3
Need help finding a unicorn bra (complex fit issues).
So the last time I was here asking for help with Ewa Michalak and Comexim sizes (and also looking for a unicorn sports bra) I pretty much hit a wall and ended up defaulting back to either no bra or a sleep bra just to be comfortable.
I've since gained some more weight and its confusing matters for me. I'm wanting to find a bra that fits ok in time for a wedding I will be attending at the end of August (the dress I've picked out has a neckline which doesn't work with my grey sleep bra lol).
My last attempt to get a good fit got me realising that I need a narrower band to get the correct cup positioning for my frame, but a wider band in the back to fit the rest of my underbust. I was going to look into trying 30 bands with an extender to get them to fit like the 32 bands I was comfortable in (had been wearing that band since I first got bras as neither 30 nor 34 were right). However, my weight gain has now affected my underbust measurement and my 32 band bras only fit with an extender now.
So I'm not sure if my previous idea will work at all, especially since I no longer have any idea of my cup size & I'm struggling to take reliable bust circumference measurements.
What I'm after is advice on finding a bra I might have to get all Frakenstein on. Things I need from a bra don't seem to exist exactly so I'll list the issues I need to find solutions for.
* High set bust with IMF just below armpit hair level. So need short cups, wings & gores.
* Close set bust - touching cleavage with no bra on, no bust tissue on my sides, its as close to being a monoboob as it can get without them being physically joined. There is actually a little bust tissue covering my chest wall between the two which makes wires in between very painful if they can even get past all the volume. Holding a cocktail stick with my boobs is my party trick is what I'm getting at. Gores are always too wide.
* ALL the immediate projection. There is no slope, its just like 90° sharp angle suddenly boob stuck onto chest (though unsupported my bust is a bit pendulous). Obviously a bra will be more rounded than that, but I've yet to find a bra with enough immediate projection to not be forced down by my bust. Probably due to...
* Short breast roots. From the bottom of my boob at my IMF measured straight up, the top of my boobs are only three inches "tall". This makes it hard to find a low enough gore because at this bust volume, they make the gores around 3" in a plunge and so all that happens is they dig into my bust tissue & my boobs further push the bra down.
* IMF is immediately above a rib flare (out from front of chest) so there's nowhere for the bra to get pushed down other than into me. It hurts.
* I have some kind of EDS & get rib muscle pain from my ribs partially dislocating (have some exercises to help fix it for a bit though), so have some tenderness at the sides, often just a gentle press with a finger feels like I'm getting stabbed, and underwire/bands can hit these sore spots easily so I'm quite sensitive to things which most might find "uncomfortable" but bearable.
* "Minor" other things: straps often too wide/long, bust hates balcony/balconette shapes, cups too wide & shallow, wire too wide for IMF, not enough cup volume in centre where my apex is (nipples are 4" apart). Cups always seem to east-west me since they expect more further apart boobs or more volume in the sides of the cup not by the gore. Oh and I'm autistic and have sensory processing issues so a lot of things get turned to pain by my brain. I just want a bra with no pain like I used to have when I was a 32DD and below (I miss bras not causing pain).
Weirdly I have now found my unicorn sports bra. It was cheap from Sainsbury's (via Argos) and it doesn't try to separate the boobs (painful). It has an underwire but it doesn't come up between the boobs, its straight across at the bottom. And its got a V shape to the front and so doesn't come up over my collar bone like every other sports bra I tried. Its heavenly honestly. Wish regular bras did the same trick with the underwire. (This one: https://www.argos.co.uk/product/tuc136222551 ) I got mine in a 34GG in black as it was the largest cup size they offered in the band I needed & it works fine for a sports bra since it compresses. Just sharing it in white as it shows off the underwire detail.
But in my UK 32GG bras I had before, I'm just not contained. My best estimation for new cup size using the A Bra That Fits calculator would be a 34HH, Bravissimo suggests 32JJ, but I'd need to double check the measurements and since I have issues with the front frame width on 32 bands being too wide, it might be I need to get creative with the sizes.
https://www.argos.co.uk/product/tuc136222551
https://www.argos.co.uk/product/tuc136222551
Filed under Bra sizing and fit
23 comments
Congrats on finding a good sports bra!
And wow so cheap, wish they shipped internationally (:
For the rest of your questions, yes seems pretty complex! Does sound like you've figured out most of your fit wishes, now to find something that accommodates!
Not sure I can help (different shape / needs), but my 2 cents:
- Gorsenia is known as being pretty deep (maybe you could alter the gore?)
- Maybe something like Curvy Kate Super plunge could be Frankenstein'd into something?
- Perhaps a Comexim plunge with alterations? Added projection, lowered gore, straps moved in..
Good luck!
@bubblegum I'm honestly a bit scared of trying Comexim again after the issues I had last time. It was really upsetting to order multiple sizes to find my fit with them (my size has always been such that I'm between cups plus I knew their bands fit differently so was between bands too until I learned how they fit me too) and to have them say I could only try two max, then never respond to my fit request to ask for help choosing which 2. Eventually they sent one bra, but it was the smallest of them & whilst the band was just about ok, I definitely needed the bigger cup. But they just stopped responding and never sent the second bra and it took me 4 months to get a refund for the ones they said they wouldn't make me, and even then it was only for 2 bras, so I was still out the cost of one bra in the end.
Its such a shame because I was hoping that once I'd found my closest fit I could then request alterations. But I don't trust they'd do them and I've only ever seen people request specific amounts of reduction/moving of straps. It always seems to be 2cm. I don't know if anyone has had any luck say asking for a gore no higher than a certain amount (like ideally for me the gore wouldn't be higher than 1½" tall, but in my cup size they tend to be closer to 4" so 2cm off that would still put it around 3" high).
I know the reality is that I'm going to have to learn to make my own bras if I actually want something that works, but I doubt I can manage that by the end of August. I don't even have a chair I can use to sew at a desk (its not just my boobs which are weirdly proportioned lol, my torso is just so damn short I need a high chair to get me the right height to use a table).
Any suggestions on Gorsenia styles to try? All the models I've seen appear to be unlined (which doesn't work well for me) and in balcony styles. If the gore is too high it will just be scraping my collar bone & sitting on top of my bust tissue (I have never been able to get balcony wires to fit between my bust tissue, never mind "tacking" the wires aren't meant to sit on your nipples are they?).
I haven't actually tried Curvy Kate bras, when I last got fitted at Bravissimo they didn't even bother trying them on me because they said they were wider (especially in cup separation) and more shallow than the one I was already trying so would be worse. Though they don't carry their full range, so perhaps that one wasn't available to try. It does look like a potential contender with the low front though! So might be worth trying in a smaller band & just extender the crap out of it lol
I actually just read their fit notes about how for high set busts you often need a wider band size since that higher part of the back is just wider and I'm all like ohhhhh of course! Like I knew I needed that and others didn't but hadn't quite twigged it was because the back is just broader higher up.
This thread has 23 comments. Log in to read them