Band alterations
The images featured in this post are from the Eve Classic Band pattern, the regular wire edition (used with permission). Please forgive the odd cropping, I'm writing from my phone today. I would work on the alterations in order from the center front around to the back.
The center front shouldn't be fighting breast tissue or gapping along the wire line.
If they are, then you change the pattern by adding or removing from the pattern in the center front.
Once you have adjusted the bridge and you're happy with the center front, make sure the sides of the wire are still in an appropriate place at the underarm side. If you find you need just one or two wires larger, you may be able to use them in this current fitting band. Any more than that and I would make a whole new fitting band.
If the side seam is tight around the bottom band, but gapping along the top band, then the angle of the side seam needs to be changed on the pattern to accomodate the torso shaping.
One bra maker is athletic and found that her band was riding up strangely in the center back. This is because her shoulder blades stuck away from her back due to muscle development, enough that she needed what bra maker's have referred to in the past as a downward hike. She used press and seal on her body and drew on where it needed to go and used that "draping method" to alter her fitting band.
Another reason someone may need the "downward hike" or a more curved back band than their measurements suggest, is if they have what is known as a Dowager's Hump or Kyphosis (Wikipedia article), pictured on the far right in this diagram. This curvature of the spine isn't something that the calculator "sees" and the downward hike is for people who have more of a curve on the back.
Asymmetry happens. No one's body is perfect, but when all the RTW options are perfect, we feel "less than" because we can't find our shape out there. The truth is, almost everyone is asymmetrical. I see it daily in our alterations business. One breast can sit higher on the body than the other, they can have totally different cup volumes and/or different wire sizes. Make sure all the way around that the whole band fits in all these places before moving on to cups.
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