This bra is beautiful but it is sized incredibly incorrectly. The "30" band was far too tight on my 27 inch rib cage. The satin-like fabric might have something to do with the sizing since it's not stretchy AT ALL (only 4 inches give). It actually started fraying on the sides by the hooks from trying to accomodate me. The gore was also too high, but I'm super close-set and have this problem with anything that's not a very low plunge. I'm not sure about how the cups fit since the band made it difficult to tell. I'm in between sizes (28DD/E) and I have a feeling the bra is too. The cup depth and wires weren't quite right for me. They seemed a bit too narrow and deep to be comfortable even if I were to use an extender for the band. Overall, I really wish this bra fit because it's so so pretty, but the tag is very misleading and did not work out for me.
The cups are covered with a soft knit in a fairly standard light skin tone, a blushy peach color. It's not mindblowingly luxurious, but it's not bad. A nice soft serviceable fabric. The cups are padded, not just at the front to avoid hi-beams, but with a push-up effect built in. The padding is approximately 3/4" thick at the bottom. (More on that later.) The cups are covered on the outside by a fine black stretch mesh, and embroidered with scrolling floral patterns that extend out past the padding of the cup-- very pretty, though DBF though it didn't suit my skin tone. The band ...is of the same black mesh, with 1/4" elastic and a small ribbon ruffle at top and bottom. There is one bone at each side, about 1" from the edge of the cup. The area between the side bone and cup is backed with a nonstretch mesh and embroidered with the same designs as the cup. The straps are fully elastic, and covered in the front with ruched ribbon to match the ruffled edging. The most interesting thing about this bra is the center gore-- it's not solid fabric but a thin ribbon, laced back and forth through a series of loops and tied. It appears to be quite adjustable. The back clasps is 2 rows, 3 columns.
Cup fit--
There's no getting around it: I fill out this bra, and then some. There is much boobling boobage. As such I can't say much about the shape this bra gives, as I definitely wasn't making the shape I was supposed to be making. That being said, I found the shape of these cups a bit odd. They are padded for push up, and the shape of the padding is very square at the wire; instead of being this shape () in the bottom of the cup, it's more this shape <) or /_) quite wedge-y. Since there wasn't any room for boob against the wire, the padding pushed the bra down instead of pushing my boobs up, leaving one side of the pad against my ribs and the other against my boobs where the underwire ought to have been. It wasn't uncomfortable, but it made my boobs look very long and droopy rather than round and perky. Disappointing. An interesting note: the extended embroidered mesh edging on the cup seems to minimize the appearance of overflow. I was creeping out pretty badly, but it was very hard to get a photo where the overflow looked as severe as it actually was.
Band Fit--
The band itched me. I'm not sure if the itching is due to the ruffle edging or if the band was a smidge too tight, but it was annoying, though not so much so that it couldn't be ignored. The side boning didn't poke. I would have preferred a solidly elasticized band for less weird lumping on my back, but that's kind of the eternal cry. :/ Read more 389 more words
