As warmer weather approaches, so does the wedding and prom season and the hunt for your special outfits and dresses. These special occasions are exciting and fun, but sometimes shopping for them isn’t. For whatever reason, designers forget that women wear bras when they design their clothes, clearly thinking that most are an A or B cup size. So, what’s a girl to do?

Over the past 24 years in business, we’ve fitted all types of breasts into all types of outfits. Here are a few expert pointers we’d like to pass along to you when you’re considering what to buy and what bra you’ll need to wear to go with it.
Clothes buying goes ten times more smoothly when you already have your properly fitted undergarments beforehand. They truly are the foundation of any outfit. A poorly fitted bra can make even the cutest outfit look a little drab, so our #1 piece of advice is to choose your undergarments first and then find your dress or top. Getting the shape and support you want from your bra will only make your chosen outfit look that much better, and you won’t be left fiddling with your undergarments all event long.

However, we know and understand that some people just see that perfect dress or special top and must have it. The task now is to figure out how to make it work. We’re here to help, with many solutions available to get you ready to showcase your chosen garment. We highly recommend that you bring your dress or outfit with you to try on bras and shapewear. It just takes the guesswork out of the equation, ensuring you get exactly what you need the first time!

Another consideration when shopping is finding dress shapes that suit your body type. For more information on body types, check out the Breast and Body Type page on our website. Here are examples of styles we’ve observed that have worked very well over the years. Mermaid dresses that hug the figure and flare out at the bottom look phenomenal on a pear, hourglass, or inverted triangle-shaped body. If you're more of a rectangle, round, or diamond shape, an A-line dress will look fantastic. It will nip in at the narrowest part of the body, usually under the breast, and really accentuate the bustline, and then the full skirt will accommodate a fuller figure. If you’re an inverted triangle, it will also balance out the shoulders. A slinky figure-hugging dress also looks really great on rectangle, hourglass, or pear-shaped bodies. By choosing a dress that fits your body well and pairing it with a bra that nicely sculpts your bust and offers maximum support, you can create a truly show-stopping look. You’ll be turning heads wherever you go!

Here at Breakout Bras, we have all kinds of solutions for you! We have strapless bras that go up to a UK J cup and several adhesive bra options. But, more importantly, we have some practical advice for what bra options best fit your individual bust size and shape.

So, let’s be real about our boobs.

If your breasts mostly keep their shape once you take your bra off but just sit a little lower, that low-plunge, low-back dress should look great. However, for those of you that weren’t gifted by the perfect boob fairy, that dress will have us worrying about having a Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction at any moment, which is definitely not how you want to spend your time in that one-of-a-kind, show-stopping outfit.
We do have adhesive bras and tape that work great for the low plunge and/or low back dresses and tops (aka the problem children of the bra fitting community, lol). For example, we carry a product called Nood, which is essentially an adhesive cup. The size 4 Nood will easily support up to a UK H cup size, but the shaping won’t be as rounded or uplifted if you have heavier breasts or shallow and soft breast tissue. Here’s a picture for reference of the type of shaping you'd get from Nood if your breasts aren’t naturally perky:

She’s definitely getting more lift and support than if she weren’t wearing a bra at all, but her breasts are not as rounded or lifted as they would be if she were wearing a strapless bra like the Curvy Kate Luxe shown below:

Booby Tape is another adhesive option. This product is great for a variety of low-back or oddly cut styles that would show the bra underneath. However, as with the Nood, you'll be hard-pressed to get a rounded shape if your breasts are heavy or you have softer tissue. Here are some examples of what you can do with Booby Tape:

As you can see in the third picture, if you have larger breasts, the tape will lift them up, but it needs to have that support on the shoulder, which wouldn’t work in a strapless style. You may need to apply the tape as shown in the first picture, but your breasts are going to have a flatter, more smooshed look instead of being round and lifted. We recommend avoiding a low-back strapless or a low-plunge strapless garment all together if you have larger, heavier breasts. The tape is a good solution for most, but again, we want you to be supported like this: 

And not to be spilling out, not having your breasts lifted into the cup portion of the dress, or having your tape showing like this:

For people who have heavy breasts or soft or shallow tissue, a strapless bra or a regular bra will be what gives the best support and shape. Dresses that have a sweetheart, square, or straight across neckline will work best with those bras and breast types.

Here are some examples of what those necklines look like:

We have some great strapless options that would work for almost any of those dresses! The only situation where the bras might not work is when the neckline plunges too much. Since 100% of your support is coming from your band, you want to make sure it’s nice and tight, particularly if you have heavier breasts. That firm band is what is going to keep it from sliding down. Likewise, the center wire and cup in a strapless bra are going to need to be taller to help distribute the weight of your breasts and support them since you don’t have straps to help. If your breasts are heavy and you have a plunge-style strapless bra, the weight of your breasts is going to pull the bra down, or your breasts will pop out of the center of the cups without the extra support of the taller center wire. That’s why our plunge strapless bras aren't available in cup sizes larger than a UK H cup.* If you’re in a larger size than that, you really need the extra support to keep everything in place. You want to enjoy your special occasion, be it a cocktail party, prom, wedding, or just because. You don’t want to worry about constantly pulling at your bra.

Here are some great strapless options that we have available that work for heavier breasts or breasts that have soft and shallow tissue:

We hope this blog has included information that you've found helpful for picking out your outfit and bra for your special occasion! Be sure to check our YouTube channel soon for video commentary on this topic! 

*Exciting News: Since writing this article, Curvy Kate has come out with a new strapless style that goes to a UK J cup and is plunge. It’s not available for sale yet. It will ship to us within the next few weeks and we will update you on how it fits on the blog and in Melissa's Comments on the website!

**Images of dresses courtesy of David's Bridal and Dillard's