grrrrrrrrrrrrr... i have been everywhere lately, and i just cant seem to find any cute bras.... i keep seeing the same old boring white, black, tan , or just blane ugly ones... even victorias secret doesnt have anything especially cute lately... do any of you know where i would be able to find any cute bras, like on the internet or something...or even better yet, if any of you super crafty gals know how i would go about making my own bras, or where i could find instructions on how to... i dont recall seeing any patterns for bras, but then again this dilema of mine is fairly recent , so i havent had a chance to look seriously look for them... if anyone has anything that may help in anyway, pLeAsE post...or if you just want to vent about the lack of cute bras in the world today, i feel yr frusteration...
thanks
danielle

hm well i dont make bras but i do make bikini tops
im pretty big up top (i wear a d) so wheni wanna wear backless tops i need to have some sort of support . and a bikini is good cuz u just have the little ties in the back it looks really sexy

I wear a D too & hate the big 3 hook & eye fastener back style bras. Aseya, how do you make your bikini tops? Do you use patterns or improvise? I have some patterns for bikinis 60s & 70s style, but they're all for tiny sizes, & I think they'd be hard to adapt. Any suggestions?
Thanks!!!
Susan

danielle,
something that i've seen people doing lately is removing the straps from said boring bras, and making their own beaded ones- anything you'd use to make a necklace, you can use to make straps and hook thru the existing gromits. elastic is probly a lot better than string/wire, for sheer comfort sake. then if you wear a tank top, there's nothing to hide- it becomes just another accessory... have you looked at target/walmart lately? sometimes the places you'd think would be pretty run of the mill have some cute ones. in terms of making your own from scratch, the tailoring might be kinda complicated, but good luck!
:) chandra

They do sell patterns for bras, but let me tell you, they're usually uglier than the ones out there. I think Stretch and Sew is the patternmaker, although you might want to see if you can search a sewing magazine site like Taunton Press's Threads (I can't remember the URL, something like tauntonpress.com/threads ?) I don't think it's really worth it, unless you're amazingly hard to fit or something.

You can get stuff like underwires and clasps and stuff and all the trappings from Clotildes, which is an amazing catalog of notions and all kinds of other handy stuff.

The thing I would do is decorate the ones I got. My mom used to bellydance when I was young, and I remember her and her friends sitting at the kitchen table beading their bras with bugle beads and dangly beads and stuff--it looked SO cool! (apparantly they had a hard time finding all this cool stuff, and had to make it themselves. Mom kicks herself for quitting everytime she's in a craft store and sees all the things they couldn't find in the early 80s).

Maybe try something like that? Or sew ribbons on top of the strap elastic. Or sew ribbons and beads all over to make some kind of cool design.

I'm just searching for one that doesn't ride up in the back or poke me in the sides. Barring that, I'll accept straps that don't always fall off my damn shoulders.

Ha, ha! Great topic!

I heard that Fredericks of Hollywood has recently gone belly-up (no pun intended . . . well, maybe just a small one . . .)

The problem I'm having with bras is that there's no happy medium between the sheer filmy satiny cups that offer zero support and do nothing to ameliorate the "turkey's done" pop-up effect, and the so-called "Miracle Bra" that pads you into next Tuesday. I put one of those babies on and my boobs arrived at work five minutes before I did.

--lynda

just buy a plain bra, and go wild. i bought a plain white satin push up bra, and dyed it hot pink with faric dye, and then i sewed little sequins on the straps.... they are really cute. u could also find sequins that have glue on the back of them already, and just iron them on....
i also like lacy bras when they are dyed in funky colours... any old or ugly bra can easily be transformed with fabric dye and sequins, trust me. :]

OH I got a lace bra....how do I dye it?
and with what?
hahahahaha....my parents are gonna start wondering about me if they see me sprucing up my bras...hahaha

Sounds like Edie is our dyeing expert, but this old hippie has always used tea to dye underwear of anywhere. My skin is quite white, and flesh toned U/W is too dark comparatively, so a pale tint of tea is just right. OF course this is not the ideal for people who want eyepopping bras and undies, though.

Really old pieces are good for practice, but realize you may ruin the piece or make it really bizarre. Certain synthetics will take dye well, even tea or natural dyes, and some just get a whisper of color. Like your fiberfill could come out fuschia, the nylon wrapped around the underwire will be a funky sallowed pink, and the shell will be so pastel....

Plain bras of almost all the same material are the most practical for even coloring. Natural materials are often best for dyeing, like cotton or silks.

Older things that have invisible sweat or deodorant stains will have ugly little crescents under your arms after you dye them.

Lace and elastic usually have a couple of different materials in them so they may not dye evenly, but you might like the effect.

Beth

OHHHH!

hey, I just made myself a wickedly cute bra. Well, actually i bought a bra... it was from urban outfitters and miraculously on sale for like, $8. it was a plain pink one with skinny elastic straps. i then went to mokuba, which is the swanky ribbon store and bought all these rosettes and textured ribbon. basically I hand stitched the textured ribbon onto the bra in a swirly pattern, and put the rosettes on as accents. SOOO cute... too bad I don't show it off to get compliments!!!!

ciaobaby

thanks for all the great ideas!... i knew you all would think of slinkster cool stuff...im going to go to a trim shop this weekend...i also rilly liked the dying idea...if you have anymore ideas/ recomendations, id love to hear them
thanks again
danielle

thank god for dollar tree!
I have a watch bra now.
I got dozens of those ring watches and cut the faces off of the rings, and tacked them on with super glue/five minute epoxy. (it had a wider strap) and the watch heads are a size of a dime..
So they look cute

Lots of complements

Try tie die on a simple white bra, it's cute. Also, if you're not too top-heavy, Walmart and Sears have the cutest bras! Cartoon characters (I have a scooby-doo one), flowers, bright colours... I have one in lime green that I wear as often as possible.

i know the problem. im a 38 dd and i cant find anything cool. but if you d or under warners makes a bra called strappies and they come in funkie colours with clear straps and you can buy cow print and dalmation and all sorts of nifty designs straps to change them.
good luck
LaURi ChiCK

I know someone else mentioned putting beads on the bra straps...but you don't have to hand sew them, instead you can get a cheap little bead gun... (think of those beaddazzler kits for young girls) and go wild!
I can never find cute bras anymore either....and it's definetely true the bigger your cup size the uglier the bras.....

Hey girls, this is for those who expressed their frusttration over Ugly 'Big Girl' bras :) I feel your pain! (I'm a DD and DESPISE ugly bras) however--I have found solutions!! Ok, #1 choice: Addition-Elle Lingerie...A-E is a 14+ clothing store and they have a fab lingerie section-cute colorful SUPPORTIVE bras that don't have straps as wide as your thigh! panties to match! #2 choice: Zellers, yes, I know...who would have thought? Well, try out the Delta Burke bras there..they have some cute, thin-strapped, well priced bras in fun colors like baby-blue and light purple! #3 choice: WonderBra Plus. Now, no crazy colors here, but they ARE pretty-white, lacy and reeeeaaaaallllly comfortable!! And, I have no experience in #4-Lane Bryant-I've heard they do lingerie, and it should be pretty classy.
DON'T GIVE UP! DOWN WITH UGLY BRAS!

hmmm... i like all the bra-shopping tips, but does anyone know how to make the back-bit (with the hooks) smaller? i where a 34 D you see, and all the affordable bras in D cup start at 38. i figured that i could maybe buy a 36 C or 38 D and make the back smaller, but i don't want to ruin the fit. does anyone have experiences and tips to share on this topic?

you could easily sew equal-sized tucks into either side of the back of the bra, but that would creat lumps. you could also cut the hook and eye bits off and resew them further back to shorten the back, but you'd have to ease in or gather if the back is wider than the hook and eye pieces.

unfortunately, the size of the underwire and cup size and shaping is totally different when you go from a 34D to a 38D. i measure a 38C, but sometimes the best fit i can find with with a 36D or DD because i have a wierd back and the 38Cs are always too loose around the band. go figure... sometimes boxed bras are more comfortable and come in a better range of larger sizes, but they're ugly as hell and half of them make your tits pointy. i dont know WHO decided that women want triangular breasts...

i end up paying ridiculously high prices for Victoria's Secret bras most of the time. they're comfortable, last longer than cheap bras, and they dont stop making pretty styles at 34C.

stella

aagh. i hate bra shopping. i will wear a bra until it falls apart in order to avoid the lingerie department. i'm an I cup (at least that's what they told me on some fancy pants, bra site that had instructions on how to correctly measure yourself), but i've been wearing DDD for years b/c you can never find an I cup. all i can say is bras suck.

yours in bra hell,
heather

i am going to be (hopefully) going to college for fashion design on the fall of 2001! my ultimate goal is to design clothes and underwear such as bras that are cool!!!
Lauri

yeah recently i dragged my flat-chested friend into lane bryants with me. i'd never been in there before, but i saw a huge sign outside with a couple of "plus-size" models and a banner reading "Lingerie sale!", so i decided to banish my deamons and enter.
Oh wow. i got the sexiest bra ever, in purple lace. it looked awful on the hanger but fantastic on me. the only problem was the same old 3 eye hook closure in the back. (my s.o. always has such a trouble with those.)another brand i like is called...er..."loveable" or something. They make fantastically cute bras in up to a D...if that helps y'all

Well... This isn't all that "crafty," but I was in Foley's one day. I found the most awesome bra! It's a basic bra, I'm not sure if it came in other colors, but I know they had white. The straps were these plastic-like see-through straps. The straps could be changed, and they sold other patterns(they had red see-through, and lepard print see-through). I had a shirt that always seemed to slip past my bra strap. I'm planning on getting one of those to wear with it. My friend wore one with a tank top. It was GROOVY!

yay, what a good topic! all your ideas sound really good. i love shopping, but bra shopping can put me in the worst mood cause i can never find anything that fits. i don't even know what my bra size is at this point (i used to be 34A i think), all i know is that nothing even fits me anymore except for those pull-over tank style bras. which are cute (and thank goodness have been fairly easy to find for the past year or so)... but i'm getting kind of bored from having to only stick with them, ya know? i kind of miss regular bras with actual cups. and even victoria's secret doesn't carry bras with small enough cups, how lame is that?

so does anyone know where 'normal bra' bras can be found that fit small-breasted girls? even when i find a bra that looks like it has potential, i try it on and get this super bagginess in the top area of the cup...like it's trying to give too much coverage to a part of me that doesn't really stick out. ack, i can't describe that very well.. all i know is just about EVERY small bra has cups that are too much material vertically, if that makes sense.

so back to crafty ideas for bras, i'm wondering if anyone has attempted making their own tank bras? i got this cute stripey, stretchy fabric at an estate sale and i can't think of what else to do with it. i don't have much experience sewing stretchy fabrics though...and do i need a serger? (i read all the posts about using sergers for making underwear and now it's got me paranoid that underwear can't even be attempted without a serger. this isn't true, right? ;))

anyway, making a tank bra seems pretty simple.. just measure it around you and sew it into a tube top-type shape, then add straps. maybe i'll get motivated to try it today!

Fifty pounds and many years ago, I used to wear a Playtex bra called "I can't Believe It Fits." I've seen it in recent years, but buy all mine mailorder now, so I don't know who carries it.

Try Playtex on line. Ask them for stores that carry it or it's replacement. They had sizes like 30 almost A, 34 almost A, and 32 nearly B which was my size. I recall they had almost A and nearly B in all sizes between 30 and 34, maybe a wider range than that.

The other thing that offends my hippie sensibilities is the wonderbra. They "enhance" any figure, with shaping and with fiberfill. You might find one of them that at least conforms to your shape.

And talk to some of the sales girls at places like Victoria's Secret. They often do know how to fit bras if you're not too uptight about it.

One of my friends used to do it as a parttime job, and she was hilarious about women in general and the way they want to put on bras, and the way you are really supposed to.

You may also be more shaped like I was. If you took a line dead center from the inside base of my boobs and drew it out straight through the nipples, they would point off at a clear angle. Not grotesque like coming out of my armpit, but like they could be doubleD and I'd still have no cleavage. And that's true. Braless and ample now, they definitely do not want to pal around together. When I put on a bra, I have to sorta shove them back to the center to get them into the cups.

We are all made differently, even beautiful women with adored shapes are, too. Kim Basinger has these incredibly low slung boobs for such a beauty and a former Bond girl.

Beth

kim basinger--and many other of our favorite starlets--have what i like to call "tall girl boobs." they are very low on the torso. they look normal unitl you look very closely and see that the breats are actually just beginning way down near where the elbow hits your side. very odd. but then again, with my admittedly huge boobs, i also deal with placement issues. i am short, so my breast take up the entire space from my collarbone to a few inches above my belly button. solid boob. now that's weird too.

we're all different. bras just aren't designed for that....


heather