I still remember being about 10 years old and wishing I had big boobs so that the boys would notice me. Man, what a stupid kid.
Much like buying pants, buying a bra is easy for a lucky portion of women; the rest of us are simply doomed to suffer. Even the name bra...short for brazier...sounds uncomfortable. The only enjoyable part of a bra is how good it feels when you take it off at the end of the day.
Bras have been around for quite some time, over a hundred years in fact, so why are most of them still akin to medieval torture devices? I'm sure if you told a man that he was expected to wear underwear that has metal wire in it to support his testicles, he would not fancy the idea of putting metal near his sensitive skin. However, as women, the bearers of breasts, those mixed blessings that give nourishment to the young and provide entertainment for the slightly older are our closest comparison. They are composed of flesh, blood, ducts, fat...namely, human material...however their natural state is deemed unappealing and they must be covered and restrained in bras. Functionally there is some benefit...if you're over an A cup and have ever tried to run while bra-less, many risk injury to themselves and passersby. So, every morning (unless it's a lazy Sunday), we lock and load our girls into the bra for hours of wear.
Bras come in many shapes and sizes, which is probably why the vast majority of us wear the wrong size. We get measured for our first bra in high school and the first post-breast feeding bra after childbirth and that's about the only times we bother to ensure we are still the same size. A bad bra is like having a self-inflicted wound that you willingly re-open every day. The bra is meant to lift and support, so a bad bra does the opposite- it weighs you down and puts strain on all the wrong spots. Thanks to my frontage, I still have massive back, neck and shoulder problems from years of carrying the weight incorrectly because La Senza hasn't got a clue how to make a real bra. If you pay less than $50 for a bra, you may as well just go without and dislocate your shoulder preemptively. Sure, many of them look cute, sexy etc...but 99% of them should be worn for an hour tops before you're actually doing harm to your body. This is all assuming that you are among the proportion of women who need to wear a bra because they have breasts that are too big to go bra-less- which is <10% on average worldwide.
So since only <10% of women could consider wearing clothing without having to wear a bra underneath, can some explain to me why all fashion now makes it impossible to wear bras with the outfits? I've previously described the most recent fashion trend as 'waifchella', which means that it all looks like it belongs at Coachella and would only suit women of waif sizing (aka half a toothpick). This style trend also includes a lot of cut out tops, low cut, backless, super tight etc clothing. None of this clothing actually accounts for any type of bra or breast support under the clothing. Therefore, they are marketing 90% of clothing to a maximum audience of 10%....and people wonder why we have body issues.
However, if you're like me and you have a plumage that needs one of these bra contraptions, I cannot recommend a proper bra any more highly. Find yourself a real boutique, not La Senza (La Crapza), not Victoria's Secret (whose secret is that they make terrible bras) and get yourself properly fitted. Any professional couturier will tell you that those chains mentioned above do not measure you properly- they will simply give you whatever size they want to sell you, not what fits you. A well-made, well-fitting bra and change your life. It will make you look 10 pounds thinner and 5 years younger. You will stand up straighter, you will feel less pain in your shoulder and back and you'll notice how clothing fits better.
So ladies, take care of your girls, because the bra may never be a girl's best friend, but we can at least try to make sure they aren't our worst enemy.
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