A Cup by Any Other Name

There’s been some confusion, I’ve found (at least in the countless inbox messages on IG, asking “so, what bra size are you?”). So, it’s time for a little public service announcement. Gentlemen, listen up: your advanced knowledge of bra dynamics might earn you some bonus points with a lady one day; and ladies… listen up, too! You ever hear that statistic that says something like 75% of women are wearing the wrong size bra? I wouldn’t doubt it.

Back in my small-boobed days (I was only a C, give or take, depending on where I went shopping), and I’m pretty sure I had it all off. I have maybe one professional measuring at a real lingerie shop through all of my 20s, and since boobs do change shape, size, etc. over time, it’s not too hard to have a great bra when you’re 22, that is just a mess by the time you’re 27 (if it lasts that long). 

Truth is, most women go with a) what’s comfy, b) what’s cheapest, and c) what’s available. It fits here, it fits there, it keeps the girls from jumping around too much, you can bend over without falling out? That’s all the criteria you really need. Then, you just don’t have to think about it.

Long gone, however, are the days when I could just swing by a Victoria’s Secret when one of my faithful brassieres had to meet its maker (read: became too disgusting to not feel like a hot mess in). WalMart, nope. VS? Hell nope (though they always labeled their bras a size up to make their customers feel bustier, God bless’em). There’s a place based out of the UK called Bravissimo that I’ve gotten a couple from in the past, but I never could stick with them… I outgrew them pretty quickly during my spurtin’ days, but I assume they would have been nice if my breasts would have stayed the same size for more than a month or so? They didn’t. :-/

So, that left one option. The physics of bras, you see, tend to break down anyway once you hit a certain size. Once you’re out of the G-J range, you find yourself lost in some uncharted territory. Straps are never wide enough, the band hikes up in the back, and you find yourself trading comfort for something that will just fucking hold them in place so they’re not flopping around like goddam jackrabbits. (That last part is key.)

I tracked it down on Amazon. There’s a company called Goddess that I’ve never seen in a store. Presumably, some Chinese firm got it in their head that there might be SOME market for bras that are exceptionally huge (or maybe a decimal point got out of place, and they started up the machine? Maybe they had it in mind that some stupid Americans would want a bra this size that they could give as a gag gift, or incorporate into their Halloween costume?). Anyway, the largest this company sells is an N cup. Still pretty huge! But not quite enough for your ol’ pal Heather. I had to get fancy… using the power of subtraction! (Insert Bill Nye voice: “Science!”)

Here’s how it works. The number in a bra size is the band, and that’s determined by taking a measuring tape and measuring your rib cage, under your boobs. So if you’re 36 inches around, you’re a 36. The letter is the cup size. It goes up one letter with each extra inch around you are at your fullest point (usually the nipple). So if you’re a 36 underbust, but a 41 when you measure over the boobs, you’re a DD. A, B, C, D… DD. (Or E, for your Brits out there.) 36DD.

You can play with these numbers. There are oodles of women out there who might be a 36DD, but who found a 38 that looked pretty, so they bought that. Their boobs still fit into the cups, which might be a C, and they get to feel ok that they’ve still got their perky little C cups, even though that’s just a trick of the light.

This is the way it goes for a lot of women. It’s easier to find a cute C cup bra than it is to find a DD. Ladies love cute bras (we all do, really), so if the one that’s 38 fits, then let’s go for it. So when most women get a professional measure, they typically find their band is smaller than they thought it was, and that their cup size is considerably bigger. She walked into the store a C cup; she walked out a DD. And that’s OK, because the best bras are the ones that fit perfectly, so suck it up, and live the good life, where nothing is digging in at an awkward angle, and so you don’t feel like a prisoner in a straight jacket by the end of the day.

So let’s take this mix-and-match principal, and drag it out to its very extremes. But before we do, keep in mind something that has taken a little getting used to, for me anyway. Remember that “measure around the fullest part” thing I mentioned earlier? That would put the tape around my boobs, which kinda rest on top of my belly (which, I’m terrified to say, isn’t the very embodiment of Ft. Lauderdale swimsuit during Spring Break flatness). So that jacks with the numbers, too, because now I have a band that’s somewhere around my mid-back, so do measure around my ribs, or around my mid back? Oi, vey. 

But, for the sake of argument, Let’s go around my ribs. That’s 38 inches on a good day. The part where my actual boobs are widest? That’s gonna clock in (again, on a good day) at around 58 inches. It’s different every time, because I don’t have one of those cool three-way mirrors you find at the stories I used to be able to shop at, but that’s the average. 

38. Then, the 20th letter of the alphabet. That’s the letter (go ahead and count using your fingers and toes) T. 

There was a time when I used to advertise, on this Patreon and on my IG, that I was a 44N. Not untrue, because that’s what the stupid bra says! But in reality, if there was anybody out there who wanted to get me a cool Christmas gift, and has the $$$ to spend cajoling some Chinese assembly line to pick up the task, that real number — the one that I honestly, actually kinda dream of, and that is essentially the equivalent of what the very few custom bras I’ve gotten made, is a 38T.

Yes. 38T. It freaks me out a little as well. Like the number 4 jillion, or the sound a howler monkey makes. 

And so, with you hundreds of lovelies out there, I imagine there has to be one person, maybe more, with an engineering background. To you, I make this promise. Ask me for whatever measurements you need. Length, width, height, slope, angle, grade, yaw, pitch, whatever, and you’ve got it. I can’t offer the sum you might get from an X-prize, but I’m sure we can figure out a way to make it worth your while. We can even hook it up with the patent office.

Together, let’s make a Better Bra for the Heathers of the world. We’re out there, and we’re waiting.