This is bra number two from the Structured Lingerie short course at the London College of Fashion.
The cups on this one are made from foam, a couple of millimetres thick, to make something resembling a t-shirt bra. You can’t easily buy the foam moulded cups that these are made from (unless you’re Marks & Spencer and want to order thousands at a time), so we learned how to join the foam pieces together without creating bulky seams, and then we covered them with a stretch fabric.
(This photo makes it look as though I’ve sewn the cherry fabric upside down, but I haven’t, honest!)
The wings on all the bras (that’s the bit that comes out from the sides and turns into the strap at the back) are made from plain white powernet. The elastic’s attached with a three-step zig-zag which I conveniently happen to have on my own sewing machine, which is nice, as that’s one of the things that makes a bra look more professionally made. This one just needs a little bow where the straps join to the cups, and it almost looks like the real thing!
Hey could you tell me how you sew the foam together without bulky seams?
Hi Nisha, instead of overlapping the foam pieces, you place them with the edges together. We used industrial coverlock machines, but you could use a zig-zag stitch to sew the two pieces together. You then stitch a piece of nylon tape over the seam to strengthen it, and to hide any little gaps. I hope that make sense!
Yes! Thank you so much! What is nylon tape? I live in SriLanka and I’m not sure whether they have it here….
Also, if I sew a bra using the foam as padding, can I eliminate having to use underwires?
Once again, thank you for the prompt reply! 🙂
Hi Nisha, it’s just a very fine tape that you can use to cover the seams. You could also use a strip cut from any non-stretch mesh. I’m afraid I don’t know about using foam padding instead of underwires. I’m not an expert by any means, I made these bras on a short course! 🙂