In defense of the Wonderbra

No matter what one’s size or style is, all clothes sold to females in the United States seem to have one thing in common: they expect all women to have the same body type.

From the classic V-neck to the square neck to the dramatic "plunge," there is no neckline I have found that was meant to flatter an A cup.

I’ve heard it said that a woman who wears a Wonderbra is misrepresenting herself in order to land a man. Of course, you won’t hear that from a woman who has had the horrifying experience of trying on top after top just to look in the mirror to see a disproportionate image that doesn’t look good in anything — because everything is made for women who look like they came out of a box with a Barbie body and a matching plastic smile.

The woman with the large jeans and small top is having a bad enough time as it is — then they come out with those low-rise things.

I think I’ve figured it out to a certain extent. The fashion designers assume that everyone wants to look just like the stars. So they go ahead and assume that everyone has Lucy Liu’s shoulders, Jessica Alba’s bust, Penelope Cruz’s waist, Beyonce’s behind, Jessica Simpson’s thighs, and Jennifer Lopez’s legs. Oh, and that they all weigh about as much as half the Olsen twins, which is probably slightly more than the weight of a duck.

But knowing that women do grow up and still need clothes, they keep the same style and just make it bigger. What you end up with is low-rise jeans in an XL shaped like the legs of an XS, and an XS top shaped like an XL bust. And don’t think women haven’t noticed that men’s clothes cost, on average, two dollars less per item — for far more material.

After much trial and error, some embarrassing outfits, and more money than we’d like to admit, some women have figured out how to assemble an outfit that doesn’t require plastic surgery. In many cases, this includes the Wonderbra. It fills in where some women can’t, and hides the fact that most women don’t have perfectly flat stomachs by making them look a bit more proportionate. None of these outfits can include low-rise jeans without resulting in the dreaded muffin top. Who designed those things, anyway? Voyeuristic men looking down the streets, watching all the cracks walking down the sidewalks?

This is why a lot of women have started wearing their pajama pants outdoors. They’re cute and comfortable and not embarrassing, not to mention about ten bucks less than a pair of jeans. But even if we’re just wearing plain old T- shirts, some of us still like the Wonderbra. We don’t want the Dolly Parton look, we just want to look good enough in our clothes to give us that little bit of self-esteem we need to make it through the day.

So if you’re anti-Wonderbra, don’t bark at us. Get a hold of those fashion designers and bark at them to design clothes that don’t make us feel silly without a little boost.