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!

  • TheRealKuni@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    8 days 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
      0·
      8 days 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.

      • TheRealKuni@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        8 days ago

        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!

        • Vilian@lemmy.ca
          0·
          8 days ago

          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

  • pyrflie@lemm.ee
    0·
    8 days ago

    4, listening to my mom bitch about bra shopping on a bench in JC Penny’s to my nieces.

    Big women with big busts had a pretty hard time finding shit in the 90s.

  • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    0·
    8 days 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.

  • Contramuffin@lemmy.world
    0·
    8 days 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
      0·
      8 days 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.

      • Contramuffin@lemmy.world
        0·
        8 days ago

        32 + 4 = 36

        34 + 2 = 36

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

        • Reyali@lemm.ee
          0·
          8 days ago

          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.

      • SupraMario@lemmy.world
        0·
        8 days ago

        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.

        • P1nkman@lemmy.world
          0·
          8 days ago

          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!

    • Eiri@lemmy.ca
      0·
      8 days ago

      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.