Are you dissatisfied with your wired bra patterns and instead choosing wireless patterns? Do you know WHY you find wires uncomfortable or even painful? The answer may surprise you. You may, in fact, be in the one-quarter of the population that has what is known as a low-contour breast. Here are some techniques every low-contour breast owner should understand so you can make intelligent modifications to virtually any bra pattern to make the fit uniquely yours.
Low-contour breast owners who, if they choose a bra with a wire that fits them, has empty space in the front of the cup. Conversely, if they get a cup that fits, then the wire is really too small and sits on the breast tissue. This is uncomfortable at best and could be a serious health concern at its worst. The same principles will apply to women who have had a certain method of breast reduction surgery. And by that, I mean that the breast was “lopped off at the top,” so to speak, rather than using the more time-consuming method of decreasing the diameter of the breast along with the projection. In both cases, the root of the breast is a larger diameter than the “standard” root size for that bra size. The “standard” breast is the dotted line below.
Low-contour breast owners will benefit from making the bra cup conform more accurately to their breast shape. To make your own low-contour bra, adjust the lower cup pattern piece by pinning out the excess on the bra and marking where the amount is to be removed. Pay more attention to getting the fit of the lower cup. Once you have that shape, transfer the marks back to the pattern. It should look like the drawing below, more or less. You are shortening the apex area of the lower cup. This is almost the same alteration as “rounding the crown,” although making a low contour cup is more pronounced. On the lower cup at the apex notch, you might remove up to 1/2″ (12 mm) and taper the line back to zero at each end.
Once the lower cup is done, you need to make sure the cross cup seam line on the upper cup is the same length as the lower cup. Measure along the cross-cup seam at the sewing line (not the cutting line) and adjust the length of the upper cup in one of two ways. You can remove the crown of the upper cup by flattening it as shown, then measure it against the lower cup. You would do this if the cross-cup seam has a fairly deep curve. The second method you might use is if the amount you need to remove is not that much, or the cup depth is already fairly flat.
A one-piece lower cup is fairly straightforward, but what happens when you have a two-piece or even a three-piece lower cup? That’s a little trickier, but it still can be done. I’ve shown this shaded so you can see through it more easily. Mark the seam allowances (shown in grey) on the cross cup seam and the wire line of both pieces. Match the lower cup seam at the seam line where it crosses the cross-cup seam and the wire line seam. Now draw in your low contour alteration (shown as the dotted black line). Do you see the issue? The two seam lines have spread apart because of the bowed seam (red arrows). It means the seamline along the cross-cup seam has grown a little bit from its original length. This means that your upper cup seam won’t have to be shortened as much as it otherwise would be. In some cases, if you are lucky, you won’t have to shorten it at all.
