Halloween Haunts

" You would never think I am a 34DD!", shock horror.... This sentence still comes back to haunt me years later. I stated this in a job interview for the bra fitting boutique. Knowing what I know now, if I had been the interviewer, I would have been smurking inside (and I learned later that they were). I will never forget that interview because it changed my life and the way I feel about myself forever. I will also never forget that it took place on Halloween and that the staff interviewing me were all decked out in full Halloween fancy dress! There's nothing quite like being interviewed by Beatrix Kiddo from Kill Bill and Melanie Daniels from Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds...

On my fist day I received the first professional bra fitting of my life and returned home that evening a slightly different woman. I learned that although I had been wearing the correct band size (34) the cup size (DD) I had been stuffing myself into was 3 sizes too small! It was weird that I was in the correct band size (34), I say this because it's common to find women wearing band sizes 3-4 sizes too big for them. Mainstream stores, "The Usual Suspects", don't carry the full size range that is available, because they want to make as much profit as possible, it would cost them too much to produce the full size range apparently. They actually choose to only produce around 20% of the sizes out there. So in order for a majority of woman to get a bra to vaguely fit they usually start by fitting the cup as best they can, and because the band size directly dictates the cup size, they find them selves in band sizes far too big for their bodies. Slimmer body types all think they are 36C's when they usually turn out to be a 34D or 32DD or 30E, depending on their band size (all the same cup size but the band size is changing). The curvy girls (like me) stuff themselves into the "biggest" cup size available to them, the aspired to or dreaded DD and in some cases DDD ( this is not a true size by the way. A DDD is actually an E but North American manufacturers are scared to state the true size for fear of lost sales) I should have been wearing the 40DD, in order for the cup to fit me. Instead I was walking around with an even smaller cup size, 4 squished lumps under my shirt and the constant need to tuck myself back in.

So... what was my accurate bra size? Well, it turns out that I was a 34FF! A what?? Oh My Gosh, Holy Crap, I'm a FREAK! These the initial shocked thoughts that came into my head. 24 hours later and lots of processing this new found information I finally came to the realisation that I was not so strange after all. I was finally experiencing the correct fit for my body, and that this was obviously going to change the size I had been wearing. Conditioned by "The Usual suspects" to think a certain way about size and what that meant about me, as a woman. I had become attached to the size on the label, so much so that it had almost begun to define me.

There was definitely a spring in my step and not in my bosom the next morning, wearing my new 34FF bra. 34 Feeling Fantastic!
This new found confidence started my boycott of 'The Usual Suspects" and an endeavor to empower and educate all woman, in all walks of life, all around the world.

**The Usual Suspects": Main stream bra stores, La Senza, Victoria's Secret, any North American department store.