What about the design of the bra makes the woman’s boobs appear bigger? Is it just a slightly-too-small bra? Is there some tiny mechanism inside?
What about the wonderbra? it doesn’t look any different than other bras, what makes it so effective?
And please, let’s not limit ourselves to discussion. Anyone with photographic aids, please give us a link!
Tris
Push-up bras typically have underwires or other structures to push the breasts upwards. This gets rid of any natural “sagging” to them, and makes the breasts look larger (since the bra fills in the portion underneath). They may also have some padding in the bottom of the cups, which helps in pushing up the breasts and making them look larger. They can also squeeze the breasts together somewhat, to produce a greater “cleavage” effect; usually this is done by elastic on the outside of the bra and top straps set to push them inwards some, as well as underwires extended up on the outside of the breasts.
The Wonderbra/Miracle Bra/whatever is basically an extreme version of these. The type I tried on (I don’t remember which) has a lot of pushing-up stuff, and very thick padding under and slightly in front of the breast. The one I saw would have added at least 1/3 to the apparent “volume” of each breast.
So basically what you’re getting is:
- lifting, which counteracts any flattening that makes breasts look smaller
- squeezing the breasts together to emphasize cleavage
- often a padding underneath the breast - this allows the cleavage to still be displayed, if desired, and makes the breast still look more natural since the padding is “hidden” underneath
No pictures here, sorry. 
That sounds incredibly uncomfrotable…wires? straps? Sheesh I have a hard enough time wearing a belt for any extended period of time because it feels constrictive.
It is, in a sense, a slightly too small bra, but it is a particular too small bra.
Think of a breast as water balloon. If you hang a water balloon a wall, it will just sort of hang there.
If you squeeze one side of the balloon, the other side stretches and expands. If you only looked at it from the opposite side from where you were squeezing, the balloon would look bigger and would feel firmer.
The key is in where you squeeze the balloon/breast.
All bras lift and support the weight of the breast, which keeps it from bouncing unduly and stretching the skin. It also makes all breasts look “perkier” which we have societally deemed to be a good thing.
A sports bra applies pressure more or less uniformly around the breast to keep bouncing to an absolute minimum. It also has the benefit of decreasing pain due to impact in a contact sport. (Not that it is ever pleasant to be struck there, it is analogous to why most guys wear jockeys or a jock strap instead of boxers in contact sports.)
So, a push-up bra, of which a Wonderbra is specific example, applies the compression to the lower outside part of the breast. This makes the opposite side, ie. the cleavage, look bigger and firmer. By squeezing the two breast together, it has the effect of “Wow, they are so big the two of them can barely fit together on her chest!”
The key is for the bra manufacturer to apply the pressure to the breast in such a way that a) it doesn’t look artificial or different and b) the discomfort is low enough that the woman is willing to put up with it to feel sexier. (Of course, many women wear high heels and shave their legs, so the threshold of what they are willing to put up with must be pretty high.)
A slight variation on this is the padded bra, for those women who don’t feel they have enough water in the balloon to begin with. These used to be cotton or foam padding, which worked fine in the My Three Sons era of dating where a young man wouldn’t put his hand there until the honeymoon. Nowadays, the padding is another water balloon wrapped around the first one, sometimes even with a nipple shaped bulge to fool the hyper-aggressive suitor.
Or, as a guy who has never worn a bra, I might just be full of crap.
I found whatever Miracle/Wonder/whatever-bra that I tried to be very uncomfortable, took it off in the changing room, and went back to my usual bra type. It’s possible that it might have been more comfy with a real “fitting”, but I didn’t want to deal with a bra that was that… complex.
Underwires are covered with cloth, mind you, so they’re not that bad if you’re smaller chested and can handle the feeling of something more solid there. Larger-chested women who might need them to support their breasts can find it very uncomfortable - they could have the underwire digging in under the breasts, and/or the straps digging into their shoulders.
Most women (who wear bras, that is) have bras with shoulder straps, so that’s nothing unusual. The positioning of the strap along the cup can affect how the breast ‘sits’ - strap just on top of a cup leaves it in a natural positioning (slightly pointed outwards from the midline of the body), strap built into the cup and running along the outside will push the breasts inwards.
There are some bras with gel/water/air bladders in them, to provide a more natural “look”/“feel”, but I don’t think these are very common. Many bras are at least lightly lined/padded to smooth out the appearance of the breast and perhaps add a small amount of size.
LOL! My bf hates my bra cause its (seemingly) made of steel!
ya–its a pushup:cool:
Prove it!!
Most push up bras (and bikini tops, from what I’ve seen) have a very firm layer of padding that fits along the lower half of the breast. The actual breast tissue lies on top of this shelf in such a way that the nipple is just above the shelf. Since the lower part of the breast is compressed against the rib cage, the top part bulges up and out, creating cleavage and lift. Only the top half of the resulting appearance is boob, the bottom half is padding in a hard shell designed to create the illusion that it’s all boob.
Incubus, you can check, but I already did. THey (some) have a little pocket on them where you put a gel membrane in. Others just a little cloth pillow that you put in the pocket.
Come to think of it, I think they had something like that for men’s underpants once.
:eek: