George

Eliza, may I ask why you think the point of "reversed letterphobia" is wearing too small a cupsize?

In my ears, your problem sounds a lot like the common Panache problem: wires too long and cups that are too high under your arms. Have you ever tried a bra by Elomi? They can be really great and comfortable. :)

Yesterday a fellow "bosom friend" showed me some 28GG Freya bras that made me think... maybe a lot of the band size question is about the brands. In tighter bands (for example the Fantasie Rebecca) she wears a 30 which is fine; but in the case of these styles (Gem/Lauren/Piper Balcony) she would have needed a 26 band. 28 was simply too loose. She said that her freyaGG-bands are usually 5 centimeters (!) longer than the G-bands. Isn't this crazy?

Wow, is this really used as a term to describe a person?!! :o

However, the fit issue is not the tight band - you should wear your band as tight as you're comfortable with and this depends on your body, sensibility of skin, ribcage width, squeezability etc.

The problem of "reverse letterphobia" would be to choose cups that are too big, so the wires end somewhere on your back and your breast tissue cannot really fill the cup. This leads to a loss in stability, the band feels like it's too wide and you've got to shorten your straps drastically to get any support at all. There are side effects like poking wires or the wires not touching the sternum anymore because they're triangleshaped. This might lead to the idea, that the cup is still too small, while, when lenghtening the straps you realise its actually too big.

In short: The cups are of course part of the bra and wires that are too wide can lenghten the band.

This is only meant as advice for finding the perfect fit. :)

I'm really happy there are so many ongoing discussions on the net these days. It's really important to swap ideas and experiences!

Hmmmm. I'm really sorry, this whole letterphobia-thing sounded so negative to you. We used the term a lot @busenfreundinnen.net because it seemed to be a funny way to describe the fear of above D-cups. Most people think D is already huge, so double D might be Pamela Anderson and even larger is not thinkable. Some years ago we tended to slip into the different direction and suggest bras that were too small in the band and too big in the cup. Whereas this might be obvious for many people, not ever having had a good fitting bra, a lot of women began to explain every problem they had with the cups still too small and the bands too big. So we took the existing term of "letterphobia" and simply turned it around. I experienced a lot of restistance against the idea - with myself and with others and it took a while for the concept to spread. In the beginning there was quite a bit of hostility when you suggested that for example a band size larger and two cups less might be a better fit. People sometimes tend to be a little conservative when it comes to concepts they like. ;-)
As I said, I experienced this myself, I think I was not really happy about learning I made a mistake. But after overcoming my resentments I found that the change of perspective was really helpful.
Of course, while quite a lot of women on the Busenfreundinnen message board were falling victim to "reversed letterphobia" (as I explained in my posting on drueber&drunter) this does not have to be the case for you of the English-speaking boobosphere. So no offence intended. :)

Letterphobia btw in medical terms is a condition which causes people to be afraid of letters. Quite literally.

george