Your breast root refers to the size and shape of the area where your breasts attach to your body. Just to clarify, this isn't to do with the shape of your breasts, which may be shallow, or full or long etc. It's a part of bra fitting that helps you work out which cup wires work for you. There are two measurements to consider when talking about breast roots; your breast root width and your breast root height.Assessing Your Wire Width
There are, broadly speaking, three breast root widths; average, narrow and wide. The width of your breast root is linked to which width, or shape, of bra wire will work best with your breasts. Your bra wire must never rest on your breast tissue and ideally you don't want it to run very wide of the outside of your breasts (although some gap between your breast root and the bra wire is not terribly detrimental to your fit).
Think of the bottom of your breast root (the area of your breast that attaches to your body underneath your breast) as a smile. You can have a broad, flat smile or you can have a deep, curved smile and you want a bra that has a matching shape to your breast root. By understanding the width of your breast root you can diagnose if a bra wire is too wide or narrow for you when you put it on.
If your bra wire rests on your breast tissue then your first step is to check that your cup volume is large enough. Try a larger cup first and if that doesn't work then the wire shape could be too narrow for the width of your breast root so this isn't a style for you.
If your bra wire goes a long way past your breast root (most commonly this is when there is lots of empty cup around the side of your body, under your armpit) then you can try a cup volume smaller but it's most likely that the wires of the cup are too wide for you and this isn't the bra for you.
Breast Root Height
On average full bust women find that their breast root is between 5 and 7 inches lower than their armpit. If the distance between your breast root base and your armpit is less than 5 inches you often find that bra wires poke into your armpit. If this is the case for you then you have high set breasts and will benefit from bras with short wires that don't rise as high into your armpit.
Fit Point: If you find that you often get empty cup at the bottom of your bra then it could be because your wires are too long for your high set breasts. Look for bras with shorter wires.
If your breast root is farther down your body than 7 inches you can experience spilling at the sides of your bra no matter which size you try. You need tall bras with long wires that run equal to (or higher than) the side of your breasts.
Help Finding the Right Wire
Bratabase is a fantastic resource for finding out whether a bra has long or short wires and how other women have found the fit based on their own breast root width and height.
At Butterfly Collection we include the side height of each bra (the side compromises of the wing and wire) on the product page to help you work out whether the length of the wire is right for your breast root height.
I hope this helps you work out if your bra fit frustrations are being caused by a mismatch between your breast root and wire xx
It helps IMMENSELY, now I just need to take your advice in hand and figure it all out :). I'm having issues all over the place, between being over weight and having migrated tissue, its very hard to figure this all out :).
ReplyDeleteIt can seem overwhelming Terry. If you can narrow down your band and cup range first then the style adjustments can come second. The migrated tissue will move over time in a bra that has a good side wing. Avoid rigid cups will moving tissue. Email our support team if you ever need some fit help xx support@butterflycollection.ca
DeleteThese posts have all been fantastic resources for people who are struggling to find bras that fit. Now if only there were more bras that covered multiples of these issues! ;-) Anyway, I just wanted to send some encouragement your way--keep up the great work!
ReplyDeleteDo you have a brand to spotlight that doesn't use "sister sizing" and does different wires and strap placement for each size? Because I've noticed that while several bras technically "fit", they are agony to wear because my narrow frame needs narrower wires and strap placement, but it seems like they only shorten the band instead of engineering a good fit for the same volume on different sizes.
Thank you for the encouragement! I don't have a particular brand to highlight I'm afraid. There is no way to engineer a bra so that it works for every body shape. A 30FF woman can have wide, high breasts or narrow round breasts, or average long breasts. Despite all being the same size these women would all need different styles to get the best fit. Narrow wires with close set straps is a very difficult style to find and one that's desperately needed. I have high hopes for the Claudette AW14 collection because their bands are firmer, the wires are narrower than peer brands and the straps on their Dessous range are closer set. I hope that helps somewhat xx
DeleteI have quiet highest breasts and always get marks that go below my breasts even if the bra is to small in the cup what would be the best brand for narrow wires? I never realised why this would happen I just thought I had funny breasts.
ReplyDeleteIt sounds to me like you don't need narrower wires, but instead, need shorter wires. Shorter wires will keep the bottom of the cup flush with your breast. I recommend trying Claudette as they have shorter wires that work well with high set breasts. xx http://www.butterflycollection.ca/brands/Claudette.html
DeleteI didn't know what the average height of the root was, so it was good to hear it expressed in actual numbers. I have noticed that despite being short, I rarely have the fit problems often associated with it, and I assumed it was due to torso height and breast placement. Now I can see that I'm actually at the far end of average. (And knowing that, I wonder who the earlier Tango II was originally designed for, because that always poked me horribly in the armpits.)
ReplyDeleteYou're so right that being short doesn't necessarily mean that you'll have trouble with wire length. It will depend entirely on the height of your breasts. xx
DeletePerhaps you can also help me with a problem I have been having. I've usually gone for medium-wide wires (like Panache) because the wires were otherwise on my breast tissue near my armpit. However, I noticed that the marks these leave are quite far from the side of my breast. So I tried narrower wires, and found that Ewa Michalak wires left marks directly against my breast root, but lie on the tissue in my armpits. As best as I can understand it, I have narrow close-set breasts with a very pronounced wide and tall tail of spence. My root shape isn't the half oval that wires are designed for.
ReplyDeleteSo what is the best solution for me? I can wear wide and tall wires, but perhaps short and narrow ones would be better? I am most interested in getting support on the projected part of the breast; if the tail of spence isn't in the cup near my armpit, it doesn't bother me.
Ewa wires are very narrow so you might want to try another brand that is halfway between a Panache Superbra width and an Ewa width. It's worth trying Cleo and Fantasie brands as their wires fall within these sizes. It sounds like you are really close and you understand what you're looking for which is great. xx
DeleteThank you for your advice. I've tried Cleo and it's the worst of Panache and EM: the marks are quite wide of the projected part of my root, but the top of the wire sits on breast tissue. The issue is that Panache really is the right width for me at the end of the wire near the armpit, but it is far too wide below that point.
DeleteThere is a big difference between tall vs short root and high-set vs low-set. I have actual tall boobs -- many bras are too short for me (sigh: Claudette) and I strongly prefer a wire that comes higher up because I can use the side support. But they aren't specially low-set. They're in that average 5"-7" down range, and in fact I have to shorten most of my bra straps significantly. Another woman might do just great in super short bras with low wires, but find herself desperately seeking longer straps.
ReplyDeleteThere is absolutely a difference between breast height and root position. Sorry if I didn't make that clear. xx
DeleteSo so helpful. Please keep up post like this one. Once I figured out my actual breast shape ordering bras online became a fun endeavor instead of being insanely discouraging. All this information makes ordering bras immensely easier so I wanted to say thank you.
ReplyDeleteThank you SO much! It's great to know that the posts are useful. Empowering women with knowledge about their own breasts is our biggest aim xx
DeleteWow, that was helpful! Thank you! Quick question, though. The comparison picture for the root width make it seem like it's a bit dependant on the amount of...sag, I guess, for lack of a better word. Is that a factor? Because my breasts sag to roughly the level of the first picture, but it seems to me that my root is fairly wide. I mean, I could be wrong; root width isn't a concept that's fully "clicked" for me yet.
ReplyDeleteHello! The shape and density of your breast tissue isn't related to your breast root. The images are just a guide to show the breast root differences but these root shapes exist with every kind of breast tissue and density. Imagine the curve of your root (where your breast meets your body) has been the same since the day your boobs were fully developed. Over time the protruding breast tissue might have gone from dense and perky to swollen and milk filled or softer and stretch marked but the shape of the join to your body stays pretty much the same. If you have wide breasts without a lot of volume then look for wide wires with cups that aren't too rounded. Stretch lace will be your friend as will cups with a teardrop shape. I hope that helps xx
DeleteOn narrow wires - I find Japanese brands typically have narrower wires and greater frontal projection.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure this question will get answered, since it's so long after the actual post, but can you clarify for me - is the root where the underwire sits on the bottom of the breast, or some imaginary line on top of my breast where I think it connects to my chest? Heeeelp. :) Having lots of trouble figuring this out!
ReplyDeleteYou're 100% right that your breast root is where you wires should lie at the bottom of your breasts. It's where your breasts meet your torso. A well fitting bra should have a wire that is a similar width as the shape of your breast root - so if you have a wide flat root you need wide flat wires, if you have a sharply curved root then you want narrow sharply curved wires. Hope that helps xx
DeleteThank you SO much! I was having the worst time putting this together from all the stuff I've read. Now to actually figure out what my shape is. How frustrating is it that although we all have breasts, there's no truly easy way to figure out what works for them? :)
DeleteYou're right, there's no easy way. Every woman has to do some trial and error to find what works for her. My hope is that if we can make bra education the norm from a school level then most women will have a handle on their best bra fit in their 20s rather than later in life or maybe never xx
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