Why Do We Own So Many Bras?

Leandra Medine | May 14, 2015

man-repeller-why-do-we-own-so-many-bras

Somewhere along the way from benign chest bug bites to swollen bee stings, I became convinced that I need bras like I need pre-menstruation sustenance: frequently and in excess. Like they (the bras) were shoes or something; contingent entirely on outfit and occasion. Imperatively interchangeable by circumstantial scenario.

Logically, this theory still makes sense — sports bras and strapless bras and lace bras and cotton bras and padded bras and so forth have their time and place and yet, as I look into my underwear drawer and glean the rows of bras — some silk, some not, all varying shades of color and print I am now certain I will never attempt (this of course presents the question of what happens to our judgement while we’re in purchase-progress) — I realize that I only wear one. Maybe two. No matter the shape of my top or the circumstances of my whereabouts.

It’s a nude lace bralette by Calvin Klein that keeps my Annies from flapping and doesn’t impede on a shirt’s ability to hang as it wants to, boobs notwithstanding. It’s reliable. It has never let me down. It lets me feel like the best version of myself and when I take my shirt off, I see me.

Sometimes I don’t wear a bra at all and while I know this is a privilege, a sort of advantage bequeathed to me by the nuances of my lackluster genetic composition, at least three of my better endowed comrades on the bust-front agree that when they find a good bra, they stick to it, like it is precisely the kind of soulmate over which we retain control. Also in accordance, though, is that they still buy new ones far more frequently than is necessary.

So here’s my thinking: we are buying bras for the women we aspire to be. I have exactly 327428547 lacy underthings which serve no utilitarian purpose in my life (reflected by the tags still attached to the garments), but seem to indicate an inclination towards a sense femininity I am ambitiously chasing. So that makes up for the “pretty” bras, as Amelia would call them, but what about the rest? Why do we buy so many bras and yet repeatedly come back to what I want to call the consistently-Oscar-nominated Best Supporting Actors in our lives? Who are we fooling?

Or am I alone on this one?

Want to keep reading? If you give a mouse a bra it’s going to want some underwear. Or a chain belt.

Image via i-D. 

  • http://adeliberateimagination.wordpress.com/ CJKEYS2

    I only own an everyday bra, a strapless, and some sports bras. my boobz are too big for cute lacey things. thanks, mom!!!!!!!!!!

    • http://www.itscarmen.com ≈ CARMEN ≈

      I know what you mean! Cute & lacy. I wish. 😛

    • Daisy Fowler

      ◐◐◐◐◐◐◐ washingtonexaminer Best way working online ,google yahoo,

      Read Full Article

      ◐◐◐◐◐◐◐◐Get More Info ☛ More About Now

    • http://www.instagram.com/ashleytheeditor Ashley Bess Lane

      Oh lord I know your struggle. It seems us well-endowed people have been left in the cold when it comes to the cute-lacey bras. Though, I have to say, Betsy Johnson is the closet I’ve come to cute and lacy. I can’t do anything about the amount of fabric in the bra (the girls need SOME support) but the designs and colours are a lot more attractive than beige/black/white/grey.

      • Geraldine Pinto

        omg well endowed girls hav NO option when it comes to cute lacy things. everything has to be industrially ugly

        • Minouxx

          I believed this until I stopped looking in stores and only shop for bras online now. Ccohen415 mentioned some good brands, I also like Panache and Cleo by Panache, Claudette, Evollove and Freya. If you’re into pretty lacy things look at Mimi Holliday, so $$$ but so exquisite!

    • WaywardPines

      It’s Easy with yahoo google utube and manrepeller < my roomate's mom makes $85 /hr on the internet . She has been without work for eight months but last month her paycheck was $17976 just working on the internet for a few hours.

      Try this site. SEE MORE INFO

    • ccohen415

      You just need to find a good brand! I like Chantelle, Fantasie, Miss Mandalay, and Curvy Kate

  • http://Medium.com/@hager_emma Emma Hager

    I only do the bra thing when running, really. Few exceptions. Otherwise, free as a bird!!

  • Milda

    Bra size: 30F.

    Number of bras in my drawer that actually fit: 2.

    • elizabeth

      try panache. I wear the same size.. they also make an amazing sports bra.

  • Lizlizo

    I have a ton of bras, yet I wear the same black bra everyday. Why do we have so many bras?

    – Liz
    http://www.LizLizo.com

  • Rachel

    I have two plain bras, one black and one nude from Victoria’s Secrets that I hardly every wear, otherwise I always wear bralettes since they are way more comfortable and I lack cleavage so I’m able to wear them. But I have at least 10 barlettes in varying styles and colours. I just can’t help buying them because they’re so pretty. I feel that there is something inside me that always feels special when I wear a pretty undergarment even if no one sees it but me.

  • http://www.etsy.com/shop/10YearsToLifeVintage Sara

    I never wear ’em, I like the 70’s tities look. Gummy Bear nipples all the way Leandra!

  • Quinn Halman

    invest in the chest and you’ll only need like 5 for your breast(s)

  • http://littleblackshell.com Karen Farber

    You’re not alone! I had a great collection of bras also until my puppy decided to make them his toys one day that I left my drawer open. Now, I have far fewer, and still only reach for 2 underwires, and one bralette.

    http://www.littleblackshell.com

  • http://www.lostinpattern.com/ Brigita Dambe

    Bras: more than a million. Bras that go with my panties: none. The sad truth.

    • Luce

      You’re not alone. My pants are ridiculous!

  • Aydan

    I hate under-wire bras and am much more a bralette person, despite the fact that the size of mine may not be the ideal target for bralettes. I’d rather go free, but figure that’d be obscene at work! I’ve finally reached the point in my life were I have about five in rotation and replace at the very least every year (just buy the same size and brand each time – nude and black)!

  • parkzark

    I’ve kept certain bras for sentimental purposes. It’s like undergarment scrapbooking.

  • http://kate-welsh.squarespace.com Kate

    I’ve turned into somewhat of a bra-collector because I’m incapable of resisting pretty, lacy, feminine underthings it turns out. I’m such a tomboy in my day-to-day style (jeans and sneakers and button-downs and tshirts and jeans…) that I kind of love knowing that I’m wearing, for example, a light pink, sheer, lacy, underwire bra with it all.

    Also bralettes: just picked a sheer navy blue set from COS that I’m a little in love with.

    • BK

      I HAVE THAT COS SET TOO #bratwins

  • Autumn

    I recently bought three new bras for the first time in, like, 4 years. Only because the ones I was wearing no longer fit and that was all I could think about all day with one of those f***ers on. It was a weird moment to suddenly have more than one option of undergarment.

  • Jojo

    As a DD, only in my dreams (and literally while dreaming at nighttime) can I get away with the freedom of being braless. I recently got rid of about half of my bras.. Which in reality still leaves me with a bunch of bras when I only wear one. Being the hoarder that I am, I didn’t want to let the reject bras completely go to waste. I took some of them, cut the back clasp part off, and sewed the front cup remnants into new backless dresses that I could have never worn braless. Hiiiiighly recommended

    • Lyric

      That is such a good idea!!

    • Luce

      That is a brilliant idea!!

  • http://sunovereden.blogspot.com/ Sophie Kang

    I read you should regularly switch up the bras you wear on a regular basis to help keep the shape and maintain hygiene. I don’t have that many bras because I find shopping for them to be a very unpleasant experience. I’m an A and find it really hard to find one that fits properly without creating a gap where my cleavage is supposed to be that my shirt slips into.

    I wear a lot of white so am always looking for a good skin colored one. I’m still looking because recently good ol’ faithful ripped.

    • http://www.keepitcoll.com/ Colleen

      YES!! I feel your struggle.

  • Maureen McLennon

    As a college student, with a pretty good collection of bras, I do not have space and cannot afford to keep bras that I don’t wear. I specifically plan outfits to wear with different bras, so that I don’t waste them. But yes, I have one beige Gap bra which is my favorite!

  • http://www.fancyalterego.wordpress.com/ Heather P.

    I’m with the other large-breasted ladies – I don’t own many bras because most of them just don’t fit right. I own 4 regular bras, and a few sports bras, and only one of the sports bras really fits properly.

    Don’t even get me started on anything “pretty,” because nothing makes a bra for bigger boobies look pretty (they’re the same bras, just with different fabric…so boring). Even if it is a pretty bra, it’s going to be so unsupportive or uncomfortable that it’s not worth wearing outside the house.

    In the future, when I find one that fits properly, I’m buying 10 of them. :-)

  • BK

    YES LEANDRA YES. I have an upper-torso demographic that Gob Bluth would call a “surfboard”, and also a not inconsiderable tangle of padded, lacy, almost uncomfortably feminine bras in my drawer that I too NEVER WEAR. I can’t speak for the more generously endowed females out there, but I agree with your thesis that we surfboards (or at least surfboards you and I) buy “pretty” bras to try to assuage and also coax out of hiding some stereotypically feminine creature we assume to be lurking under the surface, a creature who in my case never has dirty fingernails, wears matching coordinating underwear to go with said pretty bras and doesn’t ever roll her eyes and complain loudly in most/all romantic comedy films that she doesn’t even need to be forced to watch.
    May I add that when you take into account how little we wear these wistfully and optimistically acquired pretty bras, maybe we subconsciously don’t *want* to be a pretty bra girl? After all, she sounds lame and like she never even gardens.
    Just give me this: http://store.celestetesoriero.com/products/basic-sports-bra-grey-marle
    and pardon me while I beat Miss Clean-Fingernails into submission.

  • Catherine Bohner

    Collector or not, I think everyone has a favorite. A bad bra makes you grumpy and a lot of times a seemingly good bra isn’t actually comfy when you wear it in real life. Why buy so many? I feel guilty that I only like a few so I’m always looking for a new one. And then of course there’s marketing. T-shirt, backless, strapless, no underwire, magic underwire, back fat reducing, side boob preventing, weird foamy stuff and plush fabric…gotta try them all!

  • laura

    I also read your not meant to wear the same one 2 days in a row as they need a day to recover shape and structure? NIGHTMARE

    A Forte For Fashion

    x

  • Lua Jane

    Bras or undrewear sets, are that area where I express my femininity, rest of my clothes being pretty bland or “normcore”. Only defense I have, I do wear it all regularly. My absolute favorites would be lacy triangle french looking things in pastels, but i own plenty of black too. Cotton bras are saved for at home and sleeping, because I can’t sleep without a bra. I have a weird fear, my boobs will move in weird directions while I sleep. They are smallish, true, but they are there, and they move, so..
    I may actually be a bit obsessed with underwear. But it’s what I’m passionate about, just like shoes. Recently I figured my drawers are too full and need to downsize a bit, only to go and buy another set, that very day.

  • Mariana

    I don’t think I have too many bras. I have enough to rotate them so the one I’m using won’t get too smelly. I hate the one I’m wearing now, it was cheap and the underwire is about to pop and poke me in that painful way, but it has a lace back, so bonus point for that

    The only bra I want is that sexy strappy bralette that Ilana Glazer wears in Broad City. All her bras are amazing, I also love that red lace one.

  • http://stylestandpoint.com/ Joanna

    I’m a size B, so I could probably get away with not wearing a bra most of the times, but every time I attempt this, I feel people notice that, because it’s considered to be a bit obscene. So I wear pretty lacey bras, switching to a nude push up when I want to enhance things a little bit 😉 I absolutely love the wireless bra by Intimissimi. But I do agree that we buy way too many bras as for our needs!

    http://stylestandpoint.com

  • leanne

    Sometimes my size change,so i will happily buy a new bra and again and again….

  • Janet

    I am SO into my bras. I’m also a double DD so those babies need proper attention to prevent any (ahem) mishaps. Going braless outside my flat is not an option. The wrong bra: not an option. What is the wrong bra? The wrong bra is one that makes me look overweight instead of endowed, digs into my shoulders or ribs, produces sideboob, or creates little pockets of fat on my back. Any bra that does not make me feel fabulous will not be purchased. This decision has changed by bra and boob life: now it is Liberating! Sexy! Free! And, my secret weapon in this purchasing process is Gloria. Gloria works in my neighborhood old lady bra shop (Lady Grace) and everytime I go in, she fits me, picks out the bras (when I tell her what I’m looking for: sexy, every day, etc), reminds me to pour my boobs into a bra instead of strapping a bra around my boobs. I buy around 3 a year (because they are gorgeous and expensive — but under $100). My favorite right now is a black lace Chantelle that makes the natural shape of my boobs appear to be perfectly ripe round grapefruits. And don’t produce any of the dreaded back chub!

    • Janet

      Oooh. . . bad grammar alert! And, doesn’t produce any of the dreaded back chub!

    • Jessica Peterson

      Couldn’t have said it better.

  • Natella Klycheva

    i haven’t been in boob jail for about 4 yrs, i only wear soft no wires no bullshit push up bras,and it feels so liberating. But I guess if i had a largrer chest area, i would do differently. I wish we all women were like Sue Allen Mishki from Seinfeld

  • http://www.keepitcoll.com/ Colleen

    I have literally two different bras in my drawer but I have about a bazillion colours of each kind. When life (or your mama) gives you grapes instead of grapefruits, finding a decent bra is hard :(

  • Rad

    You mean ‘Breast Supporting Actors in our lives’ right?

    • Leandra Medine

      wow. huge missed opportunity.

  • Bella Charlwood

    My bra shop constantly sends me birthday cards and gift vouchers for just having boobs, so its fair to say i have a few bras now

  • Luce

    I’m in the same boat, I buy so much yet wear the same cotton bra from Weekday which definitely gives me no support and the one super expensive bra from La Perla. I just ignore the fact that I need under-wiring and opt for the comfort option.

  • Emma McLaughlin

    a week late to this but I found a stand at a bazaar in istanbul that sells them for less than $2 a piece and I am wondering if I should get a life time supply

  • Calliope & Clio

    Coupled with chase for femininity, which you mention above, I would add that bras are like denim. You always want the changing styles and trends, but in reality you’re just a skinny-jean kind of girl and that is what you revert to. Not only that, but realistically I can have as many as four body types in a month. I need to accommodate them all! xo