Bra fitting help » bra designed for wide root not wide enough
Chantelle » Rive Gauche 3 Part Cup (3281) » 80H 36:8
Issue resolved
I wore this a couple of days and realized it's currently my best fitting bra. I decided to keep it and take the band in.
Original problem
This bra is too deep in the cups, but too narrow in the underwire. The left underwire presses up against my breast tissue and becomes painful quickly.
Both the band and the cups are too stretchy and loose to provide any real support. I should have sized down to a 32 band in this model. And the cups wrinkle a bit on the top.
Reading about Chantelle, I learned that their bras are designed for full on the bottom women with long torsos and wide roots. Check on the long torso -- this is my only bra with fully adjustable straps, and that helps alleviate my pain considerably. But the underwire is not wide enough -- I am beginning to lose hope that I will ever find a shallow enough bra with wide enough underwire to fit.
So, where do I look when the company that allegedly caters too my fit doesn't work on my first try? I mean, I tried this on in the store, and I thought it felt good. When I got home, I realized that was because it felt like I had nothing on -- except for the pain in my left shoulder from the too narrow underwire. It gives me no lift, shape or forward projection.
Meanwhile, Bratabase is suggesting that I try a smattering of Cleo, Panache and Curvy Kate bras, all in the HH to JJ range. I can't imagine that cups in these sizes won't gape terribly on top, but well... If that would stop my shoulder pain and give me some measure of support that goes far enough under my armpits, I'd be okay with it.
The site also recommends a 34 band -- I concur, but since this one is super stretchy, I'd still need to size down to a 32.
I'd appreciate bra recommendations. I'd just like a bra that fits. I keep wishing for a reduction because I'm in pain all the time. (I have lupus and arthritis, and that just makes never having a well fitting bra more physically painful.)
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Suggestions (2)
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Unpadded Chantelle is medium to narrow, not terribly wide in my experience. Honestly though, I think you might do well in some of Freya's unpadded shallower offerings (like the Lauren and Gem). Maybe in 34G?
Updated on July 14, 2014 Flag this
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Freya gets wider when you go up in sizes. I fit an old stretched out 28H with an extender, and my base size is 32F. The wires are pretty wide, but they're tall and comfy on me. I don't find the gores to be too low, though you might find that to be the case in the Deco and other plunges. I'd steer clear of the Arabella cuts and the Freya Lets Twist Again Plunge Balcony Bra (1491) cut.
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Do you know if the unpadded Freya non-plunge cuts are okay when there's a size discrepancy? I think my left breast is at least a full cup size larger than my right. Most of my bras fit (or are too big) on the right, but I don't think I've ever found anything that fit on the left side.
Also, are the straps far apart? The only cuts I've tried with straps that work on my narrow sloped shoulders are the Wacoal Awareness 34/36H and this Chantelle. That was the other draw with Chantelle -- straps that wouldn't fall off or need to be pulled in 3 inches on each side.
So, do narrow set straps for wide shallow roots bras exist? I'm guessing that narrow sloped shoulders usually come with a narrower root? So I'm always having to decide between straps that work with cups that don't or the other way around.
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I think you are somewhat barking up the wrong tree looking for wider and wider cups. I read both your fitting requests and it seems to me you're sizing up in the cups to get the wires to fit all the way outside of your larger breast, but this is mainly because of a wide separation BETWEEN the breasts--not an extraordinarily wide root. I think you need to look for wide gores, or in some cases perhaps even consider altering gores to make them fit your body. This will then free you to find the wire size and cup depth that encompasses just the breast tissue, not boobs + empty space in between.
If you look at the "from above" shot of your pink Affinitas bra, you will get a splendidly clear visual of the average-width gore basically just wandering around in the gap between your boobs, which is a lot wider than 1" or whatever that particular gore is.
Since you have chronic pain issues, while you work on exploring underwired options I would HIGHLY recommend looking into solidly built non-wired bras. These will spare you endless aches and frustrations since there is no hard gore and as long as band length and cup volume are correct, this construction can just mold to your particular shape, including breast spacing and width, without wires that need to be a precise fit. If you are suffering from particularly tough phases of pain I would even recommend looking at non-wired nursing bras; they are made the same as non-nursing bras apart from the clips, but usually more effort is made to make them "cute" as opposed to other non-wired options, and they are designed to be comfortable even on a postpartum woman whose milk has just come in (typically a lot of sensitivity, irritation and pain is involved). I'm not saying you need to wear them every day, but it sounds like it would be a nice thing to have one on hand that you can change into if you're having a bad day pain-wise.
Updated on July 15, 2014 Flag this
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Okay, so I think this is partly right. But how would you calculate gore width, and what exactly is average? When lying down, I can lay the entire width of my (sort of regular sized) hand down between my breasts. When I sit or stand up or lean even slightly forward, I get 1.5-2 inches, but that's mainly the width of my breast bone.
Part of the reason the cups on the pink Affinitas bra gape is that the straps are so wide that I have to pull them in a few inches on each side just to have them sit on the very edge of my shoulders. That also does weird things with the center gore like shift it around. I'm not sure the problem is totally a wide gore because I have another Affinitas bra (I will upload it tomorrow)with one of the widest gores I've ever seen, and when I pull the straps in to rest on my shoulders, that makes the cups pucker out a lot on top and the center gore does weird floaty but flattening things. And also... Natori bras have gores that always seem too wide -- and they just push me down flat and don't lift me up at all. I think there is definitely a problem with center gore and the way my bras fit, but I think part of the problem with getting them to fit is that my straps are always way too wide set -- when the straps and my arms come in, that shifts the gore all around. Wacoal and Chantelle are the best I've found when it comes to straps, but even they fall a bit wider than would be ideal.
Basically, my shoulders are narrow and sloped. My boobs start really low on my chest, and also I have a wide gore, at least for my frame. I just haven't found bras that work for this. Are there any? I have a Kris Line bra that sort of gets the center gore right, but it's way too wide in the straps.
Thank you for the idea of nursing bras -- I'd wondered about them, but have never had a child and had no idea how the fit would work. I'm a freelancer, and I work just at home at least half of the week, so I could definitely wear wireless bras when I need to.
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Well, having a wide enough gore doesn't guarantee that the cups will fit you--if the cups are too large in size, the cup will be loose and wrinkly, the gore will move around, the straps will be too far apart, etc. Once you have found the right cup size, which I think will be a LOT smaller than what you've been wearing, the straps ought to be closer together.
Another issue working against you is that the fashion today especially for UK and Polish bras is to have a balconnet look with straps ALLLLL the way at the outside of the cups anyway, so this is something to look out for and avoid! Many French brands and US brands make "full cup" and 3 part cup designs with more centered straps, it is just a matter of studying the photos and noting where they sit in relation to the outer edge of the cups. If you look at bras labeled as "comfort bras" "posture bras" etc. (which as a bonus are often non-wired) you will see that their straps are significantly closer together also, because this is an important comfort feature for many women. Brands geared to a plus size market like Elomi, Elila, Goddess, Playtex, etc. try hard to do more centered straps since this is a common complaint for their target demographic. Since you wear a 34 band or above, you can JUST squeak into their size range in most cases, although some models only come in 36+ bands unfortunately.
Also, gore width and projection on the inner part of the cup are two different things: when a bra cup cuts in and flattens you on the inner quadrant of the boob (i.e. near the gore) it is not necessarily a gore issue, it can also be a matter of the bra being too shallow for you in that area and not providing enough room for the inner fullness of each breast. This is common with more projected boobs.
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So, I just found this link at herroom.com and realized that I have wide-set splayed breasts:
http://www.herroom.com/breast-separation,333,30.html
And the fit issues listed are exactly the issues I have always had. Well, except that it mentions plunge bras, and I always get pushed down and end up falling out of those. Same with center clasp bras -- I've never found one with large enough cups.
Do you (or anyone else) happen to know of any bras that might meet some of these requirements?
Bra Suggestions:
Bras with a wide triangle-shaped center panel will work best.
Bras with side support panels in their cup design will help push your breasts out from under your arms and in from the sides to give you a better forward shape.
Front closure bras are a good choice because the center clasp tends to cause wider set cups. This bra style is a good choice up to DD cup sizes.
Bras with seams in the cups (and a wider center panel) will give you a more rounded and youthful breast shape.
Soft cup bras (bras without underwires) will be a more forgiving fit, but you will not get great shape and definition.
Center panels made of cording and plunge bras will probably fit you better. But, look for the widest center panel you can find. -
Yes plunge bras are tricky when you have a lot of inner fullness. What center clasp bras have you tried? I feel like I've seen a bunch of those in the type of bras I was telling you about (comfort bra, posture bra etc. usually available in 34+ bands and large cups).
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Ah, yeah, you're probably right. I've only tried the Parisa racerback bras. I had overflow on top and on the sides in both their G and H cups. Also, the straps didn't come down far enough. I haven't checked out anything wireless yet, but I think I've seen what you're describing at sites like One Stop Plus, and they carry band sizes down to 34 in some things.
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I've been seeing bazillions of them because I'm currently on a hunt for retro style bras. Let me take a quick look and list which ones I saw recently.
ETA OK, I remember now. The brand that seems to make a ton of these is Glamorise. Some Playtex too. Sometimes they only start at 36 band, but if they have a longline shape that is probably OK for you as long as they don't run large--look at the reviews and note which ones have lots of complaints about the band running tight! For those, you can definitely take a 36 in my opinion. Otherwise, yeah, you want a 34.
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Interesting, I will check these out. I'd thought Freya might generally be too narrow with a too-low center gore, but I haven't really tried any on. Thank you for the recommendations!