your body.  Don't listen to the people who say that you're not normal if you wind up wearing something like a 32J; it's a perfectly normal size, and they're probably in the wrong size themselves.

These women all wear G+ bras.

You also might hear that adding nothing to your rib cage measurement to get band size is "vanity sizing."  Actually, as well as accounting for bra bands not having any stretch at the time, adding 2-4 inches was also part of vintage vanity sizing.  Women wanted to get as close to the "ideal" measurements of 36-24-36 as possible and so liked the way "36something" sounded.  You'll even see this happening when modern actresses give their sizes or others try to guess them. I'm not even sure how having your actual rib cage measurement on a label can be vanity sizing?   My shoes state the number of inches my feet measure; is that vanity sizing?  Either way, adding 0 is what usually works for modern bras.  Sometimes subtracting a bit can even help!  After some crazy weight fluctuations in college, I now wear anywhere from a 28GG to a 28HH.  I rarely need a 30 and sometimes could really use a 26.  I don't feel "flattered" by these sizes or think they "mean" anything about me.  My chest is just another part of me like my eyes or feet or fingers.

Think of getting fitted as a mani/pedi, or exercise, or any relaxing or healthful activity.  Once you walk out with a properly fitting bra, you'll stand up taller (often quite literally!) and feel a little more put-together, and you're doing your body a favor by taking care of it.