Nov 09, 2014
Privyet, all y'all!
Time for more over-analysis.
This might be tl;dr for many of you. It's a fairly technical and detailed bunch of babbling about roots and breast tissue and bra fitting. I'm a details kind of gal, and I love to analyse things.
OK, I have questions. I'm trying very hard to understand all this stuff, but there are ... still things that elude me.
I understand that a good fit depends on how well the bra matches up with the body. I understand that the cups are supposed to essentialy encompass and contain the breasts, with no breast tissue lying outside of that region specifically delineated by the underwire. The underarm edges might or might not be intended to contain the breasts, depending on the cut and style of the bra. And I don't think the neckline is intended to contain but rather just cover. The function of containing includes shaping, or maybe it should be said that shaping is achieved by means of containment. I dunno.
Where I really start to have difficulties is when I try to determine the actual margins of my breasts, except for the inframammary fold, which is self-evident. Unfortunately, I don't have a single-digit (or sub-20) body fat percentage, so it's hard for me to determine the lateral and superior margins of my breasts. So what's a girl to do? Is it breast or is it just fat? Maybe it's *migrated* breast tissue! How do I determine how far back my breast tissue goes? How do I determine how high on my chest my breasts start? And actually, that very obvious inframammary fold becomes much less obvious the more lateral you look. And maybe some of that flesh that's below the theoretical breast baseline is *also* migrated breast tissue. I have tried both the fold and touch methods and neither were terribly conclusive.
As far as breast roots are concerned, they're not going to move around depending on my weight, right? They are what they are. They may get wider if I gain weight (or not ... I'm not sure about this) and certainly the width of the breast will get wider. Hmmm. Hold that thought. I might not be correctly understanding what "root" means. Is it the same as "base"? I guess I don't really know how a breast changes when weight is gained, other than adding more fat. If it's primarily fat, then that means the adipose cells are enlarging but not growing in number. That would mean that the fundamental footprint of the breast where it attaches to the chest wall isn't going to change. I think I'm safe in saying that breast roots won't change with weight gain (or loss). Of course, all bets are off if we're also trying to push the back and underarm fat into the cup along with the breast tissue.
Once I determine my breast roots I can determine the wire width. The wire length also depends on the vertical positioning of the breast roots, but that's easy to find, based on the inframammary fold. This solves one part of the puzzle and will remain relatively constant regardless of weight change. I'm also going to assume that if I do experience more actual breast tissue growth, it will show up as volume and not width.
All that's left to figure out now is ... ummm ... volume and shape. A walk in the park! Ha! Simply calculate the volume of a hemi-ellipsoid. Given the data of the measured bras in the Bratabse, I think I should be able to figure out if a given cup would fit me. I think. And if I can do that, I should be able to order bras online with complete confidence. Yea. Right.
--Kristine
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I'm not sure if I'm answering your questions, but I'll have a go.
Once you reach a certain age (I think late teens/early 20s for most ladies), generally, your breasts roots are pretty static in size. Your breasts can get bigger or smaller, but the root won't change a lot. (I speak from experience as my breast roots have been static in size since I was 18 but my breasts are still growing in my mid 20s so I have epic projection for root width, which is not especially uncommon in very K+ cup sizes) I'm not exactly sure whether this would be the same for a transwoman, it's not an area where I have an awful lot of knowledge.
Aside from the push test, which as you said can be a bit hard if you've got a higher body fat content, some women can feel the difference between regular fat and breast tissue, though some can't. To a certain extent though, a bra can act like a corset in that it reshapes your body, especially while wearing the garment, and to a certain extent after regular wear, even without wearing the garment. If you've got undefined roots and you just want to shove all you can in the cups, there's no particular reason why you can't do this, unless it means that your breasts become too wide or tall to readily fit into bras with the appropriate projection.
If you're super curious, breast volume is something you can figure out via displacement, and of course you can also calculate the volume of a hemi-ellipsoid and see how these tally up. Displacement is likely to underestimate slightly, whereas calculating the volume of a solid may overestimate slightly, but it certainly will give you a ballpark figure.
Shape is definitely confusing. It took me quite a while to wrap my head around my own breast shape, let alone have any idea about the shape of other people. So feel free to keep on asking questions. :)
Ereshiy, yes, I think displacement is rather problematic, trying to get *all* the breast and *only* the breast into the displacement medium.
I most certainly agree that a bra can act similarly to a corset in terms of retraining and reshaping the body, although with not as dramatic effect.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that your breast roots stop changing in size when your rib cage stops growing, which is in that time frame you mentioned, 18-25 or so. I don't think it's any different for men.
I just read a fascinating article on Medscape about breast embryology. It says (paraphrasing here) that the foundational structure of the breast is complete by birth, and that breast development is identical for males and females.
"At birth, the breast is composed of radially arranged mammary lobes draining via lactiferous ducts into ampullae that empty onto the nipple. These rudimentary mammary glands are identical in males and females."
"Embryologic breast development and the transient secretory phase of the neonatal breast occur in male and female breasts. However, important developmental differences should be noted. Although the early stages of development are independent of sex steroid hormones, the mammary glands become extremely responsive to their hormonal environment."
"During this period (post-natal, pre-puberty), the supporting stromal structures and ducts enlarge in proportion to the increase in body size of the individual, but no lobular development occurs. "
The breasts then remain quiescent until puberty, at which point they respond to the sex hormones floating around in the body. Subsequent changes in the breasts involve fat deposition, development of connective structures, and further growth and development of the ductal system.
What that tells me is that, male or female, the foundations of your breasts are laid in long before puberty, and as far as bras are concerned, all that gets added is volume.
Fascinating stuff.
--Kristine
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