4 Personal Bra Stories: The Size and Fit of Our Lives

The following quotes are fictional representations of actual women I have spoken with about their experiences with bras. These women are quite different from each other in many ways, but one thing they do have in common is that their struggles with bra size, fit, and comfort reflect deeper issues.

As you read each quote, think about if there's anything she is saying that you can relate to, and how it makes you feel. Please reach out in a comment or via the contact page afterwards if you'd like to share your reaction.

Disclosure: this post contains affiliate links. Women in photo are models.

"All of my bras are uncomfortable. The first thing I do when I get home from work is take them off. I know they probably aren't the right size, but they make me look the way I want to. I hate the way I look when I don't wear them. My boobs are saggy and I wish they were bigger, even though I know a C-cup is average. The only way I can get cleavage is to wear push-up bras with tons of padding and a tight underwire to keep everything pushed into place."

Katie

Even though Katie likes the way she looks in her bras and feels confident at work when she wears them, she suffers physical discomfort and is trapped in a very narrow ideal of beauty that doesn't include her natural figure. She doesn't want to have an "average" C-cup; she thinks she needs to look like she has more than that. But when she gets home from work, she can finally relax and literally allow herself to breathe.

My guess is that this is linked to how Katie feels about work and the way she presents herself there. An ambitious and accomplished woman, she dresses the way she thinks she should in order to succeed. But what is this costing her?

My pick for Katie: Cosabella's Never Say Never Balconette (right).

This elegant lightly lined bra has nice structure and lift, making it ideal for an office setting. Most important, it would give Katie's body a much-needed break from her usual padded push-ups.

"I like to wear bras, but my size is not easy to find. When I do find it, they are in styles like something my young daughter would wear. I don't have any place in American lingerie shops, even though I am second-generation Chinese-American. I don't even speak Chinese. The adult brands that make my size are too expensive."

Mei Li

Mei Li's body is normal and healthy, but she is living in a culture that caters to a different body type than hers. Chinese women tend to be built smaller, and even by that standard, Mei Li is very petite. She resists wearing anything she thinks is made for a child, but also won't let herself spend the money for a higher quality bra in her size made for adults. Her bras are plain white bralettes in girls' sizes.

This reflects her discomfort with her place in the world: she is not a child, yet feels like she is not treated like an adult. She is not Chinese, but feels like she is not treated like an American. In both senses, she is caught between worlds.

My pick for Mei Li: Another balconette, the gorgeous Calypso from Little Women Lingerie (above).

This comes in AAA cups, and there is no question that it is designed for adult women.

"I usually don't wear a bra. I wear heavyweight shirts so that my nipples won't show. Bras are uncomfortable and I've never found one I liked. Plus, I know I'm fat, so I'd have to lose weight before I could even fit into most of them anyway. I only own one, a nursing bra from the last time I was pregnant, and I look like a cow in it. Women in my culture are not supposed to focus on looks too much, which I agree with because I'm not a vain person."

Sanaz

Sanaz is not wrong to pride herself on her lack of vanity or her strong identification with her cultural values. But she tends to shame her body when she feels discouraged about her weight gain from pregnancy.

She can certainly choose not to wear a bra, but there are options available for her that she may not be aware of. Plus-size bras have become much more widely available and improved in quality since she had her last child.

I like Sanaz's straightforward personality and can imagine her being very effective at getting what she wanted from a bra fitter! She refused to get measured or measure herself, but told me she was wearing a 2XL in clothing.

My pick for Sanaz (at left), because she didn't give me many options for bras to suggest and it's a top-quality cami anyway. Sometimes that's all you really want to wear.

CURVEEZ Daily Shaping Cami

"I'm very sensitive to itchy fabrics and anything uncomfortable. People think I'm just being picky, but it drives me crazy to wear anything that isn't soft enough or has seams in the wrong place. Underwires were torture so I gave up on that a long time ago. I'd scratch forever. The only type of bra I can wear are very thin bralettes made of bamboo fabric. They don't have much support, and I'm not sure it's even worth wearing them, but they're better than nothing."

Nia

I wondered if Nia could have skin allergies or some other type of medical problem. I asked her this, and she said she thought she might, but she was worried about what her friends and family would think if she went to get tested. She didn't want them to see her as a "Karen," someone who thought she was too special to wear what other people wore.

To me, Nia wasn't a Karen. Her main concern, other than her distress over the itching, was what others thought of her and the possibility of losing her connection with them. I decided that bras were the least of Nia's problems, and that sticking with bamboo bralettes was probably the best thing she could be doing for the moment, along with getting her health checked out.

My pick for Nia: Boody Organic Bamboo Bralette.

I want to let readers come to their own conclusions about all of this, and take whatever they find valuable in it to reflect on. I did my best to preserve the women's voices as I can recall them, but I'm sure they all sound too much like me, because it's been a while since the conversations we had.

If anyone is wondering whether the models in the pic look anything like the actual women, well, no. Not really. But there are four of them, and the ethnic representation is fairly accurate visually. Whatever that even means.

As always, if you have questions about any of the bras featured, feel free to ask.