The Strapless Dilemma

We’ve been designing and releasing D+ cup bras for six years now, and there are a couple of requests that pop up over and over again from the busty community.

The highest-requested styles are always a sports bra (tick!), maternity bra (maybe one day), and strapless bra (not gonna happen).

If you’re busty, you know how hard it is to find a comfortable, supportive strapless bra that actually stays up all day - it’s clearly a huge gap in the market, so why doesn’t anyone swoop in and make one?

In a nutshell, the design just doesn’t work. Let’s talk about it.

How do “normal” bras work?

A “normal” bra consists of three key components: the band, the cups, and the straps.

The band is the foundation of the whole bra, and it provides about 80% of the bra’s support. Your band fitting really nice and firm means that the whole bra stays in place throughout the day, your bust stays lifted, and your straps have a really strong anchor point so when they’re tightened, they can support your cups without pulling up your band.

The cups contain and shape your breast tissue, typically with the help of underwires. Whether your bra’s cups are constructed from foam or just fabric, they mould your breast tissue into a specific shape that isn’t the exact same as how your boobs look without the bra on.

The straps provide the other 20% of your bra’s support. Their main purpose is to hold your cups up and against your chest, so they don’t flop forward away from you. They also provide anchor points for your cups to do their job of shaping your tissue, and tightening your straps can minorly affect the level of lift your bra provides.

There’s a reason bras have been shaped more or less like this since their invention: this basic design works really, really well for support, lift and shape!

How do strapless bras work?

When you remove the straps from the equation, you’re giving their 20% of the support work to the band. Now the band is 100% responsible for support. 

Without straps, your cups also lose their anchor point holding them up and against your chest. That means strapless bras have to use other strategies to try and keep your cups upright - usually, moulded foam cups and vertical boning in the band under your arms.

Why are strapless bras SO uncomfortable for D+ cups?

Essentially, the level of lift and support you’re getting from a strapless bra is directly correlated to how tight your band is. Your band’s tightness is the only thing keeping the whole bra in place - so not only is it trying to hold the weight of your bust, it’s also desperately squeezing your ribs to prevent falling down your torso.

The band on your normal bra should fit firmly, but comfortably -  to get any support from a strapless bra, it basically needs to be uncomfortably tight. 

Common strapless bra features like vertical boning and sticky silicon trim aren’t particularly comfortable, either. Boning in the band is liable to dig in and poke you as you bend and move, and that sticky silicon stuff just snags at your skin, without the strength to actually hold anything in place structurally.

Why won’t MARVELL LANE give it a crack?

Our whole thing is offering modern, comfortable, stylish solutions for busty problems. We’ve been asked about a million times to try and tackle the strapless bra dilemma, and to be honest, we’re flattered that our audience thinks we could pull it off!

The reality is, jumping from designing low-coverage, supportive soft cup bras to designing comfortable strapless bras is a much bigger leap than just removing the straps. It’s a completely different design, engineering, and manufacturing process, all for a product that on its face just isn’t going to be comfortable for regular wear.

Maybe some new technology will be discovered in the future that will change the game, but for now, we’re just not wild about the idea of offering our audience a product that we know will either be uncomfortable and supportive, or comfortable and unsupportive. 

Okay, but I really need a strapless bra!

If you have a special occasion coming up and you’re desperate for a strapless bra, Rachael’s recommendation is the Panache Faith Moulded Strapless Bra. It’s available in sizes 6D to 16H. You can see her full review here!

But if you don’t want to put up with the strapless drama, a great option is our Evie bra. Rachael designed Evie to be a comfortable, supportive, everyday alternative to a strapless bra - Evie comes with a set of thin, beautiful lace straps that are designed to be seen! It’s a low-coverage, fashion-friendly style that pairs beautifully with your favourite spaghetti strap tops and dresses. No rib crushing or bra babysitting required.