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  Please remember to add measurements for the bras too so we strengthen the database.
  Thank you! :-D

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  Marcie was my first best-fitting bra!

• If the gore was shorter and/or narrower Marcie would've been just about perfect for me!

• I loved my Marcie but I grew weary of the hard wires and tall gore.

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  I think Marcie runs a bit big in cups. Congrats on a good fit!

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• Sorry it did not work out. It is a difficult bra to fit. I had similar fit issues with Marcie. It also gave me in cup quadding and a very projected shape / torpedo shape.

• i also feel the same way about the marcie, have u tried the Cleo Lucy Balconnet Bra (5851) ? i don't fit into the marcie, but the lucy fit's almost perfect. maybe you'd have luck with that one... it's discontinued, but u can still find them on the internet at discount/outlet places.

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Thanks Perpetua for sending me this! I still like the Marcie, though it never looks as good on me as it does on models. The band is fine on this one too. My nude 28F Marcie is way small for me, so I had hoped this would be a better fit, but it still gives me in-cup quadding and is too small. This bra being too small in the cup is what led me to my current line of thinking, that I'm like an FF and 1/2 cup. The in-cup quadding is also because I have very soft tissue, but I don't think my soft tissue is the only reason this doesn't fit. I guess next up is trying a 28G...I've heard that the nude version of the Marcie fits a little bigger than other colors, so maybe a 28G in another (slightly smaller) color could be the perfect in-between? In any case, I'm gonna leave this bra alone while I wait on my 3 Ewa bras and altered 60K Comexim Ingrid to come in the mail.

28:8 28FF

Indentation at seam but no quadboob. Need more depth or nonissue?

Cleo

Marcie Balconnet Bra (6831)

2 suggestions

This bra is not owned any more

Updated on Jun 11, 2019 Flag this

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  I am thinking that this may simply be a shape mis-match more than anything - i.e. there isn't enough room right at the apex in this bra, so you're getting the in-cup quadding while fitting well at the bottom and having ample space at the top of the cup.
  Of all the brands I have tried (Ewa Michalak, Comexim, Gaia, Kinga, Gorsenia, Ava etc), Kris Lines consistently have the most space at the apex. They also make 60 bands ;)

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  AprilGoulding hmm, that actually sounds like a much more accurate idea than mine. Thanks for the recommendation!

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  It looks like the cup width is too wide with the straps also too wide for your frame. You'll have to check if the band placement is a smidgen too low - may be pushed down by breast tissue not having enough space at the wire. I am with AprilGoulding in that I do not think that a different size will help you out with this bra model. Time to move on to a better fit for you!

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  Hi biflexual I am so sorry you weren't comfortable in this bra especially since you really wanted it to work! Visually based on pics it actually appears ok, or even generous in volume, although perhaps not ideal proportions for you (wider and shallower than your natural shape)--but perhaps there are further sensory or visible clues that make you think it's too small in one dimension or another? I am not sure this experience with Marcie should lead you towards an even bigger cup for other bras though--first, because there are many shape-mismatch bras where sizing up isn't going to fix anything anyway, and second, because in-cup quadding is not equivalent to quadding at the real cup edge, and is only rarely an indication that the cup itself is too small (it's actually more often another issue, like overtight straps, QC issue with that bra, bra being over-engineered for that size range, severe shape mismatch such that the person has sized up into a cup volume that is much too BIG, etc. ) My impression from your review is that you shouldn't worry too much about your size in this particular bra since a painful gore is usually a dealbreaker, but that often just means that the hard Panache/Cleo wires don't agree with you (I personally am not a fan for this reason, I have a very sensitive ribcage).

• wendybien the reason my experience with Marcie leads me to consider a bigger cup is because when I take it off, I have red marks indicating that it’s been digging in a lot at the top of the cup and at the apex, especially on my bigger side — also because when I scoop and swoop while leaning over, I spill out a bit. Thanks for your help!

• In cup quadding is most definitely common in seamed bras with soft tissue and not always a size issue. In addition, Marcie has been known to have a weird bubble at the seam in some productions which makes it easier for in cup quadding to happen. I’m a little surprised that you got 9.3” depth, as my two 30Fs are .5” deeper. I wonder how one of my Marcied would fit you.

• *marcies

• Calluna to be entirely honest, it could just be that I have bony/skinny knees, so it's really difficult to properly use the measuring tip of using my knee when measuring softcup bras because I don't have enough knee to fill the cup! Lol

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  biflexual too funny!! Lol My boobies ate bigger than my knees also!! I have often used one of my kid's mini soccer balls...it works perfectly. :P

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  I put mine over my knee and tug to full resistance with the tape measure between the bra and my knee, holding onto one side while letting the other slide as I pull. My knees are small and bony as well, but it works to get the max figure. To get a resting (unstretched or min) measurement, I just hover the bra between my knees by the wires with the cup hanging down, then put the tape measure in the cup.
  My theory with cup measurement is same as with bands-they are very subjective to the method of member and how agressive they are on any given measuring day. 😄

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  I measure on me and over my knee both inside and out and go with the average or 2 out of 3. I also do a flex/pull.

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  I am so jealous of everyone's delicate knees... but if any of you want to borrow my chubby ones to more easily measure a bra cup, you are very welcome to drop by ;-)
  biflexual it sounds like perhaps you've been relying on some misleading indicators for cup fit? Skin marks aren't actually a sign of an undersized cup. They often aren't even a sign of band size problems (unless they feel tender, or turn out to be bruises/abrasions). Lots of people get marks occasionally--or routinely!--from all kinds of elements: the seams, the straps, the boning, the cup edges, the wires etc. I sometimes even get the pattern from laces or embroidered elements temporarily stenciled on me ;-)

  Overflow/quadding/spillage indicates a cup being too small/shallow BUT ONLY when you are upright --not leaning over. It is totally normal to spill out a bit, or even more than a bit depending on the bra design, when we bend over in a well-fitting cup! This is simply a matter of containment, not size per se. A sports bra or full-coverage design that's painfully small but still covers every inch of boob tissue can prevent spillage just by virtue of that coverage. But lower-cut cups that are well-sized, as well as loose, oversized or too-open cups, can allow variable degrees of overspill when we lean over. All this means really is that some portion of the upper boob tissue isn't inside the cup and can therefore move/hang more freely.

  If you have a preference for super firm, secure containment, I am sure you can find that but typically it does require a lot of coverage. Cleo is not great in that regard--I can only think of 1 of hundreds of Cleo designs that is intended to contain all one's tissue, and it uses a decorative overlay to do so. The Cleo Piper does have somewhat more coverage than a lot of the others, similar to main line Panache full-cup styles.

• wendybien oh no it’s not that I prefer super full coverage it’s just that I apparently have zero idea what a too-small cup looks like 😂

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  biflexual lol ok! well it happens for a lot of people so don't feel bad! I just mentioned that possibility cos didn't wanna make you feel like it was weird or unfashionable if you DID want something extra secure... some people are very particular about that! But being open to various different cuts will definitely make it easier to find a great fit, so it's good you're flexible on the amount of coverage ;-)

  Do you have pics uploaded for most of your bras on this site or only a few?

• wendybien I have pics uploaded for all the bras I pretty much ever wear. I have a random Intimissimi 32D, a couple Victoria’s Secret 32DDDs, a very random 32DD I got from Nordstrom Rack, and an Aerie 32DDD that I never wear that I didn’t upload pics of. I may upload more info for one of the VS bras because I just altered the band so that it actually fits pretty well, but I’m nervous to upload any of my VS bras because the tags are cut off so I can’t be absolutely positive of the styles.

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  biflexual oh wow ok well that ought to provide plenty of data. Would it help for us to take a look to help you troubleshoot stuff? I can see you joined just a few months ago, but I wasn't on Bratabase much recently... so I basically just blundered into this post at random but I suppose I don't really know the context. Are you just another one of us bra obsessives who has plenty of bras that feel comfortable and look good, and you're just wanting to venture further and try more styles for fun and bra science (and perhaps refine your cup fit assessment, also for science)? Or are you still really dealing with ongoing fit concerns meaning a lot of your bras aren't ideally comfy, or that you are still trying to find the right fit in certain styles?

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  wendybien definitely the second one! Here's my backstory...sorry this is probably boring...I am pretty young (still in my teens), and I went through basically what most people go through with bras growing up. In 7th grade I wore 32Bs, in 8th grade 32Cs, then I got on the pill and by 10th grade I was wearing 32DDDs. A year or so later, I decided to completely give up on wearing "real" (underwire) bras because they just felt really restrictive and uncomfortable. Cue ~8 months of wearing either no bra or poorly-fitting bralettes that I always had to safety-pin like 4 inches of in the back because they were way too big in the band -- think Urban Outfitters bralettes, so stuff designed for much smaller-busted people than I.

  Then a couple months ago I made a reddit account, and from there it didn't take long until I found r/abrathatfits. Since then it's been trial and error, overwhelmingly error, working on finding my fit. I prefer increasingly snug bands -- I started out trying 30F's (Freya Patsy half cup, Bravissimo Esther which fit me just as badly as it later did in a 28FF, Freya Deco etc.), but I was still fastening them on the tightest hook.

  Now I know somewhat more about my shape and am foraying into Polish bras, but I still only own one single bra that fits just about perfectly (28FF Cleo Breeze), and one that fits fairly well (28F Freya Deco). All my others have more serious fit issues. So to finally answer your question, I'm definitely still more in the "early stages" of bra fitting and trying to build up my collection of ones that fit. I also still have a lot to learn about bras and fitting, though I'm already working on helping out one of my friends (who is very petite and very busty) and my mother (very wide-rooted) with bras!

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  Oh wow ok so basically you are new to most of it but since you're very young your current size is quite literally a recent development! OK, well that explains why some things might still be a bit confusing. Most of us here have just had more years to get used to all this.

  Can I just ask a few initial things? When people have ongoing fit issues despite trying many bras in many sizes it often means they aren't too sure which direction to pursue when troubleshooting. I'm hoping maybe it'll help to define some rough categories for your recent trial and error experiences. I'm going to focus a lot of these questions on comfort --our perception of what feels good/bad tends to be more consistent than our idea of what looks right, so it can offer more reliable clues about general trends.

  1/ comfortable bras: when you say only one or two bras fit, I imagine your definition of fit is based on a mix of criteria or perhaps you are just relying on Bratabase's criteria--but does that also mean those 1-2 bras are the only ones that are even comfortable? If not, which of your bras are currently completely comfortable (even if the comfortable ones don't happen to be the ones you consider a truly correct fit)?
  Comfortable = no pain, no unpleasant or distracting sensations; you can easily forget the bra is there; feels good all day long, say 8am-10pm.

  2/ Most uncomfortable bras- going to the other end of the spectrum, which were the most uncomfortable and why (including if some were only uncomfortable in a given size--what was the problem)? Are there any fit problems affecting comfort/wearability that seem to recur in every single bra, or in many of them?

  3/ Preferences--you mentioned you have been choosing smaller and smaller bands as you tried more bras--is this comfort-related (I.e. the larger ones bands were uncomfortable for one or more reasons)? Or is there no huge difference in comfort per se? Perhaps you generally feel most 28/60 bands seem to at least bring you closer to technically good fit, for example by reducing cup gaping, increasing uplift and so on?

• wendybien first, thanks so much for taking the time to help me out! You're very generous.
  1. Comfortable bras -- my most comfortable bra is, I believe, actually the 28FF Cleo Breeze longline that's also my best fit. The only discomfort I get with that is annoyance at sometimes having to tug the longline down. I actually find a tight band more comfortable, because I notice the looseness of looser bands and it bothers me throughout the day. So other than the band, my 65G Corin Virginia (I believe this one is my most comfortable behind my Cleo Breeze), 70E Corin Jacqueline, and 30F Nikol Djumon Viktoria are decently comfortable. But like I said, a loose band is noticeable enough to me to make an otherwise-comfortable bra uncomfortable.
  2. Uncomfortable bras -- hands down my 60J Comexim Basic Plunge. The cups dig into my armpits so badly and the lace edging (not sure what it's really called) is scratchy. It also digs into the top of my breast. My 28F Freya Deco is also pretty uncomfortable because it feels very stiff and doesn't really move with me. Other than those two, the rest of my uncomfortable bras are uncomfortable because they're too small (60HH Comexim Ingrid, 30FF pink Parfait Charlotte, 28F Cleo Marcie are all too small, 30FF brown Parfait Charlotte too big, and both the Parfait bras also feel similarly stiff to my Freya Deco). I had and returned a 30F Bravissimo Esther, which was comfortable but I was fastening it on the tightest hook, so I got a 28FF. Both bras are too wide and shallow for me, but I didn't notice the fit issues in the 30F because I wasn't looking for the right things.
  3. Preferences -- Yep, you got it! Loose bands make bras feel much less comfortable because I'm constantly noticing the looseness throughout the day, and they make bras feel far less secure. I also do think 28 bands bring me closer to a good fit, since I had a 65HH Comexim Ingrid at one point and it gapped badly on top but fastening it tighter helped alleviate the gapping somewhat.

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  I'm sorry it took me so long to come back biflexual ! Darn work getting in the way of my bra discussions lol.
  So, based on your responses and what I saw in the photos/measurements for the bras you listed as good, bad, etc. I would suggest that you work on defining your exact ideal band length more precisely, IN INCHES, rather than relying on the size listed. Newbies tend to DRASTICALLY underestimate the way band length inconsistency changes cup fit and overall comfort--they've had a lifetime of too-loose bands to see how THAT screwed things up, but too-small or too-tight bands can be very deceptive as well and can be masked by other fit problems in ways that make them hard to recognize. So you notice "ok THIS bra doesn't work" but it will lead you in the wrong direction when you decide what to try next.
  I think a lot of your cup fit struggles are due to the fact you are trying on many different cup sizes and shapes, but since even restricting yourself to 28/60 bands will allow a lot of poorly-sized bands into the mix, this has still caused you to be unwittingly comparing apples and oranges a lot of the time-- due to this band length inconsistency that changes cup fit and overall comfort.
  You also have 2 band fit challenges to contend with in your size range: 1/ for bras at both extremes (smallest and largest bands) of the bra sizing matrix, there is a ridiculous level of inconsistency in how long bands are cut and how much give the materials have. So, in this regard you have to NOT trust the manufacturer or the label too much and look at reviews and measurements (or indeed your own measurements + troubleshooting approaches listed below). 2/ People with lean torsos and very little body fat on their ribcage are apt to suffer much higher levels of discomfort from poor band fit (too loose and you get the friction and wires roaming around stabbing you; too tight and you get to experience the joys of just 2mm of flesh being crushed between the hard wires/band elastic, and your equally hard ribs). And because your ribcage itself cannot compress, it's unforgiving to poorly-sized bands: if the band is not perfectly suited to you, your body can't squish down to adapt to it.

  Obviously like most people you have more experience with loose bands so that is one issue you have been able to identify on your own--"cup OK, band too big" is a situation I think you can easily recognize, as is "cup too big/band too big." However there are several other configurations that newbies often have trouble spotting and that can lead to some confusion about which of the two (band vs. cup) is adequate, or neither. Due to the fact that many other posters also don't really know how to spot this, these errors often also get reinforced by other people's feedback.

  The frequently-misinterpreted scenarios are:

  * band is actually OK but cup is too big > this will feel loose, so wearer wrongly assumes the band itself is loose/runs loose (then gives up on this bra or else sizes down in band+cup or band only, resulting in an uncomfortable fit). To identify this problem: compare measurements with well-fitting bands/try bra on upside-down (cups pointing down). If you've been thinking "oh this band is huge!" yet it stays put when upside-down even without boobs in the cups... the band is not the problem! Keep that band size and reassess why the cups are not working.

  * band is too small, or too tight (lack of stretch) but cup is too big > this is the most treacherous one... the wearer often thinks initially that the fit is good/acceptable, because the overtight band could be distorting the wires and cups enough to eliminate most of the cup gaping and creasing that would otherwise be visible. The wearer may even remove the tags and celebrate finding ABTF. However, over time, she starts to notice issues such as straps and cup corners/edges killing her armpits, apex/center seam of cups being much further out to the side than the natural apex of her breasts (sometimes accompanied by east-west orientation of cups themselves), pain or pressure at the gore or the base of the underwires, pain on sides, band creeping downwards on the body such that she needs to tighten the straps quite vigorously to keep it up where it belongs, etc.
  To identify: again, refer to measurements, and/or try on upside down. Or put on an extender and see what happens with the cup.

  * band too small/tight, cup is a good volume and shape > wearer sees quadding and gore failing to tack and concludes the cup is too small (even though hmm, weird, on paper it seemed perfect cos the depth measurement and projection were consistent with what she thought she'd needed). What's really happening is that the excessive band tension is deforming the cup, making it fit much shallower all over and cut in at the edges. Using an extender can help determine whether a longer band would actually allow the cup to fit well, or not (for instance if you add 2" with the extender and the underwires are now cutting into your breast tissue on your sides, then the cup is definitely too small and/or narrow regardless of what's going on with the band).

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  And a word on measuring band length for BtB: so many people have trouble doing this...!

  First, measure the unstretched band BEFORE you have put it on. If it's been worn at all beforehand even yesterday, ideally, wash it first before measuring. The residue of skin particles and skin oils on a worn bra works its way into the mesh structure and prevents the material from snapping back to its default starter length. A bra you have just taken off your body is even more stretched out since it is warm and still recovering from the tension of being worn. so that is even further away from an accurate "point zero" length.

  For the stretched measurement: the idea is to pull gently, only up to the point where you start to feel a little bit more resistance. When you can feel any increase in the band's pullback, stop--this is the stretched length to record. An elasticated garment can be manually stretched quite a lot more than the tolerable degree of stretch that it would offer on the body, so the idea is NOT to stretch it way the F out to the next state :-D

  So, this isn't necessarily something YOU have been doing wrong--I haven't checked--but it's something you should look out for in other user measurements. If you see entries where they are measuring new bras in pristine condition and recorded measurements of 22" unstretched, 31" stretched, either that brand sold them a bra with some seriously rotten quality elastic or they measured while pulling WAY harder than what would give an idea of how the band will perform when worn on the body. When in doubt go see the user's other entries--folks tend to be consistent in how they do things. Likewise you'll see the same overly timid band-measurer entering everything as 26" unstretched and 27.5" stretched!

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  wendybien wins the prize again for most bra-ducational comments. Made my day again. The best. 🙏🤓👙

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  wendybien thank you so so much for your help!!

• Thank you AprilGoulding you are too kind! biflexual you are very welcome, I hope that gives you some pointers for reexamining the bras you currently own and thinking what other sizes or shapes could work and be truly comfortable. Feel free to send a personal message if I miss a tag in a later thread or bra review!

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  Unless you need the bra wires to be that wide, I bet you could size down one cup size and still be comfy. I find Marcie to be quite generous in the cup in this size range.

• Oops! I didn't mean to submit this as an adventure. Seems to be no way to delete, so enjoy my bland review! :)

• cupandahalf Thanks for the tip! I have free returns on this one from Amazon, so maybe I will try it a cup size down.

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