Endeavouring for a healthier lifestyle, my friend urged to me get a sports bra after her own purchase. Hence I set out for a bra in which the tears shed in parting with my money would be minimal.
Of course, this would inexplicably mean that I would have to buy online. While you don’t have to go online to find a bargain, in store discounts that shine favourably are few and far between.
There does, however, exist the difficulty of finding the right size (by that I mean the most common size among your bras).
I found one bra with the right specifications: less than £25 and 28GG.
The Freya Active Moulded Sports Bra (AA4892), an encapsulation style.
Found in the outlet section of the Leia Lingerie website, I tried looking for as much information as I could but reviews were scarce so I decided to risk it and ordered it after some deliberation.
I ordered it on a Sunday (Palm Sunday nonetheless) and I was pleasantly surprised to receive an email less than 20 minutes later informing me of its dispatch. The package came on the Wednesday, the first day of the delivery time range (3 – 5 working days) so I was very pleased with that.
My first experience with Leia has been more than satisfactory, the converse could be said about the actual bra.
The pros:
I knew the bra would have four hooks but nothing could match the elation in seeing four hooks in the “flesh” so to speak. There was little difficulty in clasping each hook to the corresponding eye.
[Personally, I find that the difficulty of ‘doing up’ a bra increases with the number of hooks in a column. Don’t get me wrong, I love having more hooks but I find there is a lot of pressure on the first completed hook when I’m fumbling around with the remaining ones.]
Across the back, the bra fit wonderfully. If only all Freya bras fit like this in the band! However, it is more pressing that the front be secure and secure it was not.
In a sports bra, I would prefer that the coverage is high so more tissue is contained. In this case, the sports bra felt too low so this peculiarity was an issue of style preference.
While I wasn’t surprised to see that the wires were a bit too wide for me, I was quite shocked to see how far the centre gore deviated from my sternum. Initially I questioned whether this was meant to be but the subsequent events proved that such was not the case. I felt that the bra contained as much as it could around the bottom and then pushed the rest of my breast tissue to the top – where there was no material to hold it. Against all logic I hoped that the J-hook would alleviate this predicament. I found that the J-hook was wonderfully easy to do up but besides ensuring a snugger fit in the back, did little to help the front.
Nevertheless, one hadn’t tried any movements yet.
I ran down the stairs, “shimmied” and did star jumps but for these simplest of tests, the bra failed to deliver. The breast tissue that was exposed jiggled oh-so-much and reminded me of egg yolks on a pair of fried eggs – an odd but painful sentiment.
My complete incompatibility with this sports bra can only be localised to a shape issue. Even if I were to try this in a H-cup it would most likely fit poorly as well but such a scenario is impossible as GG is the largest cup in a 28-band.
Due to laziness I almost decided to keep this bra and even rationalised that it was at least better than no bra at all. While that would have been true I would not, could not bear such torture; especially since it would largely be used in Zumba. Therefore, as soon as the Post Office opens I shall march down there and release myself from the curse of return-idleness.
Naturally, I would not want to put anyone off this bra so I’d just like to note that I am someone who needs narrow wire widths and deep cups in bras. Unfortunately I can’t get more concise than that (e.g. wide/narrow root, narrow/wide boobs) but I am pretty sure that my breasts are full-on-bottom.
You may have a suspicion on how this bra will fit you but as always, try try try! a piece of advice I should follow more.
Plain Jane Vanilla 