Dear lady dopers - help me get a bra for a friend in need

[madrabbitwoman]

Hi all,
Backstory:
I have a friend who is an older, larger lady - she lives in a very small town, does not drive and has limited mobility (no really access to computer/Internet either - thus why I am doing this). She is also extremely limited financially.

At present she has no bras that fit and because she has here boobs are quite large she is having some physical problems. I would really like to get her at least one pair of bras that fit (she isn't worried about 2nd hand which is good because I suspect that is all I will be able to afford for her due to my own financial situation but quite frankly as long as some of the discomfort is reduced the other stuff doesn’t matter). Sorry if I am rambling a bit but I am quite sick at the moment.

Anyway I hope to find something on ebay. Her measurements are: Shoulders 58cm breast 148cm underbreast 125cm. Does anyone know how to convert measurements in to cup sizes etc? Or how to convert Australian measurements (ie 26E) into American measurements.


Please don't go crook at me for not working everything out myself but my brain is too sick and tired to function but I am still worried for my friend and don’t want her to be in discomfort any longer.

I am sort of tempeted to get the cheapest 28F and see hoiw that goes (at the moment she is wearinf the same size bra 24ddd as me with 2 bra extenders and has massive uniboob)

[mnemosyne]

Here is a handy calculator (http://www.85b.org/bra_calc.php), though I can't vouch for the accuracy of the results. It asks for a third number, across the top of the breast, that you don't have. See if you can get this measurement from your friend.

The below and bust sizes that you give (125 and 148cm) and a range of Above values all give Australian bra sizes with bands of 32, with the letter changing as the Above value increases.

Value - Aus Size
125 - 32H
135 - 32DD
145 - 32D
155 - 32D
...it seems to plateau at 32D.


I can't give any suggestions on where to buy them, though. I have a couple of friends with rather large boobs, and one orders all her stuff online, but I don't know the website. I'll ask her. She loves them, because they have great sales and she can even get really sexy stuff rather than just functional ones (which isn't what you're looking for, but can be useful in the future!)

[PandaBear77]

If her boobs are that big, you're not going to find anything secondhand. Those of us who are hard to fit wear bras 'til they die.

Ok so ...

Shoulders = 22.83 inches
Breast = 58.26 inches
Underbreast = 49.21 inches

Her American bra size would be a 54 D

I did this by adding 5 inches to the underbreast measurement (since it's an odd number) to get 54, then subtracted 54 from 58, which is 4 ... 4 letters into bra sizes is a D cup.

Conversion was a little trickier, but I found this:

http://www.inchant.com/t-sc-braconversion.aspx

It appears that Australian cup sizes are the same as American. Looking at the pattern in the chart, my best guess is her Aussie bra size would be 36 D. (It appears that to get the Australian band size, you subtract 22 from the number of inches for the American band size.)

[Aspidistra]

As a matter of fact, I just got a job as a bra saleswoman :). So I can add a couple of facts to the above replies, which AFAICT are pretty accurate.

On those measurements, I'd make her a 32DD. But, for the underbust measurement you should measure tight. I suspect that she's not measuring tight enough because ... holy hell, band size 32? Band size in the people I have measured (which includes some morbidly obese women) is generally correlated (roughly) with dress size. Does she wear dress size 32?

A bra extender increases you about a band size. So if she can wear a 24 with 2 extenders, that makes her a 28, and I would do the "down a band size, up a cup size" thing to suggest a 28EE. Which is actually pretty close to your original suggestion.

HTH. I won't try to sell you one of my company's bras, 'cos they're expensive ;) . And don't go quite high enough in the band.

[Maastricht]

Does anyone know what happens to the bras of old ladies who pass in old folks homes?
When my grandma died, we donated all her clothes to the home.

If those bras end up in thriftstores, your friend may have good luck shopping there, and find really good quality. Despite that it is generally true, as someone else said, that most larger ladies hang on to their bras till they're really worn out.

[madrabbitwoman]

I must admit that most of mt bras are from vinnies or the salvation army. While i am not as big as my friend i have some difficulty getting afordable bras myself. Target here only goes to 24DD (i look for DDD orE). Might have to try ebay for myself

[twickster]

Moved MPSIMS --> IMHO.