Doctor T Designs

Of course, as soon as you post about waiting for supplies to arrive, they arrive! So back to the main track of bra sewing and fitting. When we last left off I had just received my first batch of sample underwires from Emerald Erin, and I was quite pleased with how the fit of the Bliss style worked for me, especially in comparison to the regular or long underwires I had been using previously. Since then I’ve really fallen down the rabbit hole of wire fitting and I’ve ordered several other styles to test and compare the fit.

I have finished sewing both the Bravo Bra #2 and the Cashmerette Willowdale bra, except for the final addition of the underwire (review posts coming soon). Since I have both bras available to me, I can easily swap different wire styles in and out of each to compare the fit of the different styles and sizes of wires. After the Bliss arrived it was definitely the best fit I’d found thus far, but the largest size I ordered (44) still felt much too short in the wire line channeling in both the Bravo Bra and the Willowdale. So I thought I would order some additional sizes and styles to really see if I could really narrow down which wire is my wire.

In addition to the wires I had tried from Gigi’s (same as Bra Makers Supply), Bra Builders, and Emerald Erin, I’ve also added some of the Porcelynne wires to the mix. For some of these styles there has clearly been one size that was the best, and for others I’ve been playing around with the sizing options a bit. At this point I am going to be comparing:

• Gigi’s Long 44, 46
• Gigi’s Vertical 40, 42, 44
• Gigi’s Extra Long 38, 40, 42
• Emerald Erin Bliss 40, 42, 44, 46
• Emerald Erin Omega 38, 40, 42, 44
• Porcelynne Long Vertical 40, 42, 44
• Porcelynne Vertical 40, 42, 44

The wires themselves are interesting to compare. Structurally, the Gigi’s and Emerald Erin wires are the most similar, both being a thin rigid wire. I forgot to include the Bra Builders Flexible wires in the photos for this comparison, but they are pretty similar to the Gigi’s WL wire shape and wire thickness, though the flexibility differentiates how it feels quite a bit. The Porcelynne wires are the most visually different; they are a substantially thicker wire and are extremely rigid. While I was a bit dubious at first, I’ve actually found this thicker style to be more comfortable in a lot of ways because the thickness of the wire really does seem to force it to lie against the chest and gives a lot of support to the cups and breast tissue because of this.

Style wise, there are also some interesting comparisons. Gigi’s Long, Extra Long, and the Bra Builders Flex wire all have a similar (very rounded) shape. There is a lot more horizontal width on these wires compared to the other styles I tried (top right image below). The next stage of narrowness were Gigi’s Vertical wires, Porcelynne’s Vertical wires, and the Emerald Erin Bliss wires, which are almost an exact match, size for size (middle image below). I found the bottom cup shape to be good, but without enough vertical height. There are some slight differences to the very top of the wire shaping, but you could definitely swap these out for each other pretty easily. These might be good options if I want to go for a different (not full coverage) cup style in the future. Finally, the most narrow versions of the wires were the Emerald Erin Omega wire and the Porcelynne Long Vertical Wire. The shape is different; the Omega is rounder at the bottom and curves in at the top whereas the Porcelynne Long Vertical is more straight on the sides, but both of these have a much longer wire relative to the width than any of the other styles (top left below).

I also compared each of the wires to my original breast root trace to see how the wires seemed to fit.

When comparing the root trace to the first wires I used on the early Ruby Bras I made, you can see the 46WL is much wider than the root trace, and even the 44 is really wide in comparison:

The Gigi’s Extra long 38 is actually a much better match, though still a bit wide and a bit short:

The Gigi’s Vertical wires are also a closer match, but still a bit short on the vertical height:

The Emerald Erin Bliss are nearly identical to the Gigi’s Vertical:

As are the Porcelynne Vertical, though these are a bit longer on the outer edge:

However, the Emerald Erin Omega is much closer the root trace height on both the outer and inner edges. However, the wire clearly dips in where the root trace does not:

And the Pocelynne Long Vertical is perhaps the best shape match overall:

So, which wires actually work for me? Right now I’ve narrowed my styles down to the Emerald Erin Omega and the Porcelynne Long Vertical for use in a full coverage bra. Even though the inward curvature of the Omega seems like it would pinch me, when I place it into the bras it actually seems to fit quite nicely. The same can be said of the thicker Porcelynne wires – I thought they might feel too heavy but they are surprisingly comfortable!

I will say I am still working on deciding my actual size… I think I’m debating between the 38 and 40 in each of these styles. I feel pretty confident that I would be one of those four sizes because I actually tried the Porcelynne Long Vertical in my recent Willowdale and wore is around for a day already, and I think the wires are slightly too big with the 42. Standing they feel fine, but sitting in a car I noticed the underarm portion of the wire was a bit pokey and they seem to slide down my ribs a bit, which is slightly uncomfortable and producing the lower cup edge double boob I’m trying to get rid of (this is how I fit in all of my bras, so it’s “standard” for me but indicates there is still work to be done). Although it could be that the cups don’t have enough volume, I don’t really think that is the case because there is a bit of extra space at the top of the cup after everything shifts down. It’s definitely a case of when I put it on it fits great, but after wearing it all moves a bit and gets uncomfortable. I still think it’s the best fitting bra I’ve had, so I’m on the right track, but I think I need to make several pattern adjustments before moving on to my next iteration and going with a smaller wire size is definitely one of them.

Overall it has been an interesting experiment, and what’s been super fascinating is just how much impact the shape of the wire has had on the fit of the two bras I made. My finished version of the Willowdale had a slightly longer wire line than the Bravo Bra, so I’ll be trying the Porcelynne Extra Long 40 in that bra. I plan to make some pattern alterations and test out the Omega wires and possibly order and test a Porcelynne 38 if the 40 still feels too big. Popping the wires in and out while fitting does give some sense of how things will feel, but there’s definitely something to be said for wearing a finished bra around for a day to figure out if things are actually right or if they just seemed right when trying it on. It’s much the same for any piece of clothing, really, but I think it’s especially true of undergarments.

I do think there are some critical takeaways from this wire testing experiment. One key discovery has been that if the wire doesn’t have some sort of vertical shaping, it just doesn’t work on me. For example, the Extra Long wire from Gigi’s has a similar overall length to the Omega wire from Emerald Erin, yet because one shape is wide and the other is narrow it forces the bra to smush the breast tissue and the band to stand away from the body whereas the other allows the band to sit directly next to the skin on the chest and lets the breast project forward to fill out the cup. (Side note: Yes, we have finally reached the point in our bra sewing adventure where we have achieved the fabled state of having the bridge fabric in contact with the chest! It is a thing that can actually happen. Who knew?!?!?!?!!) I can also see the same situation happen when I go too large in the vertical wires – the larger wire size pulls the cup horizontally, reducing the forward space for the breast to sit and pulling the band forward away from the body. So I think one critical takeaway is definitely that it’s definitely both the size and shape of the wire that is going to really impact the fit of the bra.

Another takeaway I have from this is that it is important to get a few sizes of fitting wires, even if you do the breast root trace. When I compared my breast root trace to the wire charts it did help me identify the top contenders of wire styles, but I find that having the actual wires is more helpful for the comparison and obviously to test the fitting. I originally didn’t order any of the Omega style wires from Emerald Erin because I thought the inward curve at the top of the wire would be too severe, however, it actually fits great for me and is very comfortable, so I’m glad I tried it. Conversely, I thought the Extra Long wires from Gigi’s would work, but they are far too short in a full coverage bra for me when I use the size that corresponds to the trace. Although I bought a lot of wire styles, the root trace did actually help me narrow down wire styles quite a bit, relatively speaking. It was immediately obvious from the trace that I needed some sort of vertical wire, and I didn’t even bother trying any of the wider/flatter styles available. It was made even more clear through fit tests that the vertical wire styles were significant improvements over the standard wire shapes I had been using originally.

A few posts back I discussed the projected vs. omega post from Hugs for Your Jugs. At the time I thought I probably was in the projected and not omega category, but after this most recent round of wire testing and bra fitting I am not so sure. Although my fit is significantly improved, with the bridge sitting flat against the chest when I have the Omega or Long Vertical wires inserted, I still have a slight bit of fitting weirdness around the breast root in the cups. For the Bravo Bra there is a bit of extra fabric at the bottom of the cup along the wire line, whereas the Willowdale causes a bit of the double fold crease in the under-boob. Now, don’t get me wrong, these are still the best fitting bras I have ever had, by a long shot. And this is the first time I’ve ever tried a bra without foam cups that I actually liked. Some seriously mind-blowing stuff going on over here. On the one hand, I think I’m pretty close to good enough being good enough. But, on the other hand, I still have a few obvious things I can tweak in each pattern to get a better fit, so I figure I might as well do that while I’m auditioning the rest of my wire sizes. If I still haven’t found a perfect fit I can also do a decent amount of pondering if I should go back to the drawing board with starting points for wire lines and starting sizes. I’ll be doing more detailed posts on each of these bras coming up, and will detail some thoughts on what I want to try next. After that I might literally go back to the drawing board because I really want to try self-drafting a bra. However, I need to have a wire size and shape picked out before going down that path, so there will likely be a few more finished bra posts and further thoughts on fitting before I get to that point.