Bra: keep it or burn it?

Let It Go ? Two months after the first confinement, Ifop published a study showing that many women had taken advantage of this period to relax on makeup and… no longer wear a bra. A trend that caused a stir, presented in the media as a groundswell… and a wave of liberation!

But when we look at the figures more closely, we see that not all women have, far from it, thrown their lingerie into oblivion. Those who say they “almost never” wear a bra are essentially:

the youngest (18% of those under 25, 15% of high school girls),
women considered “thin” according to their body mass index (11%),
A cups (18%),
women with redone breasts with prostheses (14%).

Others ? They are less convinced: after 35 years, only 6 to 8% live without a bra, and only 4% of C cups, 7% of D cups and 3% of E cups and more… With an average of 7% French women of all ages concerned, no bra is therefore not a “revolution for all”.

Should I burn the bra?

However, we may want to give in to the trend. Because it is established that the first motivation of the “no bra” is the search for comfort (53%). No more itchy lingerie, ties that hurt, straps that leave marks, feeling of perspiration on the sides… there’s plenty to be tempted!

On social networks, there has also been talk of a feminist commitment and a desire to desexualize the breasts and female nipples, while reporting that going out without a bra is not easy: 40% of women say they have already experienced lustful male looks and 24% rude gestures or remarks.

In the workplace, the exercise is even more perilous as we can feel observed and judged (by male and female colleagues!): only 14% of women have dared to try it at least once.

Or should it be kept?

If removing it can be a relief, when we ask women about their motivation to keep their bra, their first answer remains… also comfort, for 65% of them! It may seem paradoxical, but “if small breasts get rid of the bra more easily, women with generous breasts often feel better with them than without”, explains Corinne Duquin-Andrier, marketing director of Sans Complexe, brand of lingerie dedicated to luscious women.

As soon as you go beyond the B cup, abandoning the bra becomes visually more complicated (a large chest is more visible, you can seek discretion), “but above all, it is not synonymous with well-being, on the contrary because the chest is not supported.These women tend to find their comfort in models that support well, do not mark, do not make you sweat… We also have a “night” model that many wear to sleep in order to to feel less bothered by their breasts.”

We must not forget that only 28% of French women cut an 85 B or 90 B, and that for 50% of women, the chest is a physical discomfort.

Try or not?

It’s up to you to decide, therefore, without having the pressure to give in to fashion: you have to feel comfortable, physically and mentally! We can try to abandon it at home, on weekends, on vacation, on telework days without video…

If you like it, you continue and if not… you put your lingerie back on. But the right initiative that can be a transition towards stopping or be self-sufficient, and change our lives: gain in comfort and practicality! For all sizes, we now find bras, models without underwiring, seams, hooks or “foam which gives warmth” which are gaining more and more followers, without “corseting”, but by concealing the nipples that we does not necessarily want to show and providing support.

“Even more with the confinements, women are turning to soft, light, breathable, even refreshing materials, pretty but elastic laces”, confirms Corinne Duquin-Andrier. Because the concept of comfort varies according to the breasts and the essential is there: to feel free to move without discomfort or constraint, with or without a bra!

2 fake news about the “bra”

It increases the risk of breast cancer. Fake. No study has ever proven this, and conversely, work carried out in Seattle on 1,044 women aged 55 to 74, published in the journal Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers & Prevention in 2014, showed that wearing it or not, with frames or not, has no effect on the onset of the disease. Let’s not get carried away by anxiety.
It damages the breasts. Fake. In 2013, a sports doctor from Besançon would have shown that freed, our breasts would become more beautiful, firmer, hold better… But his work, never published, is based on sportswomen aged 18 to 25. And if it seems to indicate an absence of “ptosis” (relaxation). It cannot be generalized, especially for women with generous breasts, or who are over thirty. For sport, let’s protect our chest with a good bra that prevents it from moving (and getting in our way).

Read also :