Pretty Bras for Big Breasts: Creme Bralee

Let’s begin with the most important question: How’s the fit?

Answer: American (32-46 C-G). For those of you who wear up to an F cup in the British brands, you have another beautiful option. For those of us who wear above a British F cup, there’s a chance that the Crème Bralée G cup will fit some of us because I read a comment in an online forum that Creme Bralee’s cups run large. Unfortunately, the two 36G bras that I ordered weren’t large enough for me. For a detailed review of the actual bras that I tried, scroll to the bottom of this post (where you’ll also find a 20% discount code!). For the short story: the bands were great, but the cups were two inches too shallow for me.

Outside of being sized out of Crème Bralée, there are a lot of things I like about the brand.

First, of course, is all the prettiness. The model in the photo below is wearing the Marlena bra in 32DD, and I love the gathers along the cup seams (you can see them better if you zoom in to the photo on their website).

The hot pink Amanda clamshell bra is much more vivid in person and on their website than in my photo above, and this brings me to Crème Bralée’s bold use of color. They choose colors meant to look good on everyone, and they try them out on a variety of skin tones, including that of their Asian-American designer Liz (below left) and their African-American assistant designer Khaaliqa (below right), each of whom I met at the Crème Bralée launch event a few weeks ago.

Second, I admire the passion of the people behind this brand. It all began with Meryl, their vice-president, who has been at the company for 31 years. Until she stepped in, the 63-year-old parent company, Q-T Intimates, was purely “a white bra company”. Then Meryl introduced a red bra into their lineup, and it became a bestseller. She wanted to add large bust sizes years ago, but she couldn’t get buyers to pay attention.

Now she and Liz visit Europe and Montreal to scout out the trends for their large bust brand, and Liz was very excited to showcase some of their upcoming designs. If they would expand these upcoming designs to cup sizes beyond their current range, I would be thrilled.

Here’s my favorite. It reminds me of something that would come from Aubade or La Perla.

Bows anyone?

This is such an elegant way to add embellishments while maintaining a smooth look under knits.

In determining the direction for their brand, I bet you can guess the deciding factor: whether or not to show nipple. Wouldn’t you love to have been in their conference room while they debated this? Ultimately, they decided to keep nipples hidden in order to go in a “sophisticated sexy” direction.

As neither Meryl nor Liz are large-busted, this makes Khaaliqa’s input extremely important. During the design stage, Khaaliqa is constantly asked,“Would a big girl wear that?”, and she constantly answers, “Of course! Confidence doesn’t depend on size!”

Finally, I like the Crème Bralée prices. For my review, I purchased the two most expensive bras, which came to $36 each after the DDD+ surcharge. (Speaking of the surcharge, it didn’t actually bother me until it came time to pay it. Crème Bralée could give a more big-bust friendly impression if they spread the extra cost among all their sizes.) Under $50 is the price I would expect to pay for a Curvy Kate bra in a customs-less and duty-free world.

Right now, Crème Bralée seems to occupy a similar space as Whimsy by Lunaire and Cacique. I hope the design team’s vision will extend to a British JJ because I would love to see Fussy Busty in one of their designs. Gorgeous designs in truly large bust sizes for less than $50 would be a dream come true for American D+ consumers.

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I wanted to try the Bettina in Capri after Liz told me it was their bestseller. The contoured cups were far too shallow on me, and this made me sad because everything else was right about this bra: the band was snug on the loosest hook, the underwires ended where they are supposed to at the side of my breast tissue, and there was no extra space at the bottom of the cups. I so wish I could have everything about this bra in a deeper cup.

Here are some of the design details that I didn’t notice at the launch event. First, the center gore is actually a sweet black lace.

Second, the side bands are in a sheer black stretch lace.

I had higher hopes that the Colette would fit since it is a two-part cut and sew bra. I could see its mauve color being a happy basic for me (similar to what Claudette offers), but it was not to be. My breasts were less flattened in the Colette, but the cups were still too shallow. Like the Bettina, the band was snug on the loosest hooks, the wires ended exactly at the end of my side breast tissue, and there was no empty space at the bottom of the cup.

I liked the pleated straps a lot, even though that limits our ability to adjust them.

I also liked the sparkling glass bead at the center gore.

However, I was surprised to find raw edges where the bands attach to the leotard straps. Hopefully this is a production issue that they will address in future runs–unless it’s one of the reasons the price is so low. Interestingly, Colette only has two hooks per column, but the Bettina has three.

If Creme Bralee was designed to fit your bust size, it will fit your wallet size even better with this 20% discount code until June 30: CBLAUNCH20. It applies to all Creme Bralee styles, there’s no minimum order, and it has a one-time use limit per customer. (By the way, if you order matching panties, do NOT open them until you’re sure the bra fits because Creme Bralee will not accept returns of any opened panties.) There’s even a free shipping option!