Bra help for DD

[teacherwith2kids]

I've had DD in tears (again) on a bra-buying expedition. Bear with me, as I'm not good at bra vocabulary.

DD is 12. Very tall, dancer. Slim, but mid-puberty with definite curves. She spends her dancing life with very slight, often completely undeveloped girls and feels uncomfortable with her curviness as well as conspicuous because of her height.

Posted here about a year ago, needing advice on earlyish bras. In the end, she was fitted at Debenhams,. who found her some nice soft slightly padded bras, unwired, with a cotton feel, in a 30b....possible not quite the size a bra interventionist would have made her (that was more like a 26-28C), but they were comfortable and got her over the 'I need to wear a bra' hurdle.

She needs larger bras. Although she still fits within her bras completely, the part between the cups is increasingly lifted away from her chest, and as she also wears a vest to avoid bra showing under her school shirt, she has a rather shapeless 'monoboob' appearance.

In the course of the expedition and tears, I have established that what she wants are:

• Bras that are pretty (ie not plan moulded T-shirt bras)
• Bras that 'do something' in terms of support and shaping. Everything we tried on, in whatever size, felt like it was just 'covering' her IYSWIM

To address the second, we tried underwired bras BUT had exactly the same problem in that in the central part between the cups, the middle part of the wire was lifted away from her chest.

And she HATES, HATES the process and the development that makes it necessary. We do have a (newish) Bravissimo locally, though she is probably just a little too small still, but she would find going in MORTIFYING in the extreme.

Any guidance???

Non wired will almost always lift a bit in the middle as the gore just doesn't have the strength to tack properly. It's tricky to judge when it's just lifting because it's not wired and lifting because it's too small.

Juna - lots of people tuck that pesky bit of lace in for exactly that reason. If Juna works relatively well then Maddie might (it's still balconette but a bit more covered, slightly wider and shallower too) It;s tricky as the upper part being less covered is probably why the balconette shape of the juna works. There are a few other Cleo bras with the same cut, but no lace - Cleo basically only have a few shapes that they remake in lots of fabrics so probably worth keeping an eye.

Was it the "normal" freya deco (the one that's a plunge t shirt type) that you tried? It's pretty deep so I'd kind of expect it to fail if Juna worked. There is a half cup version which might be better. There's also some freya half cups like the patsy which could suit.

If she's really not comfortable with the open cups of the balconette then she could try the Bravissimo Satine - it's taller but still quite wide and shallow so may work. Bravissimo Alana is fairly closed at the top of the cups so could work, as might the Panache Idina balconette which often works for Juna lovers.

Statistically, you are a wonder! 'Wide and shallow' are two words that I need to internalise, as those exactly describe why the ones that didn't work, didn't work.

I think we're going for the John Lewis Lucy (she's wearing it at the moment, and it does give her much more 'shape' under clothes than her existing bras) in some nice colours, but will return to your other suggestions in future. Thank you so much!

Even for those of us with easily found sizes (I am 30F so a bit more tricky) there are still only certain makes,styles and shapes that fit properly. For example, I am useless with Freya but Panache fit me better. It's trial and error. I used to order all sorts from Figleaves if there was a discount code for P&P or similar. Most went back back at least you could try them on and say Yay or Nay. The alternative is to get your proper size at Bravisimmo, maybe buy one there and then order cheaper from ebay?Figleaves/online