Oh the Elise.... What a heartbreaker. I was happier than winning the lottery when I found this bra in 75E with all three matching bottoms in the saphire/marine colourway . It was love at first sight, but unfortunately it wasn't meant to be.
Empreinte is cruel to me with their sizes. I have 75Ds that are way too small and now this 75E that is a cup size too big. I chose the balconette, not the full cup cut, but even this one is way too roomy.
Where do I begin...
I don't think there is a need to explain the luxurious quality this brand is already well known for. There is no other brand with bands like this: comfortable, holds, does not stretch out and lasts forever. It doesn't need to be tight to hold everything in place.
Lovely single embroidered mesh in my favourite colour, fully adjustable straps that are decorated at the front. The wires are narrow with deep cups, just as they should be for my shape. Fits like a UK 30FF, so about one cup size too big for me.
First I was thinking about altering the cups for smaller, but I'd need to sew a dart in the gore, too. It seems like an expensive experiment with me having zero experience with such adjustments, so I don't want to butcher this beauty.
All three bottoms are absolutely fabulous, but the panties are my favourite fit.

marine or saphir colorway

This bra is not owned any more

Updated on Jan 10, 2021 Flag this

• Show all comments (8)
• 2

  That is a gorgeous bra. I'm not the best at spotting fit problems in photos. Could you point out where the cups are a size too big? They look okay to me.

  I can't believe you found your favorite color and three matching bottoms!

• learningaboutbras The gore is too high - this is essentially a balconnet, but it fits me as a full cup. There is excess fabric all over with not enough lift, too roomy. Maybe its not visible on the pics, because my breasts are fluid like pendulous. The top of the cup is the loosest. I fill all bottoms of bra cups, as my liquid boobs just take up the given cup shape starting from the bottom upward.

• 2

  erispe have you considered wearing a nude pad/liner inside the cup to fill it out a touch more? It is indeed a beautiful bra, and looks to be a near-fit. If you love it enough this could be worth a try. I have very fluid-like breasts as well and this strategy worked for me to add fill to my bras on low-volume days in my cycle. I eventually gave up on unlined bras altogether because of my breast type, preferring lightly padded styles that are almost always more forgiving of minor volume discrepancies (including my asymmetry).

• 2ks-rddit-80 Thanks for the idea, it is certainly worth a try. I actually do have some pads of various sizes.

• 1

  Oh Empreinte with your 3cm increments! I find most of their demis fit like a full cup. You could try cookies just to tug all the fabric into the right place. Here are the photos of my Empriente adjustments, but I am very centre full so the outside dart works well.

  I kept the Ornella, but I have now tried swaped wires and I have not yet figure them out yet.
  http://bra.pe/XVQa/

  I returned the Jasmine, because it was just too big.
  http://bra.pe/XVXz/

  My most successful Empreint fit has been the Vivienne which is not the standard demi cut. I have also swaped the wires and not quite figured it out yet, but the wire swap here was a great deal more successful unaltered than the Ornella.
  http://bra.pe/XUnM/
  

• maddy2596 Gee thanks for this! What do you reckon I could do with Elise? The top of the gore is really poking unless I pinch the lower part of it together. So when the gore stabbing stops, this actually opens up the upper part of the cups even more, so it starts doing waves on me. I am actually happy with the wire width - the length is more of a problem. I have no idea from where to take away from the cups. I have never narrowed a gore either, so clueless how to go about it in order to be functional and esthetically acceptable.

• 1

  I find Empreinte usually leaves some extra room in the wire channel. You can start by seeing if you can push the wires down the channel from the gore. If there is space there, you might be able to effectively lower the gore without changing the shape. I have freakishly narrow roots so I have narrowed the wires in a whole bunch of bras and and slowly working through them to sort it out, but I do know that Empreinte wires are a bit curved inwards at the top of the outside edge and thus may start poking on the outside if you stop the poking at the centre. If shifting the wires in the channel seems to help, getting them to stay put can be challenging. I'd suggest using overlapping stiches (needle goes in forward on top and comes up halfway back from the bottom so that the stiches overlap) and work each channel at least three times remebering that it is the single thread that crosses the wire channel that is holding the wire in place, not the stitches showing on the top of the fabric. I'd recommend doing a zig zag top stich after your several layers of overlapping straight stich (needle goes in below the line of the straight stitch from the top and comes up above the straight stitch from the bottom, in below and up above - and then the reverse as well backwards to create a zig zag on both top and bottom, in above and up below).

  The general rule about hand sewing bras is that if the needle is sharp and the stitch firm, you can always cut the thread and completely remove it if you don't like it. It is when the stiches are tentative that the problems happen. All fabric, even lacy ones, are made of thread in a net. Some fabrics have a loose weave so you can see the holes like a cross stitch mesh in grade school. Higher quality weaves have finer threads and smaller holes. However, if the needle pierces the threads cleanly, the thread it draws goes straight through and doesn't attach to the faric threads. If the needle wobbles through, it can draw the thread into knots with the fabric threads. Elasticized and embroidered fabrics can be harder to work with, but the principle still holds. No fabric functions like sheet plastic. Piercing fabric is not the problem. There is no seal. The problem happens when dull needles sloppily (usually tentatively) partially perforate a whole bunch of fabric threads at once and tie them all in knots by smushing them together. Use a finer, sharp needle, and be confident with each stich. If you do not own a stitch ripper, get one. They are super cheap and function like erasers in sewing. If you use the stich ripper's point to isolate the thread from the fabric and rip the thread only without hooking the embroidery or fabric threads, your added stitches completely disappear as if never there.

  As to how to work with the cups, I put the bra on and use pins to try out different seam options. The general rule I find is that how ever I have pinned it, I err on the cautious side and sew the smaller dart just inside the pins, rather than try to take out more than the pins do. Start with pinching the fabric to form a fold and pin the fold. Then I flatten the fold back to the fabric so that I sew two lines like you can see in my pics. I use an overlapping stitch as the fabric can be delicate and a single stitch would not provide enough of an anchor for when I move around in it. Sewing the elastic edging is pretty simple too - just pierce sharply and straight through without detours. I finish the top edge of the elastic with a blanket stitch (an edging stitch where you loop the needle though the last stich before you make the next one so that it makes a line along the edge and each stich look like the arms of an E). I always over sew, rather than under sew, knowing that the more stiches the less tension on each individual thread. Smooth and pin the cup flat, knowing that it is curved, and don't try to out think the curve - the fabric itself is all flat, not round, so seams are all flat and magically make flat fabric round.

  I have put darts in the top cup both just inside the strap attachment and in the inner edge about an inch out from the gore and along the diagonal seam in addition to the ones on Ornella and Jasmine. Play with it. Empreinte mesh is more sturdy than it looks and so long as you don't force the needle to punch through spots it really doesn't want to go and are careful with the embroidery sections, the fabric quaility makes it easier to work with for a beginner than some of the cheaper fabrics in cheaper bras. Before you tie off, you can always un thread the needle and pull the whole thread out undoing all your stitching. If you are really worried, you could take it to a tailor. Even those that don't specialize in bra fitting could do a cup dart super easy, provided you are comfortable letting them pin your boobs! Just be sure to say "no cutting" and they can do magic that is completely reversible. I have a little Chinese lady in my neighbourhood whom I go to with challenging fabrics and dresses and so long as you don't mind the scrutiny and the poking and touching, it can be a lot of fun.

  Good luck with it! A bra that is too small is hopeless. Anything that is too big, can be worked with.

• Thank you maddy2596 for the detailed instructions. Not sure if I'll have the courage, but if so this will be my sewing manual. :)

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