Small Waist, Large Breasts, Big Problem
2.7k
I may have your ideal figure, but just try shopping for a bra.
By Soraya Roberts
Two months ago I walked into Neiman Marcus’ lingerie department in San Diego and asked the saleswoman if she had any bras in my size, 28G. Like a deleted scene from Pretty Woman, she treated me as if I was a pair of Lucite platforms away from a highway strip club.
"Oh, we don’t do that here," she said with a hint of embarrassment. She then proceeded to fold the dime-sized A-cup she had just sold to a normal customer.
In theory, the United States likes large breasts. In practice, the United Stastes likes large breasts as long as they’re on the right body. That means bigger women have bigger chests, smaller women have smaller chests. The average American bra size was once a 34B, now it’s a 36D, according to Tomima Edmark, founder of online lingerie retailer HerRoom. (There is some dispute on this: Women’s Wear Daily cited the median in 2010 as 36DD.) Breasts have grown and so have waistlines; bigger women, bigger chests.
But then there’s me. And then there’s Sofia Vergara. In the September issue of Allure, the self-satirizing Colombian and resident Modern Family babe inadvertently became the spokeswoman for the small percentage of petite Americans with big busts when she admitted she has difficulty finding bras in her size, 32F. Vergara sometimes has to settle for a more common 34DD because of the dearth of lingerie in her dimensions, which, according to intimate apparel professional Moira Nelson, the bra industry calls “full-busted”—defined as a small band size (36 and under) with a large cup size (DDD and over). (Full-busted as opposed to “full-figured” or “plus-sized,” which both refer to 38 bra bands and up.)
"Nobody with real boobs usually has those measurements," Vergara told Allure. And she’s right. In the context of the American bra industry, being “full busted” is about as unusual as Gloria Pritchett's argot.
As I learned that day in Neiman's, full-busted bras are often associated with plastic tits. Even feminist website Jezebel once quipped, "it's important that we separate the woman with a 28-inch band and G cups from the woman who wears a 36C, because one may be a hot porn star with implants, while the other is just a fatty."
[...]
[...] though focused on larger cup sizes, less than one percent of HerRoom's merchandise is geared toward full-busted women. Edmark admits that she recently got rid of her 26-band bras and is currently culling 28 bands since petite women return them at a rate of 50 percent.
"They tend to go to our website and just buy everything then return everything," she said. "Unfortunately, I can't make money doing that."
[...]
http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/ ... luck_.html
