This is a beautiful bra, first of all. I'd wanted it for months but didn't want to shell out so much money for it at the time, especially since I don't seem to have much luck with unlined bras and knew it wouldn't quite fit perfectly. I ended up getting it on sale for a great price, but I'm happy that I waited because, of course, it doesn't quite fit perfectly.

This bra has a similar shape, fit, and construction as Cleo Minnie Balconnet Bra (7431) . The bottom half of the cup is a solid fabric with a mesh overlay, and the top half of the cup is stretch lace.

And there is where we run into problems.

There is simply too much lace, which makes the bra way more open at the top of the cup than it needs to be. There's so much extra lace that adding the stretch feature just seems like a cruel joke. It's looks great when you first put it on and get all your scooping and swooping and adjusting taken care of, but no dice if you plan on doing anything but standing still all day. As I sit here with posture my mother would probably be only slightly disappointed in, the lace is wrinkling, flopping, and sticking out about an inch for each cup. The solid/mesh part of the bra fits flawlessly, though. I'm going to go ahead and say that this bra, like Minnie, was likely designed for FOT girls, which is disappointing as I am FOB and Cleo's unlined bras are some of the cutest I've ever seen. I'm going to try altering this bra to make it more closed on top, so I'll have another review once that's done.

In terms of the rest of the bra, it's pretty standard for a Cleo. The 30 band fits like a 28 and does not offer much stretch--perhaps they should have made the band stretchier and the lace less so. The center gore sits down perfectly and is comfortable if not a little high (it pokes once in a while but for the most part I don't feel any discomfort while wearing the bra), the straps are a reasonable distance apart and fully adjustable, and the cups handle my wide-rooted breasts just fine without coming up too high under the armpits. It's a very lightweight and comfortable bra (which is great as summer just started and it is very hot). Actually, it feels about as light as or lighter than some of my bralettes, but there is still surprisingly good headlight coverage (as long as you keep them in the solid/mesh part of the bra).

This is easily one of the...This is the prettiest bra I own. The solid fabric, the straps, and the hardware are a gorgeous cobalt blue, and the blue part of the cup has a black mesh overlay with little dots cut out so the blue comes through like polka dots. The lace is black and very pretty and soft, the band is solid black, and there's a tiny hot pink bow in the center gore. It fits well under shirts and actually isn't visible, even under white (but if the shirt is sheer, you're on your own). On top of that, it makes the girls look fabulous! Not squished in the least, but also not pointy, and it seems like they even offer a little lift, though that might just be my imagination. Rest assured I'd be wearing this thing way more often if not for the issue with the lace. If you're looking into this, I would strongly recommend +1 band size and -1 cup size from whatever you were measured as. (For me, I'm measured as a 28G and got the 30FF.) Like Minnie, if the lace being too open is your only problem, I would strongly advise against sizing down to get the lace to fit, because then you'll just end up with a cup that is tragically small... and still too much lace.

Updated on Jun 26, 2016 Flag this

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  Thank you for your thoughtful review :-)

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