bra

Last week I posted about my tendency to wear wired bras to bed . With the recent WONDERFUL explosion of babydolls on the full bust market, it was a natural and fun transition to begin wearing these to bed. The babydoll phenomenon really did happen all at once, and suddenly I went from having zero options to having four. Curvy Kate put out two babydolls, the Lola: and the Ritzy: Cleo also produced a babydoll version of their Marcie bra:       Because they inexplicably decided to make this babydoll totally open in the butt, it's fairly useless for my purposes (to use as a nightgown) and therefore I'll be skipping it permanently. The fourth option is Parfait's Alexis babydoll, which I have not yet tried: Curvy Kate's Lola was the first to make it to my home. The structure of the cups is a padded version of their normal balconette shape, which makes it the same as the Daily Boost. Now, I knew I was taking a bit of a risk here. Curvy Kate's balconettes tend to fit me wel...

The Sophia bra from Tutti Rouge's first season was the bra that originally caught my eye in their collection, because it comes in a lovely pale pink shade that has been hard to find in the large-cup lingerie world in recent years. This is a shade that works well as a nude for my skin tone, but also one that I find very attractive. Pastels are like catnip to me and the Sophia was therefore a object of lust. In terms of the sizing, I went with the same size I've fit in every Tutti Rouge bra--32HH, which I guessed at from my initial try-on of several Tutti Rouge styles . I usually wear a 32H in most other bras these days. Tutti Rouge bands run small in most of their bras, especially in the lower band sizes, so I could wear a 34 happily in most of their bras. However, the 32 band in the Sophia is true to size and feels similar to a 32 band in other brands. So if you're figuring out your size in Sophia based on your size in Tutti Rouge's Liliana or Betty, keep in mind you...

Tutti Rouge's Betty bra is a fully padded half-cup with a single vertical seam. So far, it appears to be Tutti Rouge's most versatile cut, with the potential to work for many different shapes. It gives a very round, very compressed shape; as a result it is also slightly minimizing in terms of projection. It will tend to provide a lot of cleavage on most shapes. In terms of sizing, the Betty runs the same as Tutti Rouge's other bras in the cup, which typically will mean 1 cup size up from what you need in other brands. It is MUCH tighter in the band than Tutti Rouge's other bras. I comfortably wear a 32HH in the Liliana as my everyday bra, but the 32 in the Betty feels more like a 28. I cannot even fasten it without an extender. Most people will probably want to size up in the band in this bra. Women looking for a small 28 band or a 26 band should take note of this option! The details on the bra are gorgeous, with delicate lace edging the cups and a ruffle underneath. Tu...

Tutti Rouge's Liliana bra has filled a massive void in my life and I can't get enough. Here's the gang: I know, I know, I have SO many of these. So what's the secret to my great love for the Liliana? Well, it's two-fold. First off, the Liliana is THE BRA that I have been lusting after for years in terms of appearance. It's the sort of bra I bought back when my size was common and I had options. The vanilla with pink ribbon, particularly, brings me back to a simpler time when finding a bra was never hard. The Liliana's existence gives me the option to actually buy the type of bra I want.     The second reason I love the Liliana is the shape. Specifically, the very minimized shape: I have to wear scrubs at my job, and those who have worn them know that scrubs tend to be baggy and are not very bust-friendly. Despite this, I love the concept of scrubs because they are so egalitarian and simple. The Liliana bra gives me a way to make peace between the two opposin...

The long-awaited Freya Marvel finally arrived on my doorstep today. Ever since I saw this bra previewed on Stanikomania many months ago, I knew it was going to be great. Despite Freya's nervousness about the design, I wasn't nervous. I could see that this was a first step at bringing the innovation and genius of Freya Swim constructions into their bra collection. Well, I was right. It's great. You may all go back to your homes now, there is nothing more to see. Just kidding--here is the bra: You may notice that this bra is slightly different from the bra that was marketed: In this photo, the purple mesh at the top of the cups is transparent. In real life, it's sitting on top of the cups themselves. Some companies' product photos reflect this change, others don't. I like it better with the transparent mesh, but that's okay, Freya. It's a minor detail. What really matters is the most important photo, the side view! YUP, THOUGHT SO! This bra gets a solid go...

The Fantasie Esme’s claim to fame is its ‘center-pull straps’—essentially, the location of the straps has been modified so they are closer together in the back. This is useful for women with narrow shoulders who find straps usually slide off. It’s also a nice alternative to having straps sit in the exact same place every day. The Esme is also part of a small group of molded Fantasie bras which are, in my opinion, rather underrated and under-reviewed. So when I got a chance to try the Esme in a store, I snapped a couple photos so I could review it. Like the Fantasie Smoothing (4520), the Esme is MOLDED but NOT PADDED. The concept of this confused me before I had tried it, but it essentially just means that the fabric itself has been molded into a seamless shape. A molded AND padded bra would have foam as well as fabric molded into the shape; however, although they’re often synonymous, padding doesn’t need to be part of a molded bra. I tried the Esme in a 30H. I’d say it runs fairly...

I've been eager to try Panache's new Envy bra. Being based on their extremely successful Jasmine bra, I figured it would be a good one. However, I heard initial reports that it was different from the Jasmine, so I was worried it wouldn't deliver. However, this weekend I got the chance to try the Envy in a store and I was blown away by how great it is. I haven't tried the Jasmine (shameful, I know) so I can't report back on the differences, but I can say that this is a great bra that I'd highly recommend. Here's the front view. Like the Jasmine and its ancestor, the Andorra, the Envy has a modified full-cup construction with a side support panel and stretchy upper section. The combination of the uplifting side support and the stretch in the top means that these bras don't suffer from the problems that regular full-cup bras have. However, I still get a very slightly pointed shape in the Andorra full cup. That was NOT the case in the Envy: This is one of th...

I've been dying to try the new brand, Tutti Rouge, ever since I first saw the product photos. Recently, I was fortunate enough to be loaned a few of the styles by the lovely Erica over at A Sophisticated Pair . I tried the Liliana in 30HH, the Betty in 30HH, and the Birds of a Feather in 32HH. My immediate thoughts are really positive. I figured I was going to love this brand, and I did. The bras are lovely in person and are really well-made, which is nice because they are also fairly affordable. I expected that I would need a larger cup size and band size in this brand, and I did. My conclusion is that I would fit a 32HH in all the styles I tried. Since I usually wear a 30H in Cleo and a 30HH in other brands, that's 1 band size up and 1-2 cups sizes up. I would recommend most people try a size up from their normal size in this brand. From what I have heard, the bands run tight in the smaller size region and start to run larger in the upper band sizes due to increased stretch, ...