Is being charged more for a 64 ounce fountain soda than for a 52 ounce fountain soda discrimination?

I'm seeing a prime opportunity for Lingerie Shrink Ray here: Why let the larger-breasted women pay less when they can simply claim that they need to subsidize the material and research cost of the larger bras and get some more profit out of the small and average breasted women?

I know, I know, I've been reading this site too long.

There are many manufacturers who make beautiful bras in bigger sizes (Fantasie of England and Prima Donna are two I can think of). Unfortunately they are mostly only available in specialty stores (or online) and can cost $50, $60, $100 or more! As an odd size though (32 band and very large cup), I know I need to pay more for the details and engineering to support me. I have never looked better (or slimmer!) than when I am wearing a well-engineered, well-fitting bra. Now that I've found a style + size that works for me, I can sometimes find deals on new ones on ebay or sites like biggerbras.com. I can't and won't shop in department stores or VS anymore, they just don't work for me.

Ummm, I wear a size 10.5-11 women's shoe, and I have never been charged more for my shoes than a friend who wears a size 5. Same thing with a garment in size small vs. one in size XL.

Why should bras be the exception? I call discrimination. Bra manufacturers should average out their materials costs over the entire population and charge us all the same price.

@baristabrawl: It's not fair. But not, my boobs are a size D/DD even if I'm skinny or fat. No, it's not my fault. That's just now I was born. And it sucks that a woman with a size B breast gets to pay less for her bra. And have more of a choice of bras, for that matter.

@electrogeek77:

What does fair have to do with it?

@Michael Belisle: "But as an engineer, I can see how the level of work that goes structural design and analysis for a >DD cup might be more than "structural design and analysis" for an A cup. "

Not really. As a gal with big breats, are options are limited to plain, and more plain.

@FranktasticVoyage:

When I read about this I was thinking essentially the same thing - and regardless of any similarities to CPU manufacturing (the larger the die size, the fewer you can get from a single silcon wafer), I just simply don't see how it doesn't make sense to people that a product of a larger size requires more material to make, and therefore cost the manufacturer more to product. Hence, the MSRP is higher.

Granted, you don't necessarily see it a whole lot in apparel - for example, a pair of 36x30 jeans is probably the same price as 30x30 jeans. But, you do see more frequiently that a XXL jacket might be more expensive than the XL, which was sort of where the manufacturer "drew the line."

No one is discriminating against large bewbs. Except maybe gravity, but that's a law. If a manufacturer wants to try to keep it's margin the same on it's products from small to large, I say it just plain makes sense. And if you're complaining about it - you're not making sense.

@Blufyor: Um, I'm currently a DD and went flying past the A cup when I finally went bra shopping. I think I wore my mother's aold bras before going shopping. By that time I was well in the C division

Forget fashion, I can't FIND a bra that fits me (and actually gives me any support) for under $40 - and $40 is if I am lucky.

If women ruled the world, bras and tampons would be significantly cheaper.

@silver-bolt: I think they could have made an exception in this case.

Back to my bras; typically, I'll find an Empreinte style and in my size, about a 30 or 32 E (impossible to find in America, where big cup size usually comes with a back size made for a longshoreman), and it'll typically have three hooks where the regular size has two or one, and it'll have MUCH more reinforcement. In fact, sometimes it's almost a different style.

I had to laugh at the ridiculous Boobs 4 Justice or whatever they called themselves. Apparently, 10,000 women went wild protesting on Facebook. Protesting what, genocide in Darfur? No, paying $3 more per bra for a reinforced version of the smaller ones. Boo frigging hoo. I'll gladly pay more for my bras, and do.

Because they bullied M&S into this doesn't mean they won. This reminds me of this old bumper sticker: "Jesus loves you. Everyone else thinks you're an asshole."

M&S came under fire from The Busts 4 Justice campaign group for applying the £2 surcharge.

Correct me if I'm wrong but don't most larger sized items cost more in general or is that just in the US?

Was it the fact that they called it a surcharge that got people pissed?

(Although your theory might explain the prevalence of 32As to the exclusion of all other A-cup sizes.)

@Blufyor: The details of a bra for larger breasts are fairly minor, and overall they are very plain. Whereas bras from smaller breasts will often have crazy contraptions(padding, water bras) or fancier materials.

@Michael Belisle: I may not be an engineer, but I do have breasts and wear bras, and from experience, bras for smaller cups have often been MORE intricate than bras for larger cups. Larger breasts can wear limited styles - usually just full-coverage or minimizing, and always with an underwire. Whereas, smaller breasts have a plethora of bras with various structural designs.

Plus, as several other commenters noted, the larger bra sizes will often have tweaks and unique parts that aren't shared by smaller sizes (and thus add to the manufacturing cost): more cup reinforcement, an extra row of fasteners, wider non-stretch straps and the corresponding hardware, etc. Catalogues and online stores often note this in the product description.

It's like the difference in cost of a ziplock bag, and a grocery bag. Lets see you put a gallon of milk in the ziplock and not watch it break.

@baristabrawl: It's not fair. See my earlier comments.

@Definer-not-defined: Holy bazongas, no thanks!

Oh yeah. Clearly the market disagreed with the prescribed pricing here. +1 for successfully identifying the logic flaw in my argument.

However, I do intend continue to belittle communism by throwing it around. You see, when you disagree with something in America, it's always fair to call it communism. NPR? USPS? Those sound like code words for... communism.*

* Note: The statements in this comment are not meant in any way, shape, or form to suggest that I actually disagree with NPR, USPS, flat-rate garment pricing, or communism.

Why did the picture associated with this piece on the front page not make it to this page?

@b.k.:@Eyebrows McGee (popping ~May 29): There are some cute designs for C's and D's.

But DD's onward...hellooooooo, grandma bras!

That's not really relevant here because the majority of bras do not involve licensing.

Then they shouldn't say it's the fabric cost when it's a set-up issue or a small-run issue.

Nobody involved with the company said it was fabric cost alone that determined the price. They said "bigger bras needed more work to develop a greater level of support and therefore the cost was justified." We can't just the validity of that statement since none of us are privy to their R&D costs. But as an engineer, I can see how the level of work that goes structural design and analysis for a >DD cup might be more than "structural design and analysis" for an A cup.

Maybe socialism is a better analogy, but debating which economic model is a more appropriate analogy is taking my snarky comment too far.

@b.k.: Heh. As an A/B girl most of my life, I was always DYING to buy some CUTE bras like the C cups got to wear! (Pregnant boobs FTW!) I have noticed the Ds are back to pretty boring, though.

I'm tall, and I HATE that if I want to buy pants that don't make me look like I'm waiting for a flood that I have to pay more.

But if we go by your logic, then A cups, which not as many women wear as B's and C's(the average bra size is 36C), should be more expensive, too. BUT THEY'RE NOT.

The issue is, when there's a price discrepency amongst clothing, it's always the buyers of larger sizes that get punished. There's enough shaming towards those people that it's much easier to get away with it.

@FranktasticVoyage: There's a different between charging for an unusual and rare size that's not made often (e.g. a 34G, or a 52B) VS charging JUST because of a larger cup even if it's a common size.

@Applekid: So breasts are public property? And here I am, thinking that they're made for feeding babies! Boy, was I wrong!

Doesn't this make TOTAL sense?
It's not the fabric cost that is the issue, it's the set up cost of producing a few items in a particular size and the labor and time that that costs (as opposed to running off 100s of the same exact item)

It's not just for the material costs (which probably are negligible), but for the fact that you're producing much less of them.

As with anything else, the more you produce, the less it costs. Assuming that the majority of women fit in a range below DD (and larger than some lower bound), they can make millions of bras in these sizes and reduce costs. There is a cost for variety, especially at the ends of the spectrum.

Paying a little more for your specific product is probably better than them not making them at all, isn't it?

@Eyebrows McGee (popping ~May 29): I wouldn't be surprised if they can get away with those justifications because of the fact that us larger women don't have much of a choice when it comes to clothing. It's either buy cheap, frumpy stuff(despite my size, I actually look worse in billowy, shapeless clothes, and better in fitted, tailored items), or pay a premium for something remotely stylish that actually fits our body shapes.

@babyruthless: Wow, smalls too? Total crap(on their part, not yours!).

You know what pisses me off re: undergarments? I worked at VS for several summers in college. In the "Body by Victoria" line, they sold an unlined full-coverage as well as a lined (think 1/8th-ish of an inch) demi-cut bra. In the D and DD sizes (before they discontinued DD's altogether) the demi bras didn't come lined, just as floppy as the unlined ones, but they charged the more expensive lined price. They eventually corrected this bit of craziness ("women with DD's don't want any more padding") but it never made sense to me.

It actually annoys me when T-shirt makers do this, because I know that something like $15 of that $20 T-shirt is going for the licensing rights to the image, and around $1.20 or something goes to actual purchase of materials and labor and shipping. The rest is profit to the Mfr. So when they charge $23 for the XXL size, that's just assholery. It MAYBE costs them $1.23 instead of $1.20 in material. MAYBE.

(And no, I don't wear XL size and neither does my husband; this kind of pricing shenanigan just annoys me.)

I don't mind it so much with full-length, full-skirted formal dresses where adding either height or width adds a LOT of fabric and that fabric is expensive. I'm okay with that, although their size/height cutoffs for doing this frequently defy rationality.

@electrogeek77: "Yet tall-sized versions cost the same as smaller-sized versions, despite also using extra material."

THIS. If it's more material, it's more material. And yes, I sew, so I know the comparison between "more material for girth" and "more material for height" and I know they're just making shit up.

Also, they never, ever, ever, EVER charge me less for being SHORT and wanting LESS material. It's lies to justify higher prices where they think they can get away with it.

@electrogeek77: I've definitely seen it the other way too. Back in the day, I ordered some t-shirts to be printed for an organization. I wanted to get smalls because there were some teeny people who never wore club shirts because they were tents. Turns out, that many screen printers (or perhaps just the one we contracted with) charge as much for smalls as they do for XXL's, because they have to change how the plates line up. So the small and XXL people were charged several dollars more than the average-sized people.

My girls and I thank Marks & Spencer.

@Michael Belisle: Care to clarify?

@babyruthless: It's not really enough extra material(and DEFINITELY not enough extra labor) to require such an increase in price.

I noticed this with other clothing at some stores, too. Plus-size versions cost more than smaller-sized versions of the same product because of "more material". Yet tall-sized versions cost the same as smaller-sized versions, despite also using extra material.

Plus, when your size is shamed by society on a daily basis, the "size tax" seems like rubbing salt in the wound. But that's just me.

More fabric=more money. Seems like it was fair.