After Dark: Meet NYC’s Ryan Burke, Artist And Nightlife Personality

This is the second installment in HuffPost Gay Voices Associate Editor James Nichols‘ ongoing series “After Dark: NYC Nightlife Today And Days Past” that examines the state of New York nightlife in the modern day, as well as the development and production of nightlife over the past several decades. Each featured individual in this series currently serves as a prominent person in the New York nightlife community or has made important contributions in the past that have sustained long-lasting impacts.

HuffPost Gay Voices believes that it is important and valuable to elevate the work, both today and in the past, of those engaged in the New York nightlife community, especially in an age where queer history seems to be increasingly forgotten. Nightlife not only creates spaces for queers and other marginalized groups to be artistically and authentically celebrated, but the work of those involved in nightlife creates and shapes the future of our culture as a whole. Visit Gay Voices regularly to learn not only about individuals currently making an impact in nightlife, but those whose legacy has previously contributed to the ways we understand queerness, art, identity and human experience today.

The Huffington Post: What did you journey to becoming a fixture in the New York nightlife scene entail? How did you get to this point?
Ryan Burke: My journey began in Los Angeles. I started dressing up to go to L.A. parties Mr. Black, Rhonda and Mustache Mondays with my friends. After a couple of years of this I started hosting “Mr. Black” with my boyfriend at the time, Oscar Ambrosio, who did looks with me multiple nights a week. We were just doing it for fun and I started photographing us and our friends as a way of documenting our lives. When I moved to New York almost two years ago I intended to leave nightlife behind and focus solely on photography, but once here I realized that all the people I knew through Facebook were involved in nightlife or went out pretty often. I saw it as a way to network and make new friends and connections. I began going out to On Top, Wolf Party, Vandam and other parties and I continued to document my looks. I was consistently out and started to get to know many of the people in the scene.

I met designer Domonique Echeverria at “Vandam” one night and we hit it off so I started visiting her and getting closer to her. By the next summer when “On Top” was starting again she suggested I become a host for opening night. Susanne Bartsch hired me and I put my most elaborate look yet together for the opening night. I created a headpiece out of pearls and feathers and my roommate, La Rosa, made a custom gown for me. Domonique and I moved in together soon after and I continued to host off and on the rest of the summer and brought looks inspired by Dovima’s aesthetic — long gowns, big hats or headpieces and an air of elegance. I wore several gowns created by Domonique and shot her looks as well, which started to establish us as a creative team. Since the summer I’ve continued to be a consistent part of nightlife despite the fact that I don’t typically host. I go to a lot of Susanne’s events and Domonique hosts many of them as well.

What kind of work do you tend to produce? How would you say nightlife influences or informs your art?

I still consider myself a photographer first. I find inspiration in everything but usually it is the abstract nature of things that inspires me. I don’t really care for glasses even though my eyesight isn’t great so I see the world in a kind of soft blur of color. Anything can become a reference for a look and I just build off of small and abstract shapes.

Nightlife is a huge influence on me and the art I produce. The whole idea that you can change your appearance and become something else was demonstrated to me by the nightlife community, who also encouraged my own exploration of ideas. Nightlife has motivated and supported my development. The people I’ve met have inspired me and many have influenced and changed my perspective of the world, gender identity and personal style. I hope to inspire and motivate others by what I do in the same way. But what I encourage isn’t becoming a nightlife socialite — it’s becoming a person who is free to express themselves in whatever way makes them feel the most amazing and comfortable. It doesn’t have to be restricted to just clubs, but clubs are a wonderful place to start and be inspired.

ryan burke

Nightlife has historically been a place for queers and other marginalized groups to subversively create art and build community. As queer identity becomes increasingly mainstreamed, what role do you see nightlife playing in the future of the queer community?

Nightlife has certainly evolved from the days of Stonewall when queer culture was not accepted. Gay people used to have to be very smart and clever in order to survive. Expressing yourself was not easy. Just being yourself was not easy. These days I see gay people becoming stupid on purpose and obsessed with pop culture and there are more and more clubs catering to this sort of crowd. Even drag is becoming mainstream — every other gay person does drag and posts videos of themselves lip-syncing on Instagram. I see nightlife becoming less about underground art and music and more about commercialism. A lot of artists have pulled out of the scene entirely and many are less present than they used to be. While there are still talented drag queens, club personalities and DJs out there, it is becoming a needle in a haystack situation. Many artists I know, myself included, see nightlife as a way to get noticed at first but not a place to stay for long.

How do you see what is happening now in New York nightlife as building on a historical legacy of artists, performers, musicians and personalities over the past decades?

Historically, the New York nightlife scene has been a stepping stone for many well-known artists in a variety of mediums. While the cost of living and increase in commercialism is making it harder for artists to survive and thrive in this city, I still see an artistic community full of very talented people. I think we are on an upswing right now and I see more and more of a collaboration between artists across the city — and I see many of them come in and out of nightlife.

The one major difference between current nightlife and that of decades past is the crackdown on excessive drug use and increase on security and restrictions. While this does create a safer environment to party in it also makes it less of a party atmosphere. People like to go out to get a release from everyday life — and in New York this is especially necessary. I personally have never been much of a drug user but I don’t care for the presence of security and people watching your every move. This controlled environment is less inviting and many people don’t get out and express themselves the way that they used to. Again, the other deterring factor, of course, is the cost of living. Many people I know live in Brooklyn or Queens now and the commute into the city can be difficult, especially in the winter. That said, there are and always will be those who do it because it’s part of their nature. These are the people I relate to and am encouraged and inspired by.

What is the most important thing you see coming out of the way nightlife has shifted and developed into what it is today?

I see driven artists banding together and creating work outside of nightlife. They go out, have some fun, meet people, but work really hard in the meantime to develop their careers because they know that nightlife isn’t lucrative. Some performers, hosts and promoters can support themselves with nightlife but most of us can’t afford to put together looks for fun or even for the small amount we get paid. We do it because we really love it — but it’s not easy these days.

ryan burke

During his feature, which ran earlier this series, original Club Kid Michael Alig told HuffPost: “It seems like nightlife hasn’t really evolved in the past 15 years. I have a whole theory about that. My theory is that we are witnessing the end of our Western cultural dominance in the world and that we’ve gone as far as we can with our Western lifestyle as far as decadence, fashion, style, stuff like that. We’ve done every kind of fashion imaginable from miniskirts to maxi skirts, from peg leg pants to bell-bottoms, from black lipstick to glossy lipstick –everywhere in-between. The only things we can do right now are kind of different variations of the same model and we’ve even done that already. “ — How do you respond to this? Do you agree with him?

I’m no expert on the history and development of nightlife so I can only offer my observation from my own experience. Michael is right in that we have explored every aspect of Western cultural dominance in the world — but I don’t see that as an end to innovative ideas. Everyone has their own reason for dressing up and being part of it. I do it because it’s an innate part of me as a person. I’ve loved dressing up my entire life. Even when I started dressing up to go out, I did it before seeing “Party Monster” or knowing what Club Kids are. Because of this, I don’t draw upon their aesthetic very much. What I do has more of an organic feel to it and I draw my ideas from nature and abstraction.

My creative partner and friend Domonique is a designer and is part of nightlife as a way of exposing others to her designs and fashion ideas. She loves to combine elements from several cultures and eras to create looks that are both familiar and innovative at the same time. While nightlife has always been about freedom of expression and a release from the mundane, I feel that it has evolved in a sense that… it’s not about shocking people or being political, it’s about creating an environment where artists are free to express their ideas, perform, design, entertain and collaborate with each other. There is plenty of room for new ideas, as well as reinterpretation of what’s been done in new ways.

Michael Alig talked a bit about “subverting the establishment” and nightlife in political terms throughout his interview. Nightlife, for you, has never been about being political?

Nightlife, for me, has never been political. I don’t believe that when Club Kids are dressing up and doing drugs it’s about anything other than having fun. It’s just a party. For me, it’s a way of expressing my aesthetic and experimenting with the many ways that I can alter my appearance. Granted, it is definitely easier now than it was a few decades ago. People are more open-minded and that is partly a result of being exposed to this kind of self-expression.

I have been around a lot of club personalities in LA and New York by this point and I would have to say that very few — if any — are doing what they do to subvert the establishment or be political. We all support equality and freedom of expression, of course, and nobody wants to be controlled and monitored by the government, but I find that the majority of club personalities do what they do simply because they love it. They love showing off their ideas, their fashion, their makeup, their music, their outrageous personalities and being around people who appreciate them and understand where they are coming from. I don’t believe that nightlife has the potential to have much of an impact on politics. I think it is more about creating a breeding ground for artistic minds and giving them a group of like-minded peers that they can network and work with if they choose to do so. Otherwise, it’s just a way to escape and have fun.

What projects are you currently working on?

I’m working on a big gallery show in Chelsea on the 26th of June which Susanne Bartsch is putting together. The event is called “bARTsch” and is two doors down from the Chelsea Hotel. I will have three new series of self-portraits which have never been seen and aren’t nightlife-related. There will also be a performance piece with choreographer Olga Dobrowolska with an interactive gown designed by Domonique Echeverria. I’m also working on my looks with Domonique for the Life Ball in Vienna. We will be walking the red carpet and closing the ceremony with David LaChapelle and Carmen Carrera. I’m working on an editorial for a spanish magazine Dromenon, two editorials for Revelation magazine, two personal editorials which I will shop around to different magazines and many other smaller projects. My hope is to produce as much work as possible this year so that I can find an agent.

What do you see as the future of nightlife in New York City?

Nightlife seems to be heading in a direction where groups are mixing with each other. I see more clubs with a mix of gay, straight, Club Kids, drag queens, race, class, age, etc. There will always be clubs geared toward a particular crowd, but even those always have at least a few outliers who wouldn’t normally be associated with that particular scene. This allows for better exposure to all types of people — which is a wonderful thing. As far as Club Kid nightlife goes, I think it will always exist but it won’t be so exclusive or underground. People dress up just because it happens to be their personal style — not because they are going to a particular type of party and only seeing people just like them.

For more from Ryan Burke head here to visit the artist’s website.

Special thanks to James Nichols at the Huffington Post

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/25/ryan-burke_n_5374523.html#slide=start

Mindblowing Makeup Artist Ryan Burke

How Men Really Feel About Breast Implants

For anyone considering breast augmentation, this is a very unbiased article on breast implants. Before undergoing surgery and living with a foreign object in your body for the rest of your life. It is good to know that there is the safe and natural alternative of Pueraria Mirifica for breast enlargement.

Fake is a beautifully complicated word. It starts softly, in almost a whisper, then quickly gathers strength on the way to its harsh, nasty terminus. It’s employed with equal authority by schoolchildren and accountants, jewelers and philosophers. And it’s rife with contradiction.

In sports a fake is a move, a tool, a device. In art it is corruption. A fake either works so perfectly that the fact of the counterfeit goes unnoticed, or it is so poorly executed that it fools no one and does not work at all. Noun. Verb. Adjective. The word has range.

I always laugh when people use the word fake when discussing breast augmentation. They say it as if the breasts themselves were lies, forgeries, as if someone were being hoodwinked. Yet there is very little deception in the matter of implants, since most of the time the whole story is right there for you to look at. In point of fact, you’re supposed to look. For men that’s the best part. Most men have lived some portion of their lives surreptitiously regarding cleavage, stealing glances from across the 10th-grade-English classroom, from behind a magazine, from the end of the bar. I don’t know a single heterosexual guy who doesn’t rubberneck when it comes to this part of a woman’s body. I’ve seen preachers, therapists, pharmacists, and university presidents eyeball a woman with great cleavage, often cleavage obviously built on the back of great implants. You don’t have to be an evolutionary biologist to know that men are visually stimulated. So the tacit invitation to have a look at a woman’s breasts is, in itself, a wonderful thing. And whether what one is looking at is a miracle of technology or the real deal seems less than the point.

The compact is clear: A woman with breast augmentation asks to be regarded. It really isn’t about size; it’s about attitude. Her attitude. That’s a provocation most men welcome.

Good implants look more than real; they look miraculous and animated—firm, elevated, shaped. They seem unimported, wholly of the woman. The word you want to use is incredible. Cheap implants, on the other hand, look painful and cartoonlike. They make the breast look flipped up, appended. The skin is stretched too tight, giving every inch of the grape the tactile feedback of a grapefruit. The word here? Unbearable. I know men who claim they don’t care, either way—they just love them big. Size queens. There’s no arguing subtlety with guys like that.

Encountering an augmented breast for the first time is a bit like sitting in a very expensive car before a test-drive. It’s unfamiliar and more than a little exciting. It’s different from your normal ride. Things have been tricked up. It may be bigger than you’re used to, and certain places are firmer, appear newer, seem to offer a different kind of function. You can’t help responding to the features—the DVD player in the console, the fancy steering wheel, the huge speakers. You shake your head; it is, after all, just a car. Still, you feel lured.

But when you get intimate with the augmented breast, two things are certain: You can always feel the implant, and feeling it will always lead you to the conscious realization that someone pimped this breast. Any guy who has ever had so much as a lap dance will tell you that implants are an undeniably different tactile experience. The truth is in the touch.

I once dated an airline gate agent who’d moved to a C cup after years as an A. I had seen pictures of her—”before” pictures—and I have to admit that as I sat there, with the after picture in the flesh, it seemed to me she had made a reasonable choice. She was wildly proud of her new breasts and took her shirt off the first night we dated just to show me, long before we even kissed. “More is more,” she told me as we sat thigh-to-thigh on her couch. We were 30 minutes from our first meal together, and there she was with her shirt off, her shoulders square, her back firm and upright. She asked me if I liked her posture. “My doctor said good posture is just as important as the implants.” He had a point.

She admitted even then that the implants came at some cost. She spoke like a sage. “I didn’t go to church for four weeks after I had the surgery,” she said. “But people always forget who you were. They only remember what you are.” She was, she told me, completely used to the change within a few months of the surgery. However, in the coming weeks, she introduced me to a series of breast-related routines that indicated otherwise. She didn’t like any weight on her chest, not even my arm around her shoulder at the movies, because she could feel the implants. She couldn’t sleep on her left side easily, though she asked me to favor her left breast during sex. She held a hand to one breast when she rolled over.

Look, I’m like any guy. I’ve always thought a woman’s breasts were a tremendous pleasure, both publicly and privately. A real gift. But while I loved the way this woman looked, within weeks the presence of her implants dominated everything intimate between us, so much so that I started to feel they were like a really annoying pet. Like a really needy toy poodle, an indulgence that was running the household. Late in the game, in the days before we cut it off, she told me I could skip the nipples during foreplay. She tried to reassure me. The implants, she told me, had changed the sensation. “It’s not bad exactly,” she said. “It just feels a little grinding.” I had to agree.

can report that my friends are all over the map on the subject of implants. I have a college friend who hates them because they killed the pleasure of strip clubs for him. “I remember when breasts were soft. Now it’s like someone stuck a big wet washcloth in there,” he says. “When the music gets going, it feels like a kickboxing class.”

Other guys love the whole phenomenon, the very sight of augmented breasts, the very idea of them. Sleeping with a woman who has implants is a special accomplishment for these guys, though I’ve never heard any of them report much in the way of advantage or disadvantage, any real amplitude in the giving or receiving of pleasure. When I called one of them just now to ask for his thoughts on the matter, he was sanguine. “Implants are like women,” he said. “Every one is different.” I feel compelled to add that they actually pay this guy to teach at the university level.

For many men, the self-consciousness of breast implants is a remarkable, and I think legitimate, turn-on. To them it feels like an offering. “You can’t deny the power of it,” a buddy told me of sleeping with his girlfriend now that she’s had augmentation. He deeply appreciates the change, though he never asked for it or even felt unhappy with the real thing. The implants, he says, solved something for her, not him. “She did this thing. She decided to make this change. It filled something up in her.” I laughed at the pun, but he shook his head. “We don’t even joke about it because it’s that real. It made things better for her somehow. And you know, that’s just better for both of us.”

I asked if he could tell the difference—meaning could he feel the implants themselves? “Sure,” he said. “It’s not the same. Not at all. The great part is she’s the same woman, but she’s, well, she’s just more.” I got that straightaway. It wasn’t size or volume at issue. It was a question of appetite, his and hers. In this, the very best case I could imagine, the implants brought together the lodestars of great sex, or maybe desire itself—wanting more and being more, all in the same moment.

Special thanks to Oprah.com for this article By Tom Chiarella

How Men Really Feel About Breast Implants

Bra Fitting Guide

You’ve probably heard the statistics – it’s estimated that up to 85% of women are wearing the wrong size bra. As you begin to use Pueraria Mirifica and are in need of a larger bra, here are some very useful tips on proper bra sizing from Big Girls Bras .

That’s an astounding number, but not so surprising when you look at what we know and don’t know about bras. Things like:

Most of us have never been professionally fitted for a bra.

Most mass-market retailers don’t sell bras in a cup size larger than a DD so we make do with what’s available, even if we need a larger cup size.

Bra sizing and the relationship between band size and cup size is confusing and never adequately explained.

What we know about bras and how they should fit came from our mothers, who probably had never been professionally fitted and who learned from their moms, who had never been professionally fitted, and so on.

That’s where The Big Girls Bras Guide to Fitting the Right Bra for You comes in. We’ve written this guide for you, so you can finally find and fit the right bra. So you never again have to settle for an almost right bra.

How a Bra Should Fit

Different parts of a bra.

You’d think this would be self-explanatory, but we’ve worn ill-fitting bras for so long many of us need a refresher.

The band is responsible for 80% to 90% of the support of the bra. It should fit comfortably around your torso, parallel to the floor. The band should be snug but you should be able to slide two fingers between the band and your skin. The band should never ride up toward your shoulders.

Straps are responsible for only 10% to 20% of the bra support, their primary function is to even or level the bra. They should stay in place without digging into your shoulders.

Whether you’re wearing a full cup or a demi cup, your breasts should fit inside the cup with no spillage over the top, under the cup or around your underarms. If you’re spilling out of the cup, you need a larger cup size. If there are wrinkles in the fabric of the cup, you need a smaller cup size.

The gore, the portion of the band between the cups, should fit flat against your chest wall between your breasts. If the gore is not flat against your sternum, your cups are too small.

Underwires should completely surround your breasts and lay against your chest wall. The underwires should never dig into your breasts, your chest or underarms.

In a properly fitted bra your nipples should be halfway between your shoulders and elbows, facing forward. Adjust your straps so your breasts are in this position.

The bra should fit on the loosest hook, this allows you to tighten the bra as the elastic relaxes over time.

Your bra should stay in place when you lift your arms or bend over.

An Expert’s Three-Point Fit Guide

The Expert's Three-Point Fit Guide are the Gore, Underwire, and Band.

One of the top bra fit experts in the industry says you can tell if a bra fits properly by checking three things.

The gore, the portion of the band between the cups, should fit flat against your chest wall between your breasts. If the gore is not flat against your chest, the bra is the wrong size – usually with a band size too large and a cup size too small. Try a smaller band and a larger cup size until you get your center gore to fit flat against your chest.

Underwires should completely surround your breasts and lay against your chest wall. If the underwire is a finger’s width or more lower than your breast, the band size is probably too small. If the underwire lies against your breast tissue, the cups are probably too small. Adjust band size and cup size until you get the underwire in the proper position.

The band should lie flat against your back in a straight line below your shoulder blades; it should not pull-up toward your shoulders. A band that cuts into your skin or leaves red marks is probably too small. A band that “rides up” on your back is probably too large. Remember if you go down a band size you’ll need to go up a cup size and vice versa.

What a Well-Fitted Bra Should Feel Like

Points of a well fitting bra

First and foremost, it should feel and look great. There is a noticeable difference when you slip into a well-fitted bra. You feel secure, supported.

Will finding the right bra mean all discomfort disappears as soon as you put it on? Not exactly. Just like a new pair of shoes, your new bra and you will need a few days to adjust to each other. But nothing should hurt or poke.

You will be aware that you are wearing a well-fitted bra. The band should feel snug but not tight. If you can’t feel the band, it’s not doing its job.

The bra should remain in place when you raise your arms or lean over. Your breasts should not pop out of the cups when you move.

Is Your Current Bra a Good Fit?

Bra Cup Fitting
Bra Band Fitting

Just because a bra band fits around your torso and the cups more or less cover your breasts, it doesn’t mean that the bra FITS you. Look at the difference in the photos above. In the right size bra you look slimmer, younger and overall BETTER.

So, does your current bra fit? You should be able to answer YES to these questions:

Do your breasts fit in the cups without bulging, spilling or gaping?

Does the gore lie flat against your chest wall?

Do the underwires lie flat against your chest wall on all sides? No poking allowed.

Is the back of the band straight across your back?

Do the straps stay in place without digging into your shoulders?

Can you slide one or two fingers under your bra band?

Can you slide one or two fingers under your bra straps?

And, you should always be able to answer NO to these questions:

Are there any indentations on your shoulders from your bra straps?

Do your bra straps leave red marks on your shoulders?

Do you have to adjust your bra straps multiple times a day?

Do your breasts look lumpy under your clothes?

Are there any wrinkles in the fabric of the cups?

Do your breasts pop out of the cups when you move?

How Bra Sizing Works

Band size and cup size are not independent measures, they are interrelated.

The band size is expressed as an even number of inches; it represents the measurement of your chest just below your breasts.

The cup size is a letter that represents the difference between your band size and the measurement of your body at the fullest part of your breasts. Each increase in letter represents an increase of 1″ in the difference between the band size and the measurement of your breasts.

For example, a 38C means a chest measurement of 38″ and a breast measurement of 41″. The difference between the two measurements is 3″ which is a C cup. A 38D would be a chest measurement of 38″ and a breast measurement of 42″. The 4″ difference in the two measurements is a D cup. And so on.

The tricky part is because band size and cup size are interrelated there is no standard size for a D cup, or any cup size for that matter. The cup in a 40D is larger than the cup in a 38D. Got that?

To further confuse things, in standard U.S. sizing there are no E or F cups. A breast measurement 5″ larger than the band size is a DD and a breast measurement 6″ larger than the band size is a DDD. Some European brands do have E and F cups. And there is some variance in sizing among the brands.

We want to make it simpler for you, so we’ve created a few tools and charts to help.

European Band Size Conversions for Bras

USA	European	French
32 34 36 38 40 42 44 46 48	70 75 80 85 90 95 100 105 110	85 90 95 100 105 110 115 120 125
Cup size is the same between U.S. and Europe/France. “A” cups (U.S.) = “A” cup in Europe/France; B=B, C=C, etc with some exceptions for “DD” and “DDD” cups. Many European brands (and some American brands) use the lettering “E” for a DD cup size and “F” for a DDD cup size. The cup size guide above should help you determine which cup size is appropriate for you.

Sister Sizing

Sister sizing is a technique used by bra fitters when they just can’t find the right bra for you with your natural size. Sister sizing is not as ideal as the perfect fitting bra, but you may try it if you are struggling to get a bra that you like in the size that you need. Take your normal size bra (let’s use 32F as our example) the sister sizes are 34E and 30G. If you go up a band size, come down a cup size. Likewise if you go down a band size, come up a cup size.

Consider Sister Sizing only when you absolutely can not find the perfect fit from the bra that you want. In the chart below, find your size, then look at the sizes directly to the left and right of your size – those are your sister sizes.

graphics/Sister Sizing Chart

Getting Measured for a Bra

Primary Method (Method 1)

Use this method for British brands (Panache, Freya, Fantasie, etc.), European (Chantelle, Prima Donna, Conturelle, etc.), and most of the more expensive bras (over $40) at Big Girls Bras

Step 1: To determine your band measurement, measure your ribcage directly below your breasts. The tape measure should be parallel to the floor and snug but not pulled tight. If the tape measure shows an even number, this is your band size. If the tape measure shows an odd number, round up to the next even number to get your band size.

Step 2: Measure the fullest part of your breasts holding your arms at your sides. Keep the tape measure level around your body and measure the fullest part of your breasts (over your nipples). There is no need to round this number up.

Step 3: Subtract your band measurement from the measurement of the fullest part of your breasts to determine the difference. The cup size is the difference between the measurements. As a general rule, the difference between each cup size is 1″. See our Bra Cup Size Comparison Chart.

Alternate Bra Measuring Steps

Alternate Method (Method 2)

Use this method for American Brands (Bali, Playtex, Leading Lady, Vanity Fair, Exquisite Form, etc.) at Big Girls Bras. This method will produce a larger band size and smaller cup size than the first method.

Step 1: To determine your band measurement, measure across your chest directly below your armpits. The tape measure should be parallel to the floor and snug but not pulled tight. If the tape measure shows an even number, this is your band size. If the tape measure shows an odd number, round up to the next even number to get your band size.

If you’re more comfortable getting a professional fitting choose a store that specializes in lingerie and carries bras in your size. While most department stores once had trained fitters, only a few do now. It takes a trained eye to know the difference between a bra that kind of fits and one that give you the support and comfort you deserve.

There are some minor differences in how brands size their bras. We want to make if simple for you so we’ve created this chart. It helps you see the cup size measurement for each brand of bra we carry so you can compare the size you wear in one brand with the comparable size in other brands.

The first column of numbers is band size, the first row of numbers is the “difference” between bust size measurement and band measurement (bust – band).

We’ve placed our brands into groups to show the brands with that group’s cup progression. Not all brands come in all sizes.

For the most accurate results, use our Method 1 of measuring found in our detailed measuring instructions.

For example, if you measure a 36 band size and a 46 bust size using Method 1, then the difference is 10 (46 – 36 = 10). Find your band size in the left column, then your cup size indicated in the column labeled “10″.

Please note that using Method 2 (alternate) in our measuring instructions will produce a larger (looser) band size and a cup size that may be too small. However, some of our brands in group 1 (Leading Lady, Curvation, and Exquisite Form) still quote this method. Our normal recommendation to get the best fit is to use Method 1.

If you have questions about fitting or need help with this, please call us 1-866-352-4494. Our staff has fit thousands of women both in person and over the phone.