If you’re like me, you often suffer from lingerie lust. When I say that, I mean that you are haunted by a piece. You think about it when you fall asleep, thinking what you’d pair it with; you think about it in the morning, while you’re putting on another bra, pondering how wonderful it will be when you have it; you think of it blah blah blah, you get it. For me, this was the Gloria, a quarter-cup bra with a beautiful mesh overlay. It was haunting me. For weeks, I thought about it and had already planned our happy future together.
I was really about the beige version, admittedly, but when the black color way was listed on sale for $85, I went for it. Its beige sister was $110, so I figured – might as well try it and see. I bought the Gloria (and the Phoenix, which I’ll save for another review) and eagerly checked the tracking information until one morning, Fedex rang my doorbell and I dashed to the door with crazy hair and drool on one half of my face. I got my Gloria.
She pairs nicely with high waist undies, though.
Unfortunately, the Gloria was… well, I got no glory out of it.
To preface this, the Gloria is already being shipped back and thus I don’t have it in my possession anymore – so this review is just based on the short amount of time I spent with it. I only wore it to get these photographs because dammit, even if it doesn’t fit, it deserves to be seen. It’s a gorgeous bra, soft on the skin, and the embroidery is fabulous. Even so, I had major fit issues with this bra.
It was hard to show the details of this bra well, so here is a VERY BRIGHTENED PHOTO to help us both.
From the front, this is perfect. The embroidery!! The lines! As you can see, it is a true quarter-cup – and that part of it is very, very, very shallow. For anyone needing immediate projection, it’s bad and your boobs are going to shove that part down. Yet, interestingly enough, the mesh overlay had a LOT of give to it. I genuinely think that had this overlay been more shallow, the major fit problem I encountered would not be as big an issue. As it is, just to inform you all (my dear friends), the Gloria is VERY shallow at the quarter-cup area and VERY deep at the overlay.
This combination creates…well…
It creates a goddamn horror is what it creates.
Like…do you see this? Look at that shape. The front may fool you all it likes, but it doesn’t like at any other angle. This was visible under a shirt. I have never seen a shape like this from any bra in my life and thus don’t know what to call it. It almost makes my boob look like one giant puffy nipple and it horrifies me (your local brogger has puffy nips that she considers large, which is where this idea comes from). Does that comparison make sense? That’s what I honestly think of it.
I think this picture also shows you what I discussed about the mesh. I honestly think the mesh overlay should be much tighter than it is, as there is a major depth difference between the quarter-cup and its mesh counterpart. I have very soft tissue, which means that my boobs are going to spill into any crevices you give them – meaning that they ignored the quarter-cup (pushed it down) and spilled into the mesh overlay. If the overlay was tighter, my boobs would not be able to abuse the mesh in the same way.
Unfortunately, I honestly don’t know which shapes this bra would be compatible with. It isn’t shallow-friendly because of how deep the mesh is. It isn’t projected-friendly because of how shallow the quarter-cup is. I am scratching my head at this one and feeling very sad about that because I wanted this to work so badly. My fellow bloggers would attest to how often I would tell them the Gloria is beautiful before I bought it…
These pictures actually make me sad because, I mean, look how nicely it could pair with these undies. I wanted to rock this look.
I still believe this is a gorgeous bra. I am hopeful that it actually works on someone’s body, but it certainly doesn’t work with mine. I wish it did. Oh, how I wish it did.
Let’s rate this heartbreaking bra 😥
Appearance of bra itself (10/10)—Amazing, perfect, beautiful, vaguely sinister, incredible, I love it, sob.
Appearance of bra on my body (3/10)—This is just not a look I like on myself. At all. 😦
Comfort of…
Straps (7/10)—These are super soft straps, but they aren’t fully adjustable. The adjustable part is actually very, very small. Thus points off.
Band (10/10)—This is like a 31.5″ band, which is my ideal size.
Gore (7/10)—The gore is 2″, but I did not wear this long enough to notice discomfort. I have a feeling it would eventually dig in, though.
Underwire (6/10)—Thinking about it now, I can’t remember anything about the underwires. Again, didn’t wear it long enough. But I can tell you that the underwires were wide and not in my IMF, which means that they were on my ribs, and thus it would have been very uncomfortable after a long wear.
Cups (6/10)—This bra basically has 2 cups happening at the same time, and they are clearly not in communication with one another. I know the sides were around armpit territory, but it wasn’t worn long enough to feel uncomfortable.
What did Gloria get? The Agent Provocateur Gloria (32DD) gets…
60% – I wanted to love this bra so much. Unfortunately, our encounter was inglorious at best. I haven’t felt so heartbroken about a bra in a while. 😥
brogwithadog 