Men of Lemmy, how old were you when you found out that bra cup sizes are not standardized in the slightest?

Wugmeister@lemmy.dbzer0.com to Ask Lemmy@lemmy.world – 140 points –

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!

100

Clothing sizing in general is just arcane at this point.

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

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.

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.

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

I’m between a medium and a large. More often then not though, I need the shoulder width and arm length of a large, but the cut in the torso of a medium. Clothing manufacturers assume Americans scale horizontally as they scale vertically. This maybe true given our obesity crisis.

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.

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.

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

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...

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.

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.

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!

Interesting website! I'll have to remember to try this when I can find where I put my tape measure.

Personally, once I found bralettes I've never gone back. My boobs are small enough that they work just fine. The comfort level has gone up by like ten billion. Bras without underwire come in second but still not the greatest. I just can't really understand bras with underwire.

Tbh, I'm able to go braless under loose fitting sweaters, but for any other shirt, I just don't have the right boob shape for it.

I think underwire is more important the larger your breast volume is. I was recently at an event with a bunch of women who’ve known each other for a long time and we did a game where an emcee asked a question and then we went to a side of the room that fit our personal answer. One of them was 1) underwire, 2) no wire, 3) no bra. As I shuffled over to the underwire side, one of my pals joked that this was just a way to separate us by breast size. And sure enough, those of us with the wires tended to be on the heavier-cupped side, and the small number of no-bra ladies were quite petite.

I tried bralettes once and they didn’t work for me at all. I’m too big for them to provide any support so they just buckled, essentially. It’s a bummer because some of them are so cute! But my girls are just too heavy. And the only thing that keeps them in line is the damn wire. I will say that being fitted correctly does help the wire feel more comfortable though.

Agree on all points! When I was had my first grownup job I was trying to build up my wardrobe and found a pair of jeans that fit and felt great. Size 3. I went back after another paycheck to get an identical third pair and when I got home, they were practically falling off of me. I had to exchange them for a 1, which was still larger than the size 3s from just a month or two earlier.

But a fitted bra? One of my best purchases ever. Getting in the right size resolved about 70% of my chronic back pain. Fit is different between bra types but decent brands’ sizes are standardized, regardless what OP says.

Well, today years old. Thanks.

They aren't?

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

Never been underwear shopping with the wife? I usually take my wife once a year. Think of it this way. A good bra is like a good pair of work boots. You get a shit pair and you're in pain every time you wear them. Bras are the same thing.

Yes and no. Sexy underwear, sure, but never a big talk around the vast differences. I told her about this comment, and I got a 10 minute talk about it 😂 no regrets!

Lol she will be impressed if you take her out for shopping for some bras that fit her. Glad to help

In theory they're standardized. But in practice, no they're not.

I would assume they're not but that's because I notice that depending on who makes what shoe depends on what size I have. I also see this in pants and shorts for men as well. I just assume nothing is actually standardized due to QA never really catching things.

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.

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.

Yup! “Oh, she should probably go down a band size and up a cup size” popped into my head one day and I laughed at the absurdity.

I introduced my wife to the world of proper bra fit, because she’d never known any of it. No one taught her. Made me feel vaguely guilty of mansplaining, but it helped!

I introduced my wife to the world of proper bra fit

How? like, I don't want to mansplain her, but I don't want her desconfortable just because it's using the wrong size

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.

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.

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

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

It’s been the opposite for women’s clothing in my experience. I’ve had to give up multiple brands as their shirts got too big. Same labeled size, same style, but it’s suddenly 2” wider.

This is the case with all clothing.

All is a strecht... But yeah once marketing took over that function, it got turned into whatever the fuck we got now in the US🤡

Trying to buy bras for my wife has been an eye opening experience.

One thing that I haven't seen mentioned here yet is the Wild West of standards once you get to big cup sizes. Apparently DD is the same as E, DDD is an F, and I've even seen a DDDD, which would be a G. Depending on cuts, brands, and styles, her size can go from a DD to an I.

Not to mention these things are like $100 for a "cheap" one. The amount of engineering it has to take to design that shit is probably a few years of grad school.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

32 + 4 = 36

34 + 2 = 36

Am I missing something? Barring some extremely stupid math error, I don't see how I'm incorrect

You’re close! Both a 34B and a 32D would have the same measurement around their bust, but the bust size alone can’t be used to determine bra size. The rule is to increase band size by 1 increment (which is 2”) and reduce cup size by 1 increment (the letter) to maintain the same volume.

The volume of a 32D is the same as a 34C.

You all need to adopt metric for bras

Honestly even Imperial would help at this point. Clothing sizes, in general, are based on basically clouds and dreams and vary wildly by brand or even by model.

I just wish the world standardized. I don't care how. As long as it's standard.

I'm gay, so current age I guess

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.

I really want a law that requires clothing sizes to include actual measurements. And it's insane that I would have to specify that these measurements must be accurate, but the clothing industry has made lying about sizes the norm.

There shouldn't be anything preventing me from figuring out women's bra sizes with a tape measure aside from the fact that I don't know them and they probably don't want a stranger obsessively measuring their boobs.

I really want a law that requires clothing sizes to include actual measurements.

Men's pants are sized based on the number of inches around the waist and the inseam. The inseam is stupid because it ignores the height from the waist to the crotch so relaxed fitting jeans will have a shorter inseam than a regular fit. I'm sure it is because it was standardized when higher waisted jeans and overalls and that kind of stuff was popular.

But it doesn't matter any more because the waist sizes can be off by a few inches anyway. It was literal, then became kind of close. Not as bad as women's clothing, but it is brand specific depending on how hard they lean into vanity sizing.

waist sizes matter less because theres at least a commonly used bandaid fix for it, a belt.

Unless they are tighter than expected, especially when they shrink.

of course, hence when given the option, always buy the waist oversized rather than perfectly matching. because youll never know if it decreases.

OP is wrong. Bra size is the ONLY women’s sizing that is related to specific measurements. It can still take a while to find a comfortable fit based on shapes, but the sizes are standardized across good brands.

Starting point to find the size: Measure the rib cage right under the bust. If even, that’s the number; if odd, round up. Measure the largest size around the bust. Subtract underbust from bust measurements. 1” = A, 2” = B, 3=C, 4=D.

It gets confusing from there in the US because instead of going alphabetically, the US just adds a D for every inch after 4 until some arbitrary letter then goes back to the alphabet. Using UK sizes just follows the alphabet and so is very simple.

Also, sometimes different colours of fabric fit differently in the same bra size.

Most women don't wear bras that fit.

That inconsistency is not exclusive to women's undergarments... I bought a half-dozen of the same American Apparel hoodie in different colors... very different fits.

Yes! Also in panties. Usually black, for some reason beyond me, is tighter than any other color both for bras and panties.

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.

My understanding is that some European countries have laws standardizing bra size.

Right now. I just tuned out all the complaining and assumed that it was a skill issue.

They're definitely defined differently between some countries. Japanese cup sizes are different to US ones

I always figured it was like pants where a 34 waist from company A wouldn't fit like one from B.

The same time I learned it was like that for all women's clothing. So about 18

This might go some ways to explaining why I've never known a woman who liked buying or wearing bras. I'm comfortable blaming the patriarchy, which can absolutely get fucked.

Probably around 14 or something. For whatever reason, people will often name DD as a large bra size around here. It also doesn't exist in our bra size system. Some girl pointed out that non-sense at school.

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

Good thing guy underwear doesn't give one fuck about the shape of the penis. They either mush it into the crutch to defeature the shlong, or they let the whole thing just flap around under loose shorts.

When I was 25, my girlfriend complained about buying the same bra, same size, same material, same URL, from the same company, on their website, 2 years apart. The first ones fit really well, the second ones didn't fit at all.

Meanwhile, there's a shoe that I buy a pair of every few years. They release a new "version" about once per year, but the fit has been consistent, so I'm over a decade, and 6 pairs, into my purchase of them, with no problems.

It's wild to me that people just buy the same shoe over and over. I'm not a fashionista by any stretch of the imagination; I just have one, maximum two, pair(s) of footwear per temperature slice, and I don't even have any formal ones.

But even I would want something new, even if my old pair had served me well.

It used to be that any DC skating shoe size 12 for me. Could just pick a model and leave the store. Then they became a fashion brand rather than a skateboard brand and suddenly it was made for tiny model feet.

A got older with an older body I just get the Bondi8 for summer and Kaha for winter as HOKA does wide and quarter sizes.

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

@ThisIsAManWhoKnowsHowToGling I don't remember exactly, but I was well into adulthood.