📣Public Service Announcement: the foam that comes in the bust of a formal dress is NOT a built in bra, it's only there to provide the curved shape of the bust a little bit of structure.

Essentially, it's there so we can't see your nipple through the dress, but it is NOT a shelf to set your anatomy on, and large breasts will sag below where the designer intended without a "shelf" to keep them up. 

TLDR...

TLDR is internet lingo for "too long didn't read" and is often at the top as a summary in case a person can't absorb all the details. Here goes:

Your band should fit your ribcage as if you had no boobs.  Your bra cups should collect your whole boob in it like a stocking hat that pulls down over your whole head - not a religious skull cap only covering the very top of the head. 

Don't need all the details? Skip down this page for shopping tips.

Time to Shop

But they measured!
Why doesn't my dress fit?

The Complaint I hear from nearly EVERY bride and brides maid: "Why is the bust so pointy? So... Madonna boob?" 

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Well, for starters, most garments are designed with a "B cup shape" meaning the full bust is only 2 inches larger than the high bust/upper chest measurement.

The industry will increase the measurement that will fit around your full bust, but the width of the top of the dress (from shoulder to shoulder) also grows, getting RIDICULOUSLY too wide for your frame.

This is how they "take your measurements" but the dress doesn't fit at ALL!! 

A typical alteration that we do to 80% of formal dresses is adding bust darts or reshaping seams to narrow that top section of the dress so the end result is more like the photo of how bodies *actually change. 

(Many thanks to Lindsie Rank of the Sew Busty Blog for the use of her photos showing the Full Bust Pattern Adjustment for doing this alteration in the construction process.)

But my dress is backless, how do I wear a bra with it?

Some dresses make wearing a full bra difficult to accommodate because of the shape of the garment or the materials used. Most of the time, we can do various tricks to integrate bra into the dress and and cut off straps or back bands, leaving underwired cups in the dress as a "shelf" to set each breast on, inside the dress.

Want more details on how we do this? Checkout this Blog Post on the structure in dresses so we can stitch a bra in like this.

How do Bra Sizes work,
why don't we know this stuff?

Finding the right bra size is as difficult as catching a unicorn 🦄. Relying on the folks who work in customer service, who are not bra making experts, can be a recipe for disaster. (No disrespect to anyone, there's always going to be a few skilled folks that prove me wrong.)

I bring you information from the bra making community to help you understand how to shop for bras and get a size that ACTUALLY FITS YOUR ANATOMY.

(Sidenote: Now, I'm not going to promise that there is actually a bra that suits your needs. Because, if I'm being honest, the bra industry only makes bras for about 25-50%* of the population. (*not a real statistic, my estimation based on my knowledge the general sizing practices of most companies)

This is why tens of thousands of people have turned to bra-making to suit their needs, some of which only learned to sew to make bras that suit their needs because they can't buy what they need.)

When you buy bras in the store, usually they measure just under your boobs (we call that underbust) and they measure the biggest part of your boobs over your nipple (we call that Full Bust) and the difference between them is supposed to be one cup letter for each inch of difference.

Final thought on cup sizes: When you measure for a dress at a store, they are ONLY taking your FULL BUST measurement.  The full bust measurement can represent many bra sizes, such as: 30G, 32F, 34E, 36D, 38C. Because all those bra sizes have to fit in the same size dress, they don't have the underbust at it's tightest or it would significantly reduce the amount of people who could buy that dress! 

...and then there's underwires...

Did you know that underwires come in different sizes? Did you know that underwires come in different SHAPES as well? And did you also know that CUP SIZE AND WIRE SIZE ARE NOT CONNECTED? 🤯 This was such a mind bender for me when I first went down the rabbit hole into bra-making.  I had NO IDEA.

I don't even know how many styles of underwires are out there, but there are about a half dozen that are popular amongst bra-makers and each of those have nearly 20 sizes. Quick math, that's 120 sizes more than you knew existed, if this is the first time you're inspecting bra fit. 

The grid represents one inch squares in this photo, so the smallest wire is 4 inches wide and the biggest is approximately 9 inches wide.

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So, how do we know what fits?

In a perfect world, the first thing you fit is the underwire when making a custom bra and it should be relatively close to the shape of your breast root, meaning the area where your boob attaches to your rib cage (give or take a cm or 2 depending on your philosophy regarding pattern drafting). 

Ready to wear bras, meaning the ones you buy in the store, have NO WAY to allow you to choose underwire sizes. They just pick an average wire for the cup volume.

Sometimes people will buy a bra for the right cup volume and then buy bra making underwires that are shaped like their anatomy and switch them out (which requires a small amount of sewing, but is a relatively easy task for a sewist).

What does "correct fit of the whole bra" mean?

The blog "Bras and Body Image" has one of the best images I have ever seen regarding how a bra should support like a shelf. The blog also goes into really good details and illustrations on how you really have to scoop up your whole boob and swoop it up into the cup, getting that underwire all the way up into the crease of your breast root rather than squashing your boob to your chest.

Important Note:
Don't forget to REALLY swoop
(pull tissue from the armpit)
and grab your whole breast to scoop
(pull all the tissue up from the underbust area,
not just the skin).

See how ☝️this☝️ bra appears to fit?

Same bra, but 👇here👇 she swooped tissue over from the armpit and
scooped tissue up from the underbust area and now she's "double busting" out the top. 

Time to measure! 

Borrow from the Bra-makers

A) With a (well-fitting) Bra

It's kind of a catch 22, to measure in a bra, the bra has to fit pretty well to be able to measure for a well fitting bra. If you do have a bra that fits close to correctly, then these are some of the measurements you take to choose a bra.

The main measurements for estimating a size will be full bust (pink measuring tape) and underbust (green measuring tape), like traditional ways of measuring you've probably heard before.

The difference between the 2 measurements often means one cup size for every one inch. So if your underbust is 34 inches, and your full bust is 38 inches, the 4 inch difference means that most likely you will begin trying on bras at size 34D.

Important Note:
Start by using your ACTUAL UNDERBUST MEASUREMENT as your band size rather than adding inches like some places suggest. (We'll test that size when we shop.)

In larger sizes, this metric doesn't always work. For example, my under bust usually measures around 39-40 inches and my full bust usually measures around 50-52 inches. A difference of 12 inches should mean cup size "L" and typically I wear bras that are 38HH. (This also varies by designer because the US and the UK have totally different sizing systems... its a mess.)

B) Without a Bra

So, what if you don't have a bra that fits and you don't have any idea where to start when you go try sizes on? Well then we get creative. 

Important Note:
A measurement that is common in the bra making community is the Horizontal measurement of "just the boob" from sternum to nipple to armpit where the breast tissue stops and the rib cage starts. We're going to measure that!

Since we are doing this without a bra, I recommend printing out this measuring sling on cardstock to take measurements. We're going to use the sling, a measuring tape, and some gravity to mimic a well fitting bra to help you know where to start when you go shopping.

• Free Sling Pattern from Bra maker Lily Fong of LilypaDesigns, who lent me these fabulous illustrations. Checkout her website, there's tons to learn over there!

To use the sling, lean over and measure with the sling/measuring tape combination. If you have boobs that stretch out, then you can kinda cinch them up with the sling, so your boob is bra shaped. 

Important Note:
This measurement of the actual boob should directly translate to the size of the cup in the bra. Think about it like fitting separate areas. The band fits the ribcage, the cups fit the boobs themselves.

Time to shop! 

Use the bras to measure

I recommend you go to a store that carries sizes larger than "A, B, C, D, DD, DDD." Look for sizes that are more like "F, FF, G, GG, H, HH, I, etc." because the bra shapes will be much more size inclusive.

It's helpful if you've done any of the measuring from above to have an idea of where to start with sizes but if it's too overwhelming, then skip to this method below by a great measuring site, Boob or Bust. 

How bras should fit

Checkout this video by Curvy Kate on "swoop and scoop" and what good fit looks like! 

Assessment Tool 

Checkout this awesome flowchart by bras and body image! This is a great way to assess as you think through the fit when you're trying on new bras. 

In Conclusion...

Most dresses can't be expected to be supportive enough to skip some type of bra or cups in the dress. During the 2022 wedding season, we sent SOOOO many people to buy bras and rescheduled their first fitting because there was no way to make the dress do the job of a bra without doing SOMETHING.

If you're super confused on your size, follow the advice above and bring 3 or 4 options to your fitting.  Leave all the tags on, we'll help you narrow it down and then you can return what doesn't work.