Essential support

Most Indian women have been wearing the wrong sized bra — some by choice (to minimise the size of their breasts), some because they don’t know better and others because, until recently, available sizes have been limited to the D cup. However, the days of the Indian woman stuffing herself into ill-fitting bras are over.

Shops have started stocking D, DD, E, F and even G cups. One shop owner said today’s woman, unlike previous generations, is also buying bigger bras than needed and stuffing them to enhance their assets.

International and domestic lingerie manufacturers are making or importing lingerie for what they call the fuller figure and Indian woman appear more comfortable flaunting their assets. The larger sizes are no indication of any anatomical change but greater awareness of the right size for their body type.

“One had to buy a smaller cup size or go to Lajpat Nagar to find a D cup,” said Sharon Sharma, IT professional. Smriti Gupta, director of lingerie store Kunchals, said Indian women were now aware of health trends and well travelled enough to know that the right bra size will enhance their assets, “To look more curvaceous, flat chested women wear a big cup sized bra and fill it with silicon caps or socks or even at times small balls to be a perfect 34-26-32.”

The trend towards bigger bras is not confined to India. The world’s best known brassiere, Wonderbra, has also just introduced cups from sizes D to G. Etam has come out with an E sized cup in their standalone Delhi stores. Product head Anuradha Burman said, “I won’t be surprised if there are many women who wouldn’t know their cup sizes. But recently we have seen women being more aware and this has resulted in a demand for the bigger cup size bra.”