Braquest 2010 - Recommendations
Jan. 23rd, 2010 05:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gracedpalmerAs some of you may know, Januaryish is when ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
samadi and I go on our annual bra quest. Both of us are well outside the regular range of sizes, and spent much of our lives believing ourselves to be 44DDs or somesuch. Since most stores stop at DD or DDD, the only way for the busty to get one that "fits" (goes all the way around you) is to go up a back size. This is actually more painful than just going braless, and really unflattering. Unfortunately, there aren't many stores that carry large cup bras, and they're often in disguise as other things. In Champaign, the store is Confidentially yours, and it's a mastectomy and nursing bra supply shop that also has large cups. In Bloomington, it's an adult store. This means you mostly have to go by word of mouth.
If you wash them by hand, take them in when they stretch, and buy really good ones to start with, you can make a bra last about a year. After that, the support starts to go something awful. Mine were purchased last February/March, and are giving me back aches, so it was time to get new ones. We started out with a place that we know carries up to an O cup in Madison, which turned out not to be open on Saturdays. Curses. On the way back, we stopped in Brookfield, at a place called Allure that said they only carried up to an H on the phone. In US sizes, that'd fit me, but notsamadi, which is why we were trying elsewhere first. Well, it turns out that almost all their bras are sized in French sizing, not US. A French F is a US G, and an HH in French/UK sizing is a US K/L.
It was actually quite lovely. It's a proper lingerie boutique, so I was initially assuming that they had five or six large cup bras around somewhere, and would try to get me to add 4" to my band measurement like everywhere else (don't do this.) However, despite being way nicer than anywhere else I'd shop, with unlabeled drawers and associates that actually come help you try them on, they were very expert. I've never seen anyone accurately guess cup size through a winter coat before. I'm in a weird spot between sizes in some brands, and ended up being a 40 E/F in some, while Gs were too small in others. Twas odd. But I have two lovely new bras at less than $100 apiece, only one of which is beige, and which actually has pretty embroidery, and my back won't hurt any more. They seem to carry small sizes, as well, but most women in the mid range don't have trouble. They may be worth calling to find out if they carry the very small bands and/or cups, because I know that almost nowhere makes less than a 30 band size, and that it's hard to find anything in an AA that doesn't look like it's for a twelve year old. The sales people are definitely one commission, because the lady who was helping us kept trying to upsell me. I didn't have the heart to tell her there were likely no panties in the place that would go around me (it isn't a plus size store, to the best of my knowledge), but the upselling wasn't too pushy, so that was fine.
In short, if you're in the Milwaukee area and you have a hard time finding lingerie that fits, Allure might do the trick. They won't try to stuff you in sister sizes like Victoria's Secret, and they're quite professional. And they have things that aren't black, beige, and white. Things that don't look like they were assembled to meet Soviet aesthetic standards.
samadi and I go on our annual bra quest. Both of us are well outside the regular range of sizes, and spent much of our lives believing ourselves to be 44DDs or somesuch. Since most stores stop at DD or DDD, the only way for the busty to get one that "fits" (goes all the way around you) is to go up a back size. This is actually more painful than just going braless, and really unflattering. Unfortunately, there aren't many stores that carry large cup bras, and they're often in disguise as other things. In Champaign, the store is Confidentially yours, and it's a mastectomy and nursing bra supply shop that also has large cups. In Bloomington, it's an adult store. This means you mostly have to go by word of mouth.If you wash them by hand, take them in when they stretch, and buy really good ones to start with, you can make a bra last about a year. After that, the support starts to go something awful. Mine were purchased last February/March, and are giving me back aches, so it was time to get new ones. We started out with a place that we know carries up to an O cup in Madison, which turned out not to be open on Saturdays. Curses. On the way back, we stopped in Brookfield, at a place called Allure that said they only carried up to an H on the phone. In US sizes, that'd fit me, but not
samadi, which is why we were trying elsewhere first. Well, it turns out that almost all their bras are sized in French sizing, not US. A French F is a US G, and an HH in French/UK sizing is a US K/L. It was actually quite lovely. It's a proper lingerie boutique, so I was initially assuming that they had five or six large cup bras around somewhere, and would try to get me to add 4" to my band measurement like everywhere else (don't do this.) However, despite being way nicer than anywhere else I'd shop, with unlabeled drawers and associates that actually come help you try them on, they were very expert. I've never seen anyone accurately guess cup size through a winter coat before. I'm in a weird spot between sizes in some brands, and ended up being a 40 E/F in some, while Gs were too small in others. Twas odd. But I have two lovely new bras at less than $100 apiece, only one of which is beige, and which actually has pretty embroidery, and my back won't hurt any more. They seem to carry small sizes, as well, but most women in the mid range don't have trouble. They may be worth calling to find out if they carry the very small bands and/or cups, because I know that almost nowhere makes less than a 30 band size, and that it's hard to find anything in an AA that doesn't look like it's for a twelve year old. The sales people are definitely one commission, because the lady who was helping us kept trying to upsell me. I didn't have the heart to tell her there were likely no panties in the place that would go around me (it isn't a plus size store, to the best of my knowledge), but the upselling wasn't too pushy, so that was fine.
In short, if you're in the Milwaukee area and you have a hard time finding lingerie that fits, Allure might do the trick. They won't try to stuff you in sister sizes like Victoria's Secret, and they're quite professional. And they have things that aren't black, beige, and white. Things that don't look like they were assembled to meet Soviet aesthetic standards.
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Date: 2010-01-24 12:13 am (UTC)Would've loved to see you.
On the other hand - yay stuff that fits! I'm glad you had a fruitful quest.
A few years ago, I would've been very interested in a place that sold bras with cup sizes outside of the normal range (AAs tend to look like giant deflated sacks on me), but the discovery of sports bras fixed all that. No cups! Woohoo! And they're cheaper.