Read this if you have an errand you invent every night at the same time, and nobody has ever asked you about it.

Written by the team at Curve Compression, who have read about a thousand emails from women telling us the same thing.

I am 70. My husband is Bill. He sits in the chair by the lamp and I sit in the chair by the window, and we have sat that way since we bought the chairs, which was longer ago than either of us likes to say out loud.

Every night at ten past nine I stand up and say I am getting a glass of water.

I have been saying that for something like fifteen years.

Sometimes I do get a glass of water. Mostly I stand at the kitchen counter in the dark with the little light over the stove on, and I put my palm flat against my side, under the bust, and I press in and lift and hold it for one second. Then I do it again. Then I run the tap for a few seconds so there is a sound, and I come back in and sit down and we carry on watching whatever we were watching.

Ten past nine. Not nine. Not half past. Ten past, because that is when the second half of the hour starts and I know I have another fifty minutes in the chair ahead of me.

That is what I was doing. For fifteen years. In my own house, with the light off, so that the man I have been married to since 1977 would not see me touch my own ribs.

Bill never said a word about it.

Here is the part that I only found out in June: he had noticed in about the first month.

I will get to that.

First I want to tell you why the chair is different from everything else, because if you do not have this problem it will sound like nothing.

Standing up, you can carry it. Walking around, you can carry it. It is sitting down that does it. You sit back into a chair and the back of the chair pushes the band into you from behind at the same time the band is pulling in from the front, and there is nowhere for anything to go, and after forty minutes there is a bar of pressure under your bust that is all you can think about. You start doing arithmetic about how long is left of the program. You shift your weight to one side. You sit forward with your elbows on your knees and pretend to be interested in something on the screen.

And at four in the afternoon it is already bad, and by nine it has had another five hours.

So: a glass of water at ten past nine.

Before anyone tells me I should have gone and been measured, here is the list, and I have kept it honest.

Two fittings, paid for, in 1996 and in 2014. The second one took the better part of an hour and the woman knew exactly what she was doing.

The wide-strap one she recommended. Forty-four dollars.

The padded-strap one two years after that, because I had decided the shoulders were the trouble.

An extender, three hooks, a dollar and change, because the band was digging and lengthening the band was the obvious fix.

A wireless one, because everyone says it is the wire.

A second wireless one, because I thought I had bought a bad example the first time.

And a soft bralette with no fastening at all, which did not dig into anything and did not hold anything up either, and which was in the drawer inside of two weeks.

All of it. Every single item on that list.

Right in the fitting room. Unbearable by four in the afternoon.

Thirty years of the same result and I never questioned the list. I questioned myself. I had decided I was built wrong somewhere under the arms, and that this was one of those things you do not discuss, like your feet.

Bill worked thirty-eight years as a machinist. He is not a talker. He is the kind of man who will look at a thing for four minutes before he touches it.

In June I came back in from the kitchen and he had the television on mute.

He said, "Sit down a minute."

He said, "I've been watching you do that for fifteen years."

I said, do what, which was ridiculous, and we both let it go by.

Then he said, "I want to ask you something and don't get annoyed. That strap over your shoulder. Is it carrying the weight, or is it just there?"

I said I supposed it was carrying the weight. That is what a strap is for.

He said, "Then your shoulders would be the part that hurts. And it isn't your shoulders you go in the kitchen for. It's here." And he tapped his own side, under the ribs, in exactly the right place.

I did not say anything.

He said, "So it's the band. The band's the anchor. Whatever the load hangs off of is what takes the load, and it's hanging off that band. The straps just keep the front from tipping over. That's all they're doing."

And then he said the thing that took the floor out from under me, and he said it the way he would say it about a jig on a machine.

"Well then it's got to be tight. An anchor that isn't tight isn't an anchor. So it isn't the wrong size, Joanie. It's doing what it was built to do. And if you slack it off you don't get a softer one, you get one that's quit — it stops pulling on you and it stops holding you up in the same second, and then it walks up your back and dumps the whole works on your shoulders. Tight, it holds you and it presses on you. Loose, it does neither. There's no third setting on it. There's nothing in between."

There is no third setting.

I sat in my chair by the window with the television on mute and went through thirty years in about a minute and a half.

The two fittings: both of them ended with me being sold a band, because a fitting cannot end any other way. A number and a letter is the whole language.

The wide strap and the padded strap: I paid twice to soften the two things that were never carrying anything in the first place.

The extender: I made the band longer. It stopped cutting and it started riding up my back, and my shoulders got worse, and for years I could not work out how looser had managed to be worse. Now I can.

The two wireless ones: I took the wire out and kept the band. The wire was never the bar of pressure in that chair. The band was. It was the band the entire time.

The soft one: it took the band away and took the holding-up away with it, in one movement. Twelve days. That was not a bad garment, that was the design telling me the truth for the first time in my life.

Forty purchases. One design. Two settings. I was not hard to fit and there is nothing peculiar about my ribs. I spent thirty years shopping for a setting that has never been made.

And here is the order I got it wrong in, which I would bet is your order as well. First you think it is the size, so you get measured, and you pay for it, twice. Then you think it is the style, so you go through the wide one and the padded one and the wireless one. Then you think it is your rib cage, because a woman with a tape measure once said something gentle about your proportions and you have been carrying it ever since like a note from the school nurse. And then in the end you think it is you, and you stop mentioning it to anybody at all, and you start going out to the kitchen at ten past nine for a glass of water you do not want. It was not the size. It was not your ribs. It was not you. It was a strip of elastic doing the only thing it is built to do.

Bill said one more thing that night, and I will put it down exactly.

He said, "You've been going in that kitchen since Lynn was in high school. I always figured if you wanted to tell me you'd tell me."

What I have on now is a tank with the bra built into the front of it. The load is spread across the panel and the body of the garment, so no single part has to grip anything. There is no band. There are no hooks and there is nothing behind me at all. The cups are stitched into the lining, so nothing slides out and nothing needs straightening in a mirror. You do not put it on over your head; you step into it and pull it up, like a skirt. Beige, white, black or blue, M to 4XL, and it runs small, so size up.

You do not put it on over your head. You step into it and pull it up, like a skirt. I say so because mornings are mornings and my left arm is not what it was.

It comes in beige, white, black and blue, M to 4XL. It runs small. Take one size up, and I would rather tell you now than have you standing in your bedroom disappointed.

The first week I still got up at ten past nine. That is how deep fifteen years goes. I would stand at the counter with the little light on over the stove and find that there was nothing to press against and nothing to lift, and I would stand there another few seconds anyway, and then run the tap so there was a sound, and go back and sit down.

On the sixth or seventh night I got up, got as far as the doorway, and turned around and sat back down. Bill did not look over. He is good like that.

There is one more thing I noticed and it is the one I would have wanted to know about. The chair stopped being a negotiation. I used to sit down and immediately start calculating: how long is this program, is there another one after it, can I get to the end of it. Now I sit down and it is just a chair.

On the nineteenth of August we were watching a film that neither of us had picked, one of those where you cannot tell which of the two men is the bad one.

At ten past nine I was still in my chair.

At half past I was still in my chair. At twenty to ten Bill got up and got himself a glass of water, and on his way back past me he put his hand on my shoulder and did not say anything, and I want to be clear that my husband has not made a gesture like that since roughly 1991.

We saw the end of the film. It turned out to be the older one who was the bad one, which we had both guessed by the middle, and we argued about who had said it first.

I have not seen the end of a film in that chair in years. I used to go up before the end and say I was tired, and I was not tired.

They are doing buy two, get one free at the moment, and if the size is not right they do free exchanges within sixty days.

Our daughter Lynn came Sunday and stood in the doorway with her coat still on and said, "Mom. What's different about you?"

I said the lamp had a new shade.

She did not believe me either.

Already know the feeling? See the tank we make instead →

First, what you were told

You have been measured. Probably more than once. And every time something hurt, the answer came back in the same shape.

You are between sizes. Your shoulders are quite sloped. You have a wide back. A lot of ladies your age find this. Have you thought about going up a band?

So you went up a band. Then back down. You bought the wide-strap one, the cushioned one, the wireless one, the soft one with no structure at all. There is a bra extender somewhere in your drawer, still in its packet or worn once.

And every single one of them did the same thing. It felt right in the changing room. By four o'clock it was unbearable.

Every answer you were ever given was about your body. Not one was about the garment.

Now, the part nobody explains

Here is a fact that anyone who has ever been trained to fit a bra will confirm, and that almost no customer is ever told plainly.

Read that again, because it changes everything.

If the band carries the weight, then the band has to grip. It has to be tight enough to anchor itself against your ribs and stay there while it holds everything up. A band that does not grip is not a gentler bra — it is a bra that has stopped working.

Which means the pressure you feel under your bust is not a fault. It is not a sign that you bought the wrong size, or that you are shaped oddly, or that your skin is sensitive.

It is the design doing exactly what it was built to do.

See what we make insteadNo band · nothing to unhook · M to 4XL

Why no size was ever going to fix it

Once you see it, every failed purchase in your drawer makes a horrible kind of sense. There were only ever two directions to go, and both of them lead somewhere bad.

• Tighter band. It anchors properly and holds you up. And it presses harder on your ribs, all day, because that is how it anchors.
• Looser band. It stops pressing. It also stops anchoring — so it slides up your back, and now you are being held by two straps on your shoulders instead, which is why the grooves appear.

There is no third setting. There is no secret number between those two where a band both holds you and leaves you alone. That number does not exist, and no fitter on earth can find it for you, because the problem is not the measurement.

You were not failing to find your size. You were looking for a setting that the design does not have.

Every fix you tried, explained

This is the part that usually makes women a little angry, and we understand why.

The wide-strap one. It spread the load across your shoulder, which helped for an afternoon. But the weight still hung from your shoulder, and the band still gripped your ribs. Nothing moved; it was just padded better.

The bra extender. You bought it because the band dug in. It loosened the band, so the band stopped digging — and started riding up, because a loose band has to go somewhere. You traded one complaint for the other.

Going up a band size. Same trade, made by a professional.

The front-fastening one. It moved the hooks to where you could reach them. It did not move the weight.

The wireless one. It removed the wire and kept the band. The wire was never the part sitting on your ribs all day.

The soft bralette with no band at all. It did not press on anything. It also did not hold you up, and it went back in the drawer within a fortnight. That one is the most useful failure of the lot, because it proves the point: in that design, the band and the support are the same thing. Remove one and you lose both.

And why nobody offered you anything else

This part is not a conspiracy. It is duller than that, and somehow worse.

A bra is sold as a number and a letter. 38C. 42DD. The letter is the cup. The number is the band.

That is the entire vocabulary of the trade — every label, every size chart, every till system, every stock list, every rail. There is no size code anywhere for a garment that does not have a band around the ribs. So a shop cannot describe one, cannot order one, cannot hang one on the wall, and a fitter with twenty years behind the counter has literally nothing else to hand you.

You were offered one shape, in forty variations, for fifty years. And every time it hurt, the answer was a different band.

So what would actually work

If the problem is that the weight is anchored to a narrow strip around your ribs, then no amount of softness, padding or re-measuring will help. The only thing that helps is putting the weight somewhere else entirely.

That means a garment that is not built like a bra at all.

Ours is a tank. The support sits in a panel across the front and spreads through the whole garment, so the load is carried by the fabric you are already wearing instead of by one strip of elastic. There is no band around your ribs, because there is nothing that needs to anchor. There is nothing behind your back at all — no hooks, no fastening, nothing to reach for.

The moulded cups are sewn into the lining rather than dropped into a pocket, so they do not travel or fold in the wash. The knit is a fine vertical rib, and the body is long enough to stay tucked in.

We are not going to tell you it changes anything about your body. It does not. It moves the weight, and on this particular problem that turns out to be the whole thing.

See the tank & sizesBuy 2, get 1 free · free exchanges within 60 days

What women tell us changes

Not in the first hour. The first thing most women report is strange rather than pleasant: they keep reaching to adjust something that is not there.

After a week or two, four o'clock stops being a time of day they think about. Not that it gets better — it stops existing as a thing.

And then there is the small list that comes later, and it is never about comfort. It is a fitted top worn to a lunch. Staying to the end of an evening. Not taking the cardigan off in the car before driving home.

How it compares

	Underwire bra	Wireless bra	Front-Support Tank
Band around your ribs	Yes	Yes	None
Where the weight sits	Band + straps	Band + straps	Whole front panel
Hooks behind your back	Yes	Usually	None
Padding stays put in the wash	Sewn in	Often loose	Sewn in
Sizing	Band + cup	Band + cup	M–4XL by weight
Wearable as a top	No	No	Yes

See the tankBeige, white, black, blue · M to 4XL

Questions women ask before they switch

Without a band, what actually holds me up?

The front panel and the body of the garment. In a bra, the holding and the gripping are the same job done by one strip of elastic — which is why you cannot have one without the other. Here the support is spread across a much larger surface, so nothing has to grip in order to hold.

I have trouble lifting my arms. Can I still get it on?

Yes, and please do this rather than pulling it over your head: step into it and pull it up from your feet, like a skirt. Several of our customers have shoulder problems or arthritis, and this is what they tell us works. It is the single most useful tip we give.

Will it show under a thin top?

There is no band line across your back and no hook bumps, which is what usually shows. The knit is a fine vertical rib and the body is long enough to tuck in.

What size should I take?

It runs small — take one size up. We would rather tell you that here than have you find out. Sizes go M to 4XL and the chart works by weight, not by cup letter. If you get it wrong, exchanges are free within 60 days.

Will the padding survive the washing machine?

The cups are stitched into the lining, not slipped into a pocket. There is nothing to come out, nothing to put back, and nothing to straighten before you wear it again.

Choose your sizeBuy 2, get 1 free

Curve Compression makes one garment and tries to make it well. Nothing on this page is medical advice, and nothing here is a claim about your health — it is a description of how a bra is built and where the weight goes.