I started staring at women's breasts at an early age. And no there was nothing sexual about it, it was all business. OK, at least somewhat related to business.

As I explained in my article Immigrants Should Mind their own Business, when I was eight years old I worked in my father's ladies shop after school selling women's underwear, girdles, stockings, and brassieres. By the time I was ten I could size up any woman's bra size just by looking at her breasts. Most of the time they would disagree with my estimate but in the end, my eye was more accurate than their idea of what size they should be wearing, no offense to you ladies, but bra-fitting is an art and a science.

Over the course of a decade of selling bras (and staring at breasts), it became quite obvious to me that the same woman's bra size would fluctuate during the year or over the course of years and not just because of getting fatter - sometimes the sizes would oscillate back and forth over a small range, sometimes the breasts would be a tad larger, sometimes smaller. Just because you are a size 34b in the winter does not mean you should be trying to fit into the same size bra in the summer. By the time I was 17 my custom was to suggest that my customers buy a few different near sizes and to experiment each day and don the one that was most comfortable for that particular day. The truth of the matter ladies, is that if all your bras are the same size, then you are not wearing the right size bra for your breasts.

Now I have to tell you that I never thought it odd that bras were measured in numbers and letters. Perhaps because I started so early in life working with brassieres, the system seemed perfect to me. The number was related to the girth of the chest and the letters to the hyperbolicity of the breasts. And yes, I early on noticed that most women's breasts did not always match in size, appearance, sway, hang, pertness, veininess, etc.

As for the title of my post - Why they Measure Breasts in Cup Sizes: