bra size or bust

I had my first real bra fitting around a year ago at my local Victoria's Secret. It all came about after one of my roommates got a bra fitting there and discovered that she had been wearing the wrong bra size, and her new bra size meant a smaller band and larger cup size.

Naturally, I had to go find out if I had been wearing the wrong size bra. I've always had a difficult time shopping for bras since I'm a large frame chubby girl with no boobs. Maybe I had been searching for the wrong bra size all my life and this trip to Victoria's Secret would end my bra shopping woes once and for all.

Leave it to me to be in that little percentile of women who are actually wearing their correct bra size. I have never been so annoyed to be right in all my life. But there it was, a 38B. What I've been wearing since puberty. Dammit.

It was an older lady that done my bra fitting. She pointed out a few different bras for me and said that, because they ran small, I could buy some bra extenders.

Yeah, that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to drop $40 on a cute hot pink bra and then clip on some nude colored bra extenders to the back of it. That's real cute. And it doesn't even matter that I'm the only one seeing that. It completely defeats the purpose of buying a cute bra.

And when you are one of the biggest bra retailers in the United States, it's really ridiculous to only have bra sizes up to 40DD... and that's not true for all their different kinds of bras. Their miraculous push-up bra only goes to a 38DD.

I'm just now able to go in there and buy a bra from them without extenders (what what!), but I'm still sickened by the fact that they don't cater to a larger demographic. Victoria's Secret is all about making women feel sexy and confident of their bodies, but when you go in a store that doesn't even MAKE your size in their most popular item, I know that I can't help but feel like a fat lard. Not everyone is supposed to look like their models. Some of us are large-framed, some of us have no curves, some of us really like carbs.

And I know other stores carry bras in an array of sizes, but I just can't get over the fact that a lingerie store noted for it's great selection of bras stops the buck at a band size of 40, at best.

I don't really know what the point of this post is. Mostly it's to congratulate myself on losing half an inch on my ribcage. But it's also a cry out to stores like Victoria's Secret to think about its consumers. If you want to make shoppers happy and have them return to your store, start stocking items the average women can wear. The average woman who is 5'4 and wears a size 12-14. I'm pretty sure your models aren't that size.

And since I don't feel like adding another entry just to post my latest measurements, here they are:

Weight: I've switched to the digital scale this week, so my weight's gone up from what the rusty old school doctor's office scale said, but it's also gone down from the last time I stepped on the digital scale, from 191 to 188.7

Height: 5'6

Left Arm: 12.1 (-.4 since January 11)
Bust: 39 (same)
Ribcage: 37 (-.5 since January 11)
Waist (at belly button): 38.2 (.3 since January 11)
Hips: 42.3 (-.2 since January 11)
Left Leg: 22. 1 (same)

So, since July 28 of last year, I have lost 12.6 inches off my body... and then some since I've only been measuring my left arm and left leg. Maybe I should start measuring my right arm and right leg too, just to feel more accomplished. Hmm....