Today’s guest post comes Jenette of the eponymous Jenette Bras, a lingerie boutique in Los Angeles that specializes in D-K cup bras.
Jenette is a recognized bra expert (she’s in this month’s InStyle magazine!), and I love her irreverent, sassy, down-home style. For my readers who’ve been e-mailing me about more articles for curvy ladies, this one’s for you. 
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You don’t take a Ferrari to a cheap mechanic, and you shouldn’t put your gorgeous rack in a cheap bra. Why not? Because those things are heavy, if you haven’t noticed, and they are not going to hold themselves up (if your endowment is the result of implants, then sorry, most of this article doesn’t apply to you).
To support, and simultaneously flatter, several pounds of soft, pliant, alluring, feminine flesh with nothing but lace, cotton, and a few inches of curved flat wire, represents a vast and ongoing engineering achievement. In fact, the brassiere is the most complex piece of clothing in your wardrobe. Along with shoes, bras require more skilled handwork than any other item of apparel.
That bra that seems expensive at $70 plus was far more costly to manufacture than the cute wrap dress at the same price. Just recently the South African textile giant Seardel announced the closing of their intimates department, citing the fact that the manufacture of bras was complex and labor intensive. According to CEO Stuart Queen, “The garments produced are generally of a very high minute rate with low selling prices, making it extremely difficult to recover the costs of labour inputs. Bras,” he added, “are close skin-fitting items that require significant investment in design, pre-production, technical resources, and quality processes.”
And about that inexpensive wrap dress? A good bra will help it fit perfectly, but even a costly dress won’t cover the gruesome effects of a cheap or ill-fitting bra. It’s called foundation wear for a reason.
So, now that I’ve talked you into buying quality, here’s a thought to cheer you up–based on price per wear, at two or three wearings a week, over the year or three that a good bra will last, your quality bra is probably the most cost effective piece of clothing you’ve got.
What to look for
Somewhere along the line, perhaps in the eighties, women became obsessed with seamlessness in brassieres. It sounds good. Sounds high tech, sounds comfortable, sounds attractive, right? Forget it, it’s the Empress’ New Clothes. If you’ve got serious bosom, seams are your best friend. Seams make it all possible. They are the struts in your wing, the flying buttress in your cathedral of pulchritude. Seams give reinforcement to the heavier bust. They shape and support.
It’s true that the old seamed cups made your breasts look like torpedos, but that was actually a fabric limitation and not the result of seaming. Advances in fabric technology have allowed near-perfect conformity to the natural shape, along with a range of attractive shaping options ranging from vintage-y modified torpedo to completely-natural-only-better. The range of options has never been so good.
In a well-made bra, the straps will not simply be tacked into the back (focusing all the stress at two points), but will merge into the band to distribute weight throughout the garment. The whole bra won’t feel stretchy. Elasticity will be controlled carefully throughout the bra, with rigidity for support and stretch for fit.
How and where to buy
Many women have been completely misled about their true bra size by unscrupulous manufacturers and retailers who simply don’t want the expense of making and stocking a full line of bras. They have promulgated the notion that the D-cup is the largest possible normal size, and Double-D is some kind of freak show. How far from reality is this? Since cup size is relative to band size, a D cup on a 30 band is a completely different volume than a D on a 40 band.
To precisely fit a full breasted clientele, a store needs to stock D, DD, E, F, FF, G, GG, H, HH, I, J, JJ, and K., with band sizes from 30 to 44. I myself used to run around –maybe I should say bounce around—in a 36DD. I wasn’t properly fitted in my 32G until I was 46 years old. It’s effin’ tragic is what it is.
Moreover, your size will vary in bras from different lines and your body will, for better or worse, change over time. All this makes a bra just about the last thing you want to buy online (the sole exception here is buying another of the exact same bra you are happily wearing now).
So you need to get sized by someone you can trust (and hopefully joke around with). Allow me to describe all the attributes of my own store in Los Angeles, Jenette Bras. If at all possible, you must be periodically fitted, by a knowledgeable fitter, at a traditional full service boutique with a full stock of larger cup sizes. Independent stores like this exist in many North American cities, but they do not run national TV ad campaigns, so you may need to do a little research. I do have customers in remote locations who make a point of visiting once or twice a year to stock up, so if it means a trip to a nearby city, do it.
To sum it up, if you’ve got the goods, yes, it will take a little more smarts, effort and cash than is asked of our more lightly-bosomed sisters. As it is written, from the woman to whom much has been given, much is required.
Woo Hoo! Tell it sister!!! Wonderful article!
With that said I now live in a "city" without a single lingerie shop so buying my size is online or nothing. If you're in the same boat feel free to visit me at Knickers for some tips on doing it yourself until you can get to a good fitter.
Also, a good bra fitter is worth her weight in gold.
I visit lots of shops and there are some bad fitters out there. I told one woman what size I was looking for and she stared at the girls like they were going to rip through my shirt and attack. Another shop has introduced 4D because a G cup must mean you're a freak.
Just getting fitted isn't enough VS will do it, not well but they will do it. It's important to find a good fitter and if you find one you can talk & (gasp!) joke with, hold on to her for dear life.
I don't have a big bust issue myself, heh, but I'm going to e-mail this post to a friend who does…she'll appreciate it a lot.
Love this entry!
I have to admit, though that I'm a bit frustrated. How do you access custom bra fitters when you live in middle America? It's nice to have them in LA or NYC but where do you go any place else?
Not trying to be negative–it's an honest question I have
@Courtney, I'm in the mid-west exactly (so I'm told) 44 miles from the center of the country.
So for those of us not on the coasts a good place to start is My Intimacy.com. They have a network of bra fitters that have to be approved by them and I was able to find one about 1 hour away.
Hah! "Rip through my shirt and attack" LOL, Katie. I sympathize with my land-locked sisters. Truth is, even in LA I wasn't satisfied with my options (so one possibility is you could start your own store). If you HAVE to go corporate, and I realize that sometimes you do: Vicky's Secret: NO, they don't cater to us. Intimacy, yes, with reservations. I believe the bra-fit business is best suited to the small owner-operated brick and mortar store (until I expand, of course…).
Let me take this opportunity to invite any indie fit shops out there to send me your stats. I would love to send you customers. Shout out to The Pussycat in Pittsburgh, Alla Prima in San Francisco, Townshop in New York, Night and Day in Andover, The Fitting Touch in Birmingham, and Bra Genie, just over the lake from New Orleans.
Tell it! Vicki's real secret is that they're hopeless.
I'm in NY and not really mad about Intimacy (more hype than help I think). It was someone at a small store on the Upper East Side (Allure Lingerie), who first looked at me and said, "You need a different size." I do? I did!
Lingerie on Lex is good too.
I haven't gone, but I understand that the staff Orchard Corset Center (on the lower east side) are fit geniuses.
Thanks for stopping in and responding to the comments, Jenette! I'm glad your article has gotten such great feedback.
Love the article Jeanette. I am a specialist bra fitter too and the more people out there spread the message about proper fitting lingerie the more likely we are to change the awful statistic of 80% of women wearing the wrong size bra!
Maybe a lingerie fitting roadshow would be a good idea!
Loved this article. I write reviews of books that inspire us to try new things and a few months ago went for a real fitting after reading A History of the Bra in America. Those articles in magazines about finding your size are pointless when compared next to a true fitting. I went to La Petite Coquette and they spent so much time with me – it was incredible to find out I was a size larger than I though!
The hardest part of the adventure though was finding a place that I felt I could trust staff to really help me and was friendly about it as well. I can't imagine living in a small or out of the way place where you're only options are a local department store or teenage staffed Victoria's Secret!
I agree with Miss Kitty Plum, the 80% statistic is something that needs to change. And although Magnifique is an online boutique, we do appointments for our locals to be fitted to help them get out of that dreaded statistic. P.S. I love the lingerie fitting roadshow idea too.
For people away from specialty retailers, Nordstrom stocks cups sizes up to J and the nice ladies there were responsible for me learning I don't wear a 40DDDD, but a 36H. My rack has never looked better.
Thank you so much for this article. You are so correct in your phrasing that shopping for 36G bras can make one feel freakish! I mean I am big but well proportioned, classic hourglass. If I lose weight (prayers being lifted) I will lose it everywhere, but I like my girls, my back doesn't hurt from them (unless in the wrong bra!)and did I say, I like them! Vic and her secrets are for tiny tits and they have really been mean to me for even suggesting they carry anything this size but now I know there are better places and fitters to give my hard earned cash to!
Thanks for this great post about how busty ladies could choose a bra. I think you make an interesting point regarding seams.
Great article. My only question/comment/complaint is about bra sizes. You said that a good bra store would stock sizes D, DD, E, F, FF, G, GG, H, HH, I, J, JJ, and K. However, I was always told that the extra letter denoted the next size up (so, a DD is the same as an E). Based on that information, your size list seems redundant. Is that the case here (intentional redundancy for the purpose of clarity)? Or have I been misinformed about the sizes?
I am 22 and have been learning to fit bras for three years now.
I just started fitting at a Nordstrom (after learning that I am not, in fact, a 34C as VS taught me but a 32F, yikes!)and this article is really helpful!
Learning to fit larger busted women after I believed that a DD size was as large as it got is completely wonderful!
liked the article but what about 28, 26 & 24 band sizes? why can't petite girls have big boobies as well?
A wonderful read indeed!
The one thing I would suggest buyers be a little wary of, is there is currently a lot of 'vanity sizing' going around. Example, I was happy in my 36C then a 'professional' sized me as 34D, "oooh, ah! I'm skinnier and bustier than I thought', not the case. It's just my sister size. And in modern stretchy bras I can really wear either. But, after buying a few What Katie Did bras and being extremely happy with my overall experience, but finding the 36C and 34D bras a little snug, I used their guide to size myself. 38D, "I'm fatter than I thought! Boo hoo!…but wait, this bra looks deee-licious!".
Long story short, your size may very well vary somewhat from style, make and material.
yresim, in UK (British) sizing, the sizes go D, DD, E, F, FF, G, GG, etc, where as in US (American) sizing, the sizes go D, DD, DDD/F, DDDD/G, H, I, J, etc.
And I echo Ana's comment – what about busty ladies with a band size that's under 30? I would kill to be able to shop at a store that offered 28 bands (and G+ cups)!
I’ve had a fitting from Jeanette and enjoyed it very much. Great shop, and Jeanette is a lot of fun.
One thing I don’t remember asking her is what to wear under a T-shirt. She’s right about the seams, but what do I do when I don’t want the seams to show?
P.S. I’d love to see more posts from owners of specialty lingerie shops who sell larger cup sizes. Nice blog.