If you need urgent support, call 999 or go to your nearest A&E. To contact our Crisis Messenger (open 24/7) text THEMIX to 85258.
Read the community guidelines before posting ✨
Options
Should bigger bras be more expensive?
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
Comments
Having big boobs is a luxury? Coulda fooled me
When you make bigger clothes you just scale up all the dimensions, when you make larger cup size bras, if you make decent ones then you have to make extra design considerations to provide adequate support.
Also, bet they don't charge extra for small cup sizes and massive back sizes, even though this would also require extra material.
As Scary Monster said, it's not just the extra material, but the extra design to provide adequate support for the larger cans that isn't necessary for smaller ones.
But if they're going down that line, larger sized clothing and shoes should also be charged more for.
No wonder the fuckers are going bust. Such a shame.
But all bras have to be designed once, that is a one off thing which does not then justify charging an extra £2 every time one is purchased. And smaller bras may pose equally time consuming design challenges, like maximising the appearance of cleavage through design and padding, removable chicken fillet gel pads, etc. It isn't like they're designing each bra individually every time you buy one and I would be more inclined to believe a company like M&S has several generic bra designs they use every time, only varying the material/pattern etc. on the bra rather than completely designing something new from scratch every time.
Unlike Kermit however I dont see them going bust, they will loose sales and probably sell off some stores, but they do have a good financial position.
I'm reliably told that M&S bras are shit anyway.
Seems unwise, there isnt enough skinny, posh and rich people to go around, and anyway they wouldnt shop in M&S.
No, they wouldn't over-engineer a small/cheap bra just for the sake of it. Why put a more expensive design into something with no requirement for such? Doesn't tend to work like that.
I am certainly thinking that larger sizes of clothes should cost more anyway, to cover the cost of more materials. Indeed, there should possibly be discounts for smaller sizes.
If you don't shop there, does it really matter?
I personally find that M&S do some very well fitting bras, and unlike most high street chains do very the details between the sizes to give a better fit.
If you want something that's a standard generic style you can by their essentials range, or one in a common size. If you want one that has better cut and shape to fit you, then you pay for that premium.
At least M&S routinely stock a large range of bras in a very large range of sizes. You'll find a lot of shops don't have this problem because they simply stock very very little in a cup size greater than DD.
Well as a bit of a skinny (not posh or rich though) I can confirm that M&S cater really badly for smaller sizes too. And there sizes come up so big anyway that a size eight which is their smallest size is still quite big compared to other shops. I do have a couple of items from M&S but well usually their stuff is badly fitting and the quality is less than the price might suggest (i.e. there are many cheaper clothes stores with similar quality of items).
M&S food on the other hand
I don't think it would be a good idea to price clothes according to size. I'm short, so would I get a discount on trousers seeing as they have less material? Wouldn't all tall or larger built people lose out?
Also, where would it end? Would airlines then charge people by weight?
The actual fabric in clothes is a tiny percentage of the cost, so its not worth charging different prices, it would cost more than the extra would bring in.
Airlines charging by weight is definitely a good idea though, as a skinny little runt I want cheap flights.
This site claims statistics on american bra sizes but doesn't say where they are from. Assuming its true and bra demographcs in the UK are comparable if M&S are catering to a market that is less than 1% of customers no wonder they are putting the price up, more materials at that scale of production matters a lot more than if they are catering to the average customer.
Oh and discrmination
However I do think its a ridiculous sales technique by M&S, are they trying to piss off their customers? Why not increase the price of that style bra by 50p for all sizes and then everyone is happy
Much like cheap bulk stores only carry a limited range of sizes. High volume sales lead to lower prices, and the inverse.
Designing and machining and shipping and stocking and fabricating the larger sizes costs more, therefore they charge more.
They still offer the bulk market same price options in the large cup sizes, but they also offer the more specialised styled bras in larger cup sizes, which are a premium product and thus demand a premium price.
For a bigger bra! Its not like they're just charging you just for having bigger boobs (imagine actual boob tax)
Life is unfair. People with food intolerances have to pay more for their food. People with dodgy joints spend a fortune on supports. People with poor eyesight have to pay for glasses. People with heavier periods have to pay for bigger tampons (now there's an example of paying extra for more materials used) and buy more of them. None of these people chose to be like that but there they are paying more for it. C'est la vie
It seems silly that they're charging more for a larger cup size when the difference in materials used seems so small. Also are you sure they don't just scale up the measurements?
DD cup isn't that big either - I could see the case for F+ but DD and E are very common sizes.
Also, it's not new, they've been doing it for ages.
Not to mention if you have a problem with this, I hate to think what your opinion of Bravissimo is..... Their sole business aim is to make money out of people with larger breasts.
M&S have more traditional sizes, what fits a La Senza DD often fits an M&S C so they are probably bigger sizes than one might think.
Interesting one. I do buy my bras from there, they cost me £23 and that's the same price as that model (right word?) costs on Figleaves as well. I find it hard to get on with any other one apart from that one really.
I think Bravissimo markets itself as a luxury product though and when it started there was a gap in the market for big nice bras and they've exploited it. Places like Figleaves do stock them now too so there is a bit more competition.