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It's so bad that my fiancée has some bras that say she's a B cup and others that says she's a D cup. In order to go bra shopping, you have to actually try them on to find out if they fit.

If I had to try on underwear to see if they fit, I might not bother with underwear at all!

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[-] Bluetreefrog@lemmy.world 19 points 3 hours ago
[-] C126@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 minutes ago

Today years old

[-] P1nkman@lemmy.world 2 points 45 minutes ago

I've been married for 8 years, and I had no idea 😂

[-] 1984@lemmy.today 4 points 3 hours ago

I'm sad I missed the days of girls wearing no bras. Must have been nice.

[-] makingStuffForFun@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 hour ago

You don't live in Australia then.

[-] sbf@feddit.org 31 points 6 hours ago

Well, today years old. Thanks.

[-] captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 14 points 5 hours ago

Men's clothing sizes are a little dumb sometimes but I can usually take a tape measure to my waist and correctly order pants. Your guess is as good as mine what the difference between "boot cut" and "relaxed fit" are, and I would swear T-shirt sizes have shrunk since I was a teenager. As in, I can compare a Medium I've had since the Dubya administration to an XL today. But getting fitted for a suit, they measure me in inches and the clothing is more or less sized in inches.

Women's clothing sizes have had two different ice pick lobotomies. Women come in a wider range of sizes and aspect ratios, women's clothing is pretty much universally designed to fit tighter, but on the rack they're given one meaningless size number. a 12 is bigger than a 10, who knows by how much, and there's nothing on the girl you can measure with a tape to get that number, and there is no standard here at all. Why they haven't revolted I have no idea.

[-] el_bhm@lemm.ee 4 points 2 hours ago

There is a whole NPR episode on women sizing and history of sizing in general.

Eye opening how stupid it is

[-] Bougie_Birdie@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 points 5 hours ago

I would swear T-shirt sizes have shrunk since I was a teenager.

I thought that too, but it turns out I just got fat

[-] captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 1 points 29 minutes ago

I have size M shirts from high school that fit like an L on the rack today.

[-] Steve@startrek.website 3 points 4 hours ago
[-] noxy@yiffit.net 6 points 4 hours ago

I'm gay, so current age I guess

[-] Contramuffin@lemmy.world 6 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

Most of the bras that my girlfriend gets fits on her first try, although she does tend to prefer sister sizes over her real size. If your girlfriend is having issues with bras fitting, it might be worthwhile to read up on how bra sizes are actually calculated and do a measurement yourself. Funny enough, most girls don't seem to know how the bra size system works either and they just get their sizes through trial and error, which seems like what has happened here.

The letter by itself is fundamentally meaningless. A 32D is equivalent to a 34B! And most girls severely underestimate their actual size. What would colloquially be called a B or C is actually an E

[-] angrystego@lemmy.world 2 points 14 minutes ago

I don't think you know how the bra size system works. The number is the size measured underneath the breasts. The letter is the cup size determined as a the difference between the measurements across and underneath the breasts.

Therefore no way is 32D equivalent to 34B. Or at least it shouldn't be equivalent, but manufacturers don't respect the standard, so the equivalence is not impossible in some cases. It's really super inconsistent.

Also breasts can have different shapes and can be placed closer or further appart, which makes finding a fitting bra very hard for some people.

[-] RandomStickman@fedia.io 84 points 9 hours ago

Clothing sizing in general is just arcane at this point.

[-] Sonor@lemmy.world 16 points 8 hours ago

This. I mostly buy size S t-shirts, sometimes M, occassionally XS. I dont even care anymore.

[-] Tolookah@discuss.tchncs.de 20 points 8 hours ago

If the shirt isn't xl, I can't raise my hands without showing my belly.

Also if the shirt is bigger than L, I'm swimming in it.

[-] SkyezOpen@lemmy.world 1 points 33 minutes ago

Some brands do slim sizes. Small shirts don't cover my belt but mediums can be baggy on me, but medium slim fits perfectly.

[-] spankmonkey@lemmy.world 7 points 8 hours ago

I have a long torso and broad shoulders, so I have to get xl tall shirts in some brands because most make their standard xl shirts wider but not taller than med and small.

Banana Republic is the shortest length. Hurley is the best length.

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[-] MisterNeon@lemmy.world 75 points 9 hours ago

Today years old.

[-] LainTrain@lemmy.dbzer0.com 42 points 9 hours ago

It's also the fact that cup size is not necessarily independent from band size, that's where the trick is. I used to think I'm an A with a high band size as I'm huge with no booba, like a 39A or something but those never fit that well.

According to ABraThatFits methodology I'm actually 36C, which somehow does fit and super well, though by common and dudebro methodology I'm most certainly more of an "A cup" if that makes sense.

[-] clay_pidgin@sh.itjust.works 27 points 8 hours ago

It's because whatever maniac invented the sizing scheme decided that every letter represents 2 inches more around your body at the weirdest boobage point than just below it. What a bonkers system! A woman with 38B bras is 38 inches around at the band, and 40 inches around at the girls. Nonsense. The way dudes THINK it works makes so much more sense.

[-] PrincessLeiasCat@sh.itjust.works 2 points 5 hours ago

I’m a woman w

[-] DragonsInARoom@lemmy.world 5 points 5 hours ago
[-] dariusj18@lemmy.world 40 points 9 hours ago

Have her go and get fitted. Many women don't know what their band/cup size really is.

Also, IMO, women's pant sizes are where the real absurdity in sizes is.

Not much help to know what cup size you are if the bra companies are only pretending to be standardized

[-] ValiantDust@feddit.org 35 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago)

Only knowing your cup size is not enough. You need to know the underbust size as well. A 32D and a 34C have cups with the same volume. Sure, there is still some variance but not as much as I thought before I learned that.

Edit: This calculator and the community of the same name on the-site-that-shall-not-be-named helped me a lot in finding my actual bra size. Now my only problem is that almost no company here has more than two or three bras in that size...

[-] RBWells@lemmy.world 4 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago)

And it is more complicated even than that. I am a small busted woman and yet the best fit I can get is 34D. The 34 makes sense, underbust is 33. The D is what I measure but most have too much room. I still need that size because the circumference of the boobs fits in that wire; any smaller is too narrow.

I think bras need 3 measurements not 2. I need band 34, wire size D, cup capacity closer to C. And there are plenty of women in the opposite situation too, with more projection but smaller circumference.

So the non-standardized sizing is a workaround for that problem.

[-] ValiantDust@feddit.org 1 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

Yeah, the two measurements are really not enough to fit all the different boob shapes. And just offering different shapes with the same two measurements leads to problems for those who otherwise could rely on the two alone.

I have that problem with trousers where one measurement for width is not enough to fit both my waist and my hips. With bras it's just that apparently you can't have more than B or at maximum C if your underbust is 28/30. According to companies at least.

[-] RBWells@lemmy.world 2 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

Yeah and what anyone thinks is a 32b is probably a 32E or something. Again with the wire circumference! A 32b is like a shot glass not a champagne glass. I can tell any guy I'm an A or B cup because that's what they "look like", and I agree.

I just started thinking of them as numbers all, no letters. So I am wearing 34+4. That's not big, a +4 just means 4" difference underbust to bust, and some of that is lats, not boobs!

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[-] Adudethatis@lemmy.ca 5 points 6 hours ago

Grade 9- girlfriend at the time was "blessed" so to speak. Learned e women have a much more difficult time finding bras and underwear that "work" than most men do.

[-] Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world 16 points 8 hours ago

The cup size SHOULD be the difference in inches between the circumference below the breast and circumference around the breast.

3" difference would be a C cup

5" would be DD.

Why they double up some letters and not others, I couldn't tell you. 🤷🏻‍♂️

My ex used to sell underwear.

[-] S_H_K@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 4 hours ago

No clothes shit in my country is standard so why would the bra's be?

[-] Coreidan@lemmy.world 12 points 7 hours ago

This is the case with all clothing.

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[-] Tattorack@lemmy.world 3 points 5 hours ago

Teenager. I'm an artist. I was drawing some characters. Had to find some references.

[-] TheRealKuni@lemmy.world 22 points 9 hours ago

There are plenty of brands that follow mostly standard sizing, as I understand it. But popular brands in the US (like Victoria Secret) generally don’t.

I fell down the r/abrathatfits rabbit hole one day, years ago. It’s fascinating.

[-] BruceTwarzen@lemm.ee 12 points 9 hours ago

I once talked to my girlfriend about bra sizes and how much i don't understand them. Then we both googled bra sizes and how often women wear the wrong size and fit and all. It's a whole science behind it and it's quite interesting. Now, 10 years later i still often think: oh no, she wears a bra that doesn't fit right and probably doesn't even know it.

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[-] TomMasz@lemmy.world 10 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago)

It was a long time ago that I realized that women’s clothing sizing was largely fiction. Trying to buy clothing for a girlfriend or (later) my wife based on the tag of something they already owned was an exercise in futility.

[-] _bcron_@lemmy.world 10 points 9 hours ago

I just learned today since I've never been compelled to look up any sort of conversion chart, but I had a hunch because dress/pants sizes are all over the place. One brand's mostly-honest 12 is another brand's flattering 4, shit like that

[-] rtxn@lemmy.world 8 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago)

I'm both fat and tall. None of my fucking clothes have consistent sizes that fit. I'm not the least bit surprised that the clothing industry's greatest minds were defeated by breasts.

[-] palordrolap@fedia.io 4 points 7 hours ago

I think this is filed in my head under "no two manufacturers' sizes are the same (even if they're supposed to be to a standard)", and "this is especially true of women's wear", so while I may have known about bra cup sizes specifically at some point in the past, I'm not sure I did at the time I arrived at this post, and yet am thoroughly unsurprised to (re)discover it.

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this post was submitted on 15 Nov 2024
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