De-mystifying the bra -- where to from here? | Joy Slusarek | TEDxBattenkill

when you look around the room there's there's a lot of people wearing bras here when you look around any room there's a lot of people wearing bras you know how we feel about those bras I think kind of affects everything that goes on in the room I think of the second group today I'd like to talk you know to those folks that perhaps are in the room with those of us wearing bras because you know there's an opportunity for all of us to feel better I think a good place to start is that with a little education I feel it's a little unfortunate that those of us who wear bras don't really learn a lot about them there's there's a lot of us who are very uncomfortable in our bras a lot of us do not like bras at all they don't like the bras we wear they don't like anything about bras they don't like shopping for bras I mean the shopping for bras experience is not great I mean you know what they are there's some stores where you go in things are in a pile and oh this is $14.99 looks alright I'll take it there's the shopping mall experience where you go over to the kiosk and wonder where the bras are because you need a bra it's been a while and you look ok first floor no that's shoes second floor housewares now third floor Oh lingerie well okay lingerie I guess that's bras although I think those of us who wear bras are pretty sure that that bra we wear every day is not what we consider lingerie but that's where the bras are so we get on that escalator right and all the while we're thinking I hate this I hate this we're on that first escalator going up get to that floor nope got to take the other escalator up you go up you get to that third escalator you go up to the top and you are hoping to see those bras and somehow something is going to be easy about it but there's no bras there but if you do it a 180 the bras are way back there and you can walk way back there and all the while you're thinking about how much you hate this whole shopping experience sometimes you can find someone to help you find a bra sometimes you can't sometimes you want help sometimes you don't what my talk is today I would like to empower us to understand bra sizing and feel good about it so that when we go shopping we're shopping in the right aisle I mean you wouldn't shop for tomatoes in the cereal aisle right just like you wouldn't shop for a bra and a band size that wasn't appropriate for you all women are unique Barr bra sizing is comprised of numbers and letters if we think about shoes which a lot of us who wear bras love shoe shopping we are perfectly okay going in to a shoe store you know I know my foot is eight and a half inches and I'm okay that that's give or take I go to the shoe department where there's six people tripping over themselves to wait on me and I say oh I'd like to buy those those those those in an eight and a half and the guy goes back into the back room he brings back this pile of shoes in an eight and a half but he also brings one of them in a nine because they run small so you try them on and oh he's right but that ain't half runs a little bit small so I'm going to take the nine I love him he also brings another pair that maybe you didn't see or maybe you didn't think you liked but he sees you and he says you know you might want to try these and how many of us go home and actually that's the pair of shoes we buy is the guy the pair that the guy brought out not the guy when we pointed to and said we want to be in half I'd love it if bras were kind of thought of the same way and I think there is a huge opportunity here to help bra wearers understand where the numbers come from and where the letters come from so to find out where the numbers and letters come from you actually need to do a little bit of measuring you know I really you can go to a bra fitter someone like me but that's not for everyone and you know bra fitters aren't in every town to actually fit yourself for a bra and figure out the appropriate number and letter aid fee in a bra and you know not everybody may have a new measuring tape lying around and that's okay you can use a piece of string and a ruler from your kids you know school box but measuring tape the first thing we're going to talk about is the band the band is the number the number is the band there's going to be a couple of things I'm going to repeat over and over today that I really love review left here with and remembered the number is the band the number is the most important component of bra sizing getting that number appropriate and close is the best thing you can do to feel better in a bra to make yourself more comfortable 90% of a bras job comes from the band being supportive enough 90% so if you are wearing a bra that is tugging from the shoulders and feels a little things feel a little heavy there's a good possibility your band is an incorrect size I don't want to harp on we're wrong about our bras we're wearing our wrong bra size that's not what it's about let's figure this out I mean we're all wearing them every day to measure the band you go around right under your breasts and if you see on me it's probably a little difficult to see I'm somewhere around 30 if I take this measurement okay now when when I have women in the bra shop they are often so surprised at what this number is every woman thinks they're fat every woman has broad shoulders they were a swimmer in high school so I need a really big band I have a broad back you know it's all that this right here is on most women I hate to say all anything but is the smallest parts of our torso this measurement right here if you think of everything else going on in your torso this right here is the smallest part so women are often amazed at you know I've have big hips like my stomach my shoulders oh no this is the measurement for the band in bra sizing my 30 which may be smaller than some people thought in bra sizing and this is very basics let's add one two for bra sizing is an even number say 28 30 32 34 36 38 40 4 you know in even numbers so in bra sizing with my 30 measurement I'm going to start with a 32 band there's a lot of women who look like me who are starting in the 36 because they figure well I'm not as big as some of my girlfriends but I'm not skinny skinny so 36 sounds met in the middle 32 is where I'm going to start with my band span is going to be supportive enough to hold me up to calculate the cup you go around the widest part of your breast now for some women you know bending over or getting their I mean we're all shaped differently I end up somewhere around 35 okay 35 if I start with a 32 band 32 33 34 35 32 a b c my kind of starting zone to shop for a bra like that eight and a half shoe would be a 32 c that's all it is now a lot of people would look at me and they are amazed that i'm a c-cup and I'll tell you something I could wear for bras sizes depending on the bra because fabrics matter on the side the shape of the bra all this mattered not to you know blow people's minds and make it more confusing but to start shopping in the right aisle for me to go to that 32 C versus a 36 a or a 34 a or B where people would think my bra is maybe I'm making an assumption but that's what I've been told which is okay who cares and that means nothing other than the bra fence me or doesn't fit me so shot starting in the 32 C aisle so we'll revisit my measurement was a 30 I'm going to start with a 32 band I think a 30 band would be a little ambitious for me and then my bust measurement was 35 32 33 34 35 32 a B C that's all it is with bra sizing so no matter what this is and this is it's just a little bit of math now while I'm standing here in the bra I love this bra you know bras all look different there are some bras that are higher here lower here not everyone can wear the same style bra you know their bras I see that I think are beautiful that just don't work on my body they could be 32 C all day they just don't work for me and I think like the shoes if women could just accept that it's okay let's find not size but the right style for our bodies everybody has different things going on what's important about bra fitting once you get into the right world the right aisle this is touching you or pretty darn close in the middle the cup goes all the way around the breast tissue it's really key I mean I see a lot of women there they're kind of wearing a teacup when they really need a latte you know and it's you know all your breast tissue should be in this cup that's what it is it's a cuff to hold you up to go around um you know these the front and back should be even and when I say that you know me when I explain that right but there's a lot of women walking around where that that back band is you know riding up the neck and then you get that that's how you get that teeter totter thing going on and nobody wants to look like their aunt Flossie you know I mean that teeter totter thing going on so another thing to look for bras is the front and back to be even I did want to give a couple of tips that maybe no one tells us because no one explains bra sizing for these things that we wear we're 13 years old one tip when buying a bra is to buy it on the last class because bras do stretch if you buy a bra on the very tightest clasp you're doing yourself a disservice with the longevity of that bra you're trying to scream it as small as it can be why not buy a bra on the last clasp and then as you wear it and go through life you can make it smaller there's a couple other solutions that are really important that no one tells us about one of them is this little guy right here which opens up a world of bras and this is an item that a lot of women would appreciate it opens up a world of thinner bras sports bras and they are sold in pairs so they put myself together here just want to kind of reiterate the number the number is the band you can see here that white line going across is kind of where I put that measuring tape on myself very first and I calculated I got to the 32 from my 30 measurement so whatever that measurement is say around you it's a 34 well I'd probably start with a 36 band you can see the torsos increase with the width across and this is just explaining the number and band of bra sizing the letter is the cup remember our little calculation 1 2 3 ABC it's simply one inch difference between here and here a cup two inch difference B cup three inch difference C cup now here's another thing about cup size don't fly the flag women women come in all the time I'm a B cup the 34b isn't working so I need at 36 B it's probably more likely that you need a 34c then you just jump up to a 36 B so you don't want to be too married to cup size this just kind of shows you that as you go down I mean if there is a 10 inch difference between this and and this you could be a 32 J give you a 36 J I mean these sizes actually exist and the 36 J is walking around in a 42 double D because it's the biggest bra she can find but that prosit really supporting her so it's even more you know not that anybody's more important than another but that girl really needs that band to do 90% of the work the cups I'm back to the torsos here of the different sizes you can see the numbers 32 34 36 these are all D cups if you see the boobs on there but notice the boobs are all different sizes cup size is relative to the band so a 32d is a much different D cup than a 38d back to my point of the woman who says the 34 B seems a little bit too small I want to go to the 36 B well the 36 B is a bigger band around and also a bigger cup she may be better off sticking with the same band going to a bigger cup a C cup or a D cup the number is the band the letter is the cup if there's one thing I'd like you to leave today I'd like to just leave with that understanding to understand bra sizing and really take some ownership of this shopping experience this wearing experience because bras that the first thing we put on in the morning they're right on top of our skin they're the closest thing to our hearts whatever we layer on top of those bras clothing emotion baggage we walk into a room how we feel about that bra might have an impact on what goes on in that room I think bras are really important and they're everywhere the numbers the band the letter is the cup let's find ourselves a new bra loving community where can we go

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 307,778

Rating: 4.7614083 out of 5

Keywords: ted, ted talk, Gender, tedx talk, tedx talks, ted x, Health, English, tedx, United States, ted talks, Life, Lifestyle, TEDxTalks

Id: bLlfPgT9ub4

Length: 15min 34sec (934 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 14 2014