10
When obviously bad fit is marked as "It Fits"
I've spent over a week pondering this post as I hate complaining and I know some worriers here will think that I'm talking about them (when I'm probably not). However, the bra nerd in me won out and I wanted to start a conversation about this.
I don't know if this has anything to do with the site changes a while back that allowed people to answer the fit questionnaire on bras with "but it's OK" (think: gore doesn't tack but it's OK, quadboobs but it's OK) or whether it's just due to an increase in popularity, but I feel like I'm seeing an increase in reviews of bras marked as "fitting" the wearer, when the photos show a very obvious fit fail.
I know this has always happened and is not a new thing, because lots of people struggle to figure out what constitutes a good fit especially at first... but I feel like it's happening more often and more obviously, and I'm concerned that this is sort of an issue in terms of the educational mission of this site. I'm not talking about subtle issues like very faint quadboob or slight wrinkling, I'm talking about major, obvious stuff like bands 3 sizes too big, boobs floating around in giant cups or conversely boobs exploding out of cups that barely cover half the volume of the breast, quadboob indents like the Grand Canyon etc. I'm also MOSTLY talking about posters whose bra reviews and posting history suggest that they are already size-enlightened but are choosing a nonstandard fit.
Please note that this is exclusively about how "correct" fit is indicated here on the site. I have no axe to grind in terms of how people actually want to choose/wear their bras even if they are knowingly departing from the intended fit (gore tacking yadda yadda). If you are a 28E fashionista and you choose to buy 34B La Perlas because they're beautiful, I support you 100%. If you have fibro pain 24/7 and need a super loose band, I support you 100%. If you worked your buns off to pay for your augmentation and are determined to wear nothing but VS plunges that you spill out of by a mile because it makes you happy, I support you 100%. If you want to upload a million such photos and review this bra and say "I know this isn't technically an optimal fit but I wear it anyway and I love it because XYZ" then that is fine with me. What's important IMO is that you are making an informed decision and, if you upload the bra to bratabase, you are accurately representing how it fits so that other users with similar boobs will know the score.
The issue is just that when bras that are clearly, clearly not your size nor do they fit your shape are marked as "Fits," then people who genuinely do not know how a bra is designed to fit come to this site, it's really confusing for them to see photos of a bra that blatantly does not fit as intended, but that are marked as a good fit. It makes it incredibly hard for THOSE folks to make an informed decision.
To me it's a bit like having a site about English grammar and me posting a sentence in the "Frenglish" that I speak with my husband and labeling it as standard English. There's nothing wrong with the way we communicate but it's misleading to site users who don't have a full command of standard English and are trying to learn.
Filed under Bratabase
56 comments
Thanks for bringing this up. It is definitely a difficult choice to claim what is a good fit objectively and being comfortable in a bra.
On the technical part, the site does keep separate information of the fuzzy fit (indicated by the user) and the strict fit (the traditional) in order to do internal decisions. The user fit is only for display, as the strict should be used for maths.
I still see your point. For a new user to come and see bras that are not strictly good fits marked as fit can either teach wrong or make it seem that the information is not reliable.
One thing we could do is display a strict fit and fuzzy fit differently, to make point that there were some issues that the user decided to overlook.
It would be great to display "fit" and something like "doesn't technically fit, but I like it anyways," however it depends on if the user is marking their bra as a strict or fuzzy fit in the first place. If you've got someone with a non-tacking gore and 3/4 of their breast volume hanging out above the cups, but yet still marking the gore as "tacks" and the cups as "fits" instead of marking them appropriately but then choosing to overlook them on the personal questionnaire - then the site can't differentiate that. You're also running on the assumption that the person marking it as a fit is well aware that it doesn't technically fit. What if they really do think it fits?
FWIW wendybien I've noticed this as well and agree with you. It's a tough line to draw because I like the option of being able to say that for myself, in this case, the slight wrinkle or slightly tight band was not a problem because otherwise the fit is excellent and I'm willing to live with it. So I don't think the ability to make those exceptions should be omitted. But it becomes a bigger deal when the fit is obviously wrong, in the technical sense, but the wearer doesn't care. Then let's say you've got a new user browsing around who really is clueless and reading a review of someone with boobs twice their size wearing a bra saying it fits when the gore floats and there's obvious quadboob, and it can be misleading for sure.
This thread has 56 comments. Log in to read them