Style experts Trinny and Susannah tackle the nation’s breast assets tonight on ITV1 and discover that it’s weight – not size – that could solve the problem of finding a correctly fitting bra.
In an up close and personal consultation with design engineer Dr John Tyrer from Loughborough University, Susannah Constantine is taught how to weigh her 34D breasts – by dunking them in water.
Dr Tyrer is a measurement expert who’s wrestling with the prototype for a perfect bra, and he believes the most important factor is not cup size, its breast weight.
“If you’re an engineer or a designer the first thing you want to know is how heavy - how heavy are each of your breasts.”
The displaced water method was developed by Dr Tyrer in order to design new prototype bras that fit women more accurately than the current measuring and design procedure.
“Knowing the displaced amount of water tells us what the breast weight is. Then using a conversion factor we can then convert the weight of displaced water to the weight of the breast,” said Dr Tyrer.
Susannah learnt that her breasts weigh two pounds each, the equivalent of carrying around four bags of sugar.
Susannah visited Dr Tyrer after three high street bra retailers all measured her and Trinny’s bra sizes differently for their new series Trinny and Susannah Undress the Nation.
Susannah – who wears a 34D – was measured as a 36D, 36C and a 32F, and small busted Trinny, usually a 32A, was measured a 32C, 34A and 30A.
Trinny said: “The most awful thing is that every single bra manufacturer makes a different size bra again and again and again. So, you might be a B cup in one store and a D cup in the other, that is crazy.”
After touring the country meeting hundreds of women, Trinny and Susannah found that women have seriously lost touch with their breast assets.
Susannah said: “What I’m amazed by is they’re either way too big, the bras or they’re way too small. Hardly anyone has the right size bra on. It’s astonishing that so many women have no concept of how big their boobs are.”
Trinny said: “I think that the only message that has to go out now, and it’s a pain, but every time you buy a bra you need to be fitted because every bra is different”.
Or could the water method be the answer? Dr Tyrer said: “Women have this wonderful methodology about their breasts and they say ‘well, they’re different, they’re this shape, they’re that size. The question is how do you know? Because the measurement process you have is an irrelevance.
“We used the water displacement technique on TV because it is a good practical science experiment you could do at home, if you so wished.”
Dr Tyrer has also developed an Optical Contouring Technique. The optical technique both determines the shape of breasts as well as volume; whereas the simpler water technique determines volume only.
“The optical technique has been developed further so that we can not only measure shape, but change of shape, so that we can determine what happens to an individual as she breathes, moves and induces changes in tissue strain as a result of movement,” said Dr Tyrer.
“Our techniques have allowed us to pioneer new designs of bras which now actually work, because as you probably realise, through study, the existing bra designs don’t work.”
How to weigh your breasts: Dr Tyrer’s water method.
The equipment needed is a kitchen balance, a baking tray and a bowl large enough to fit a breast in.
Weigh the baking tray, record the weight.
Put the bowl onto the baking tray and then put the combination onto the kitchen balance.
Fill the bowl with luke warm water up to the brim.
Now carefully place the breast into the bowl until the rim of the bowl contacts the chest area, so that the breast is now totally immersed.
The displaced water is captured in the baking tray, (the bowl can now be removed from the baking tray), and the weight of the baking tray with the displaced water is now noted.
Once the original weight of the baking tray is removed we now have the weight of water which has been displaced by the breast.
1 litre of water weighs 1kg so therefore an individual’s weight can now be represented directly as a volume.
Repeat the procedure for the other breast.
Now you have the volume and weight for the total breast tissue of an individual.
Trinny and Susannah Undress the Nation, Wednesday night at 8pm on ITV1.
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