Cup Sizes

This week’s blogs seem to have developed a theme – entirely coincidental I assure you…

 

I was delighted to learn in Bath that at least three of the Coven are also loyal listeners of BBC Radio’s More or Less 

(if you are not I urge you to give it a go).

We started chatting about a recent episode that included an item on bra sizesand measurements.

 

Bra sizing is a completely illogical and inconsistent system with every manufacturer defining bra and cup sizes in their own way.  Cup sizes are roughly based on the difference between a lady’s girth below the bosom around the ribcage and at the widest point.  The number (36, 40 inches etc.) 

can be below the bosom, or on it, or with three or four inches added or subtracted, or somewhere in between.   

As there is no consistency one brand’s D can be another manufacturer’s C or any letter you care to think of.  So you can never be certain that how you’ve measured yourself is compatible with the manufacturer’s definition.

 

“The system was thought up by Americans” I said “and the lady on More or Less said that logically cup sizes should be based on volume rather than circumference.”

“Well” said Bess Cavalier (who knows a lot about cooking and dressmaking) “the Americans do measure volume in cups.”

“Then maybe our sizing should be in pints, quarts or even gallons” I suggested.

 

If you think that’s disturbing: a few days after we got home we got a message from one Coven member describing how she and her physicist husband had measured the volume of her breasts using large bowls of water.  The mind boggles, but each to their own.