It’s so bad that my fiancée has some bras that say she’s a B cup and others that says she’s a D cup. In order to go bra shopping, you have to actually try them on to find out if they fit.

If I had to try on underwear to see if they fit, I might not bother with underwear at all!

  • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.works
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    4 hours ago

    Men’s clothing sizes are a little dumb sometimes but I can usually take a tape measure to my waist and correctly order pants. Your guess is as good as mine what the difference between “boot cut” and “relaxed fit” are, and I would swear T-shirt sizes have shrunk since I was a teenager. As in, I can compare a Medium I’ve had since the Dubya administration to an XL today. But getting fitted for a suit, they measure me in inches and the clothing is more or less sized in inches.

    Women’s clothing sizes have had two different ice pick lobotomies. Women come in a wider range of sizes and aspect ratios, women’s clothing is pretty much universally designed to fit tighter, but on the rack they’re given one meaningless size number. a 12 is bigger than a 10, who knows by how much, and there’s nothing on the girl you can measure with a tape to get that number, and there is no standard here at all. Why they haven’t revolted I have no idea.

  • Contramuffin@lemmy.world
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    3 hours ago

    Most of the bras that my girlfriend gets fits on her first try, although she does tend to prefer sister sizes over her real size. If your girlfriend is having issues with bras fitting, it might be worthwhile to read up on how bra sizes are actually calculated and do a measurement yourself. Funny enough, most girls don’t seem to know how the bra size system works either and they just get their sizes through trial and error, which seems like what has happened here.

    The letter by itself is fundamentally meaningless. A 32D is equivalent to a 34B! And most girls severely underestimate their actual size. What would colloquially be called a B or C is actually an E

    • Sonor@lemmy.world
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      7 hours ago

      This. I mostly buy size S t-shirts, sometimes M, occassionally XS. I dont even care anymore.

      • Tolookah@discuss.tchncs.de
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        7 hours ago

        If the shirt isn’t xl, I can’t raise my hands without showing my belly.

        Also if the shirt is bigger than L, I’m swimming in it.

        • snooggums@lemmy.world
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          7 hours ago

          I have a long torso and broad shoulders, so I have to get xl tall shirts in some brands because most make their standard xl shirts wider but not taller than med and small.

          Banana Republic is the shortest length. Hurley is the best length.

          • ShepherdPie@midwest.social
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            13 minutes ago

            They’re so hard to find. I have to buy all my shirts at Eddie Bauer because 1) I’m a dad and 2) they’re one of the only stores that regularly carry them.

      • phoneymouse@lemmy.world
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        6 hours ago

        I’m between a medium and a large. More often then not though, I need the shoulder width and arm length of a large, but the cut in the torso of a medium. Clothing manufacturers assume Americans scale horizontally as they scale vertically. This maybe true given our obesity crisis.

  • Adudethatis@lemmy.ca
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    4 hours ago

    Grade 9- girlfriend at the time was “blessed” so to speak. Learned e women have a much more difficult time finding bras and underwear that “work” than most men do.

  • LainTrain@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    7 hours ago

    It’s also the fact that cup size is not necessarily independent from band size, that’s where the trick is. I used to think I’m an A with a high band size as I’m huge with no booba, like a 39A or something but those never fit that well.

    According to ABraThatFits methodology I’m actually 36C, which somehow does fit and super well, though by common and dudebro methodology I’m most certainly more of an “A cup” if that makes sense.

    • Clay_pidgin@sh.itjust.works
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      7 hours ago

      It’s because whatever maniac invented the sizing scheme decided that every letter represents 2 inches more around your body at the weirdest boobage point than just below it. What a bonkers system! A woman with 38B bras is 38 inches around at the band, and 40 inches around at the girls. Nonsense. The way dudes THINK it works makes so much more sense.

  • Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world
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    6 hours ago

    The cup size SHOULD be the difference in inches between the circumference below the breast and circumference around the breast.

    3" difference would be a C cup

    5" would be DD.

    Why they double up some letters and not others, I couldn’t tell you. 🤷🏻‍♂️

    My ex used to sell underwear.