I'm not sure what the name of this bra is. The tag says "So Free" but that appears to be a collection rather than a specific model. As far as I could tell, it doesn't quite match the design of any existing "So Free" bras on here, but I wouldn't know how to add it as I have no clue what this specific one would be called. It has molded cups with floral lace over them and the lace band forms a straight line of lace under the cups. There are no keyholes, little bows on the gore, or other such aesthetic details; it's just padding and lace. It seems to be a full cup style.

This is a very old bra of mine from years ago. In retrospect, it has always been a terrible fit—not unexpected when the smallest matrix band size is half a foot too long—but this one was my favorite. Without alterations, the band is so big that the bra is basically a crop top, so it's hard to comment on anything except for the fact that the band is way too long. The bra doesn't give me any support like that and I used to wear it just to hide nipples, not knowing what it meant for a bra to be supportive as I had never seen a sub-32 band before.

It's fairly beat up and has holes and fraying here and there, but I was able to salvage it. The first thing I did was shorten the band. I can't say exactly how much it's shortened by, but my underbust is 26" and it now fits on the tightest hooks, so it is probably a reduction of 4" as it is similar to my 28 bands. There are three reasons why I didn't make it small enough to fit on the loosest hooks. For one, the band had already stretched out so I didn't expect it to expand much more before the rest of the bra collapsed. Secondly, the band isn't a consistent width and it's difficult to cut out a larger section without having an even weirder sudden change in width. Thirdly, the band has become very stiff and non-stretchy now that I've cut so much out of an already stretched out band. This leads to a problem where the tightest hooks are comfortably snug when the bra is on, but are very difficult to hook onto because the band is so stiff that it can't temporarily stretch a bit longer for when I'm trying to put the bra on. I expect that this problem will only get worse if I shorten the band even more, so I don't see it as being worth it.

Another alteration I did was to cut the padding out of the cups, which were somewhat disfigured since I didn't store/wash the bra gently in the past. Instead of adding to the bust to give the appearance of a bigger chest like they're probably intended to do, the cups maintain the same size and squish me down to accommodate the padding. Since it's taking up space that I could use and I don't particularly love that it's molded, I just cut the padding out with scissors and the cups are good now. Actually, the lace that used to cover the cups turned out to be very pretty—you couldn't really see the nice pattern before since it was the same color as the padding and would simply blend in. Now the bra is unlined and see-through.

The last thing I did was shorten the straps. I'm 5ft so the straps not being fully adjustable was an issue for me. I don't know exactly how much I cut off, maybe around 3 inches?

I'm 26FF so this bra is almost my sister size of 32DD and it seems fairly good now that I've altered it. The cups fit well, although the tops wrinkle a bit with certain poses since they do nothing to match my shape, but that doesn't matter. The widths of the gore and wires are good despite the original being 3 band sizes too big, but I'm pretty wide-set so that's probably why I can get away with it. The wires aren't the most comfortable in the world and they've bent to look different but they're fine.

Overall, this bra can still keep going for a little while. It's still torn up in certain spots and it's not a perfect fit, but it's decently comfortable now and it doesn't honestly look too bad—being made of black lace and mesh helps with hiding the imperfections. It was a good attempt at alterations.

Black colorway

Updated on Jan 23, 2021 Flag this

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