If you ask women what their biggest struggle is when buying lingerie? Most of them will probably answer, “Why is it so hard to choose the right bra? They often wonder why some very good-looking bras don’t fit well on them. Why do some big luxury brands have this problem too? Even if the labeled sizes are the same, why do some brands fit and some don’t fit at all?
The reasons for this are really complex, and I can name a few off the top of my head, such as different standards set from company to company, different standards referenced by different manufacturers under the company, different fits provided by the company’s stockists, etc. …… But there is one thing that perhaps we average consumers don’t pay attention to: the fact that every The brand’s fit will have a lot to do with the models it uses.
The model is not a runway model, but a real fitting model that is not very visible to anyone but the designer and pattern maker. The models that are visible are mostly thin because of their stage image, some of them look as thin as a bone below, but on the runway they are just right. On a side note, a few years ago we went to Kunming to see Yang Liping’s “Impressions of Yunnan”, which she doesn’t perform much anymore, and the people on stage are her disciples. After one performance, we called the apprentice a “fat peacock” in passing, but the tour guide who went with us was not impressed and argued that she was not fat at all offstage. This is the cruel side of the stage, and there’s really no way around it.
And the fitting models are much more normal. The standard size of a fitting model, especially a lingerie model, is usually 34 inches (about 85 cm) with a B cup, and “34B” is the standard bra size used by all lingerie companies in the United States, which is the sample size we use before mass production, with the top and bottom sizes increasing or decreasing from 34B. A 34B is roughly equivalent to a medium. However, over the years, more and more lingerie companies have made their first samples smaller in order to pursue the visual effect of “skinny” and delicate, so that the samples can be hung in the showroom or photographed to look good, except for the bra size, which has always remained the same. The more thin a woman is, the more beautiful she is, except for her breasts.
But even if they’re all “34Bs,” even if they have the same label, the “fit” can be different. For example, I’ve done a lot of Maidenform designs myself, and I really like the no-frills materials and reliable quality, but I don’t have it in my own underwear closet. The reason is that it does not fit, no matter which one, it does not fit my body. The reason for this is the modeling problem I mentioned, the company’s bra fitting models have different breast shapes than mine.
Caucasians have different breast shapes than African-Americans and Asians, and even among Caucasians or yellow people, there are differences, with conical, pear, and hemispherical shapes being some of the more common ones. These differences may seem subtle, but we often encounter such things when we do design, change a model, if the breast shape happens to be different, fit will likely need to be redone, and the size in 34B increments or decrements will follow the change. The price tag of a bra is high, and in addition to the fact that it does use a lot of expensive accessories that cause high costs, the fitting process for good brands is indeed complicated.
So for that reason alone, I can’t give any shortcuts to buying a bra. In any case, a few more tries is a prerequisite to getting a bra that fits. But I also believe that with patience, every woman can find the one that is right for her sooner or later. For example, if we Asians in the United States are not having the right luck in the North American market, we might as well go to the Gallic markets that are close to the Asian body, such as France or the Quebec region or Montreal to find it. And once you find it, you can keep an eye on it and wear it for a few years, because there is always a period of relative stability for a company with a suitable model, and the bigger the brand the more so.