Question to other autistic women about getting comfortable underwear

I wear big nickers from tesco's F&F range, they're comfy and cotton, maybe with a bit of nice lace around the front waist.

M&S dont' do those bras in my size, oddly enough I was thinking about starting a thread on bra's in particular, being a bit large in that dept they all seem to be more like scafolding than underwear. I went to M&S for a fitting last year and althgouh I asked for something with no wirews or bones in, I ended up with one with no underwires, but it had bones in the sides which I didn't know about until I tried sitting normally or driving when they dug into my ribs. Iwas told by the fitter that they dont' consider the sort of bra I normally wear as a proper bra, because it's a comfort bra and that I'd need to train by breasts to accept a proper bra again. I thought WTF? Surely clothes should fit the body not the other way around? I'm sure there must be alternatives to bras, but I dont' know what they are, apart from corsets? I have worn a corset and found them comfortable when standing, but not when sitting. I have problems getting anything like that long enough in the body anyway. I still wear my cheap and cheerful nylon comfort bras, they're the only things I can get to fit both properly and comfortably.

I have a pigeons breast and sparrows ankles and find socks are too tight around the ankles and cut into me, they never used to, the only thing I can come up with is that so much stuff is made in China. 

TheCatWoman said:

Surely clothes should fit the body not the other way around?

Sorry if this comes across as mansplaining but I studied this when I worked studied corsetry to help my wifes fashion business.

The breasts are likely to sag without proper support and this is what most bras try to achieve. Depending on your type of movement the support needs also vary, hence sports bras will be ultra restrictive to stop the "girls" from moving about too much and stretching the connective tissue & skin.

If you just hold breasts in their natural position once they start to sag then any movement that stretches then will compund the sagging, so they should ideally be supported in a position higher than their default.

Underwiring provides most of the support for these because it establishes a shelf for the material to start from and provides a safety net for want of a better term. It can be uncomfortable but for those with larger breasts then they will need something else to replace the underwiring mechanism to do this - something like a tight elastic band.

Avoiding these options means you are likely to have the sagging continue to happen. This is the trade off of the discomfort.

If any garment that is tight and restrictive is too much then it is unlikely you will find much that really works for you in this departmen and that holds your breasts in roughly the place where you want them to be for a normal sillouette.

For larger sizes you will also need wider straps to spread the load on your shoulders - this is just physics as the narrower they are the more they will cut in.

It was educational for me to find out about the range of issues women face in this field for comfort, style and practicality plus how much they suffer in the name of maintaining an image. All that said, a good designer can make something that works for most sizes and shapes but there is almost always a price to pay comfort wise to achieve a shape other than that which nature has given you.

I don't really care about appearance, I want to be comfortable, I can no longer have underwires as surgery has distorted my shape a bit and the wires dig in. None of it is helped by the fact that bras in my size are so expensive, often the £40+ bracket and to have say 4 of these to account for washing etc is getting on towards £200 and they recomend you should replace them every 3 months, I just don't have that sort of money and I resent paying that sort of money to be uncomfortable. When I was measured although my rib cage measures 37 inches they say I'm a 42, and an F cup, they tried a 44 with a smaller cup size and I fell out of the bottom of it. I have narrow shoulders too which dosen't help when all the styles are for women with wider shoulders, the cups are the wrong shape for me in many bra's and I don't fill the bottom of the cup and spill over the top and sides. Wider straps, of course, if only you could get bra's with wider straps and in what universe do I want padding to make me look bigger?

I still think it's wrong that women should have to train thier bodies to accept an item of clothing. Bra construction hasn't changed sinse the 1940's, I remember a tv program a few years ago where a couple of engineers tried to reinvent common items to make them work better, I think about the only one they failed on was a bra, M&S did make them for a while, but they were even more uncomfortable than normal ones. One of the things they said was that it makes no sense to have so much weight on two wires and two shoulder straps.

Yeah, the shops are only there now so you can go pick up your online order to save on their delivery fees. I had to buy some in varying sizes and just try them at home and see what felt right. I did get measured when pregnant and when my first was nine months and I realised I was going to keep feeding as the bras I had didn't fit at all (I think I could do it then as it was in the things you do when your pregnant). The idea of asking for a fitting is too much for me now so guessing at home is my only option anyway.

Yeah, the shops are only there now so you can go pick up your online order to save on their delivery fees. I had to buy some in varying sizes and just try them at home and see what felt right. I did get measured when pregnant and when my first was nine months and I realised I was going to keep feeding as the bras I had didn't fit at all (I think I could do it then as it was in the things you do when your pregnant). The idea of asking for a fitting is too much for me now so guessing at home is my only option anyway.