How to fill a bra for beginners part 4 - the Divine Athena plate

[TanyaG]

Having had an Athena for five months now, I've decided putting one on is an art. The Breast Form Store literature doesn't cover this in much detail, leaving buyers to find out by trial and error, which seems to me to be underselling a great product, because once you learn how to put an Athena on, it looks as good as anything I've seen.

So if you're trying to figure out how to wear an Athena, or thinking of buying one and wondering if there are any tricks of the trade, here is a brain dump.

High or low?

Let's say you are looking at a newly arrived Athena in its box (just turn the lid upside down, the artwork is what it is!) Bearing in mind you're going to be putting it on facing a mirror, with every movement reversed, where do you aim?

My first attempts set the plate too low every single time. The temptation is to put the Athena nipples at the level of your own nipples as you press in onto your chest, but if you do that, the Athena will sit about an inch and a half too low. Why? It's a combination of using a mirror and the way the forms are made, but if I take that approach, I get it wrong every time. You may have better luck.

If you set the Athena on your chest an inch and a half higher than you think is right, then depending on the length of your chest, the neckline of the plate will fall where the curve of the base of your neck begins. After a lot of experimentation, I've found this is the sweet spot.

Why not get the neckline right first and then press the forms on? Good luck, but only if you have an extra pair of hands, because the forms are where the centre of gravity of the Athena lies. I have only one set of paws and unless my partner helps, getting the neckline right first is unmanageable to hilarious.

Tricks of the trade

It's much easier to apply forms first. Then, if you've goofed, it's a cinch to gently unstick the forms and press them on higher up, before peeling down the shoulder extensions and the front of the Athena and rolling them back on into the new position so everything falls right.

With an Athena set lower than this, you're likely to end up with ripples in the silicone over the notch between your collarbones. That's hard to fix without adhesive, which is a pain. These ripples are formed by natural body movement, and when they happen it will be right in the midline of the lowest point of the curve of the plate's neckline just below your throat. Yep, it's the worst possible place and that part of the plate will detach from the skin. When it happens, it's visible a mile off and no amount of makeup or plate customisation will hide it.

Obviously, if you wear your Athena under clothing, ripples don't matter because they won't be visible, but that'll restrict your choice of tops. Most crew neck t-shirts will cover the area, but many tops and dresses don't. The product literature for the Athena is full of phrases like 'perfect for exposing cleavage' all over it and I'm guessing that many readers will be thinking of buying with that in mind, no?

[TanyaG]

One thing I haven't covered about the Athena in much detail is the cup sizes on offer. I take a 36 inch band and the Athena MD plate is a perfect fit for me, but there are two choices of form size with the two sizes of plate Divine offer.

To make this completely clear, I take a 36 inch (non plus four) size band. If that leaves you baffled, read my post on how to calculate your bra band size! Put another way, in terms of brands you might know, a 36 Gossard, Fantasie, Freya, Empreinte, Marks and Spencer or PrimaDonna band fits me.

Divine offer two cup size choices for the MD plate, a 4 and a 6. On a 36 inch band, the size 4 form translates a DD in most ranges, but a D in Gossard bras with wide radius wires and also a D in some Euro bras. So for instance, many, but not all Empreinte 36Ds are a perfect fit for it, but in Pour Moi the MD-4 plate would usually fit a 38D. In many Marks and Spencer bras the MD-4 also fits a 36D on me.

In terms of specific bras, the MD-4 plate I have is perfect fit for a 36D Gossard Superboost Lave Deep V bralet and for the Padded Plunge bra in the same range. It is also a good fit with the Gossard Fleur de Nuit non padded balcony in 36D, but in the Superboost Lace non padded bra, a 36DD is a better fit while in the Glossies range I'm always a 36DD. It fits perfectly with a 36D M&S Embrace embroidered full cup bra by the way and those are fantastic VFM beside being comfortable to wear.

On the Divine sizing chart, the MD-6 plate on my back would be a 36F, which is a jump of two cup sizes. Now I haven't tried one, but my guess is the same rules would apply and with it on I'd turn out to be a 36E in some ranges (as in a 36DDD) US but a 36F in others.

One thing I've always wondered about with Divine is that in all of their forms I've any experience with, they only offer even cup sizes. I guess this keeps their product line simple, but I'd be reasonably certain that offering a size 3 cup with the MD plate (which would translate to a 36C) would be popular. It isn't everyone who wants to get noticed and the two form sizes Divine have chosen are on the large size.

[TanyaG]

I had a good look at the 'natural feel' (NF) form Athena plate before it went in the trash and while at a glance it looks similar if not identical to the 'implant feel' (IF) plate lying on its support, the forms are made quite differently.

If you look at the surface of the Athena that lies next your skin, the IF plate has a smooth, featureless back. But the NF plate forms have slightly recessed circular areas about four or five inches across and it looks as if these seal over a softer quality silicone core. Surrounding that is a layer of firmer silicone, identical to the grade used in the IF plate, which makes the forms robust, while at the same time leaving them soft to the feel.

It's quite a clever solution when it comes to manufacturing a product which can be worn during sleep (which say, Amoena forms can't) and yet feels as natural as possible. A lot of thought has gone into the Athena.

[TanyaG]

When I began to explore my trans nature, it was long enough ago there wasn't an internet, which made it almost impossible to find anything out... well, anything! But I was very resourceful, even then and if you read my much neglected blog, I had some awesome girlfriends who helped me find my way.

Despite the web and despite places like Susan's I still think it's hard to make the first steps if you are trans, whether those steps are dressing as another sex, adjusting to the inner voices (scripts) cursing you for doing so, or thinking about going deeper into the journey. One thing I can say is, don't assume there is only one destination. A lot of people assume that 'trans' equals 'transition' but my experience says that it's probably best to win the war going on in your own head before you decide on your final stop. If you don't take that path, not only might you end up in the wrong place, you'll be denied a ton of enjoyment along the way.

These posts have mostly been for people assigned male at birth, but I promise I'll do some for members journeying the other way.

Okay, more thoughts on the Athena, specifically the fit.

If you look at the images of the Athena on the Breast Form Store site, apart from noticing the two form sizes available are huge and massive on anything less than a 38 inch chest, you'll have spotted what I call the shoulder extensions. These extensions are one of the many clever solutions embodied in the Athena, because they make putting it on an order of magnitude easier than its competitors and they leave your back clear, unlike virtually all of the competition. However, there is an art to placing them right.

When you put an Athena on, the lowest point of the neck needs to lie above the level of the tops of your collarbones and covering the dip between them, often called the jugular notch. That leaves the Athena neckline right at the junction of your neck and your chest and eliminates wrinkles. You can see it, but the transition between Athena and skin is easily concealed at the front.

It is less easy to conceal the extensions, because they extend over the top of your shoulders and go on a couple or three inches down your back. They're important, because they do much to hold the Athena in place and make it as comfortable to wear as it is, but if you wear a bandeau top, or anything that's off the shoulder, they'll be in plain sight and short of covering your entire torso with makeup, you ain't gonna hide them.

So wearing an Athena anywhere you mind the extensions being seen means clothes that cover your shoulders and come up level with the base of your neck at the back, so the strapless dress of your dreams is out, darling. Look on the bright side, you can still wear it at home :-)

There's a trick to placing the shoulder extensions, which is not to let them follow their natural inclination to curve in toward each other. At least, that's their natural inclination on me, YMMV. If they are allowed to do that, then movements of your arm toward the other side of your body will cause a wrinkle to form in the extension as the skin moves. You can avoid that entirely by encouraging the straps to follow the line where a bra strap would go and if you do that, hey presto, no wrinkles.

[TanyaG]

As I've been refining my take on the Divine Collection Athena plate, I've been meaning to write more about the two consistencies of breast form on offer. To quote the Breast Form Store web page descriptions, these are:

Implant feel (firmer silicone)

and

Natural breast feel (softer, squishy silicone)

The descriptions aren't wrong, but they could be better put and there is a $150 difference between the two types of form, the natural feel being that much more expensive than the implant feel.

Implant feel (IF) forms

There is a difference between how soft the forms feel when you are holding an Athena in your hand compared to how they feel when the plate is on. In the hand, the IF forms don't feel too bad but with the Athena on your chest, it takes a firm press to make them give more than about half an inch.

This is not how implants feel, regardless of whether they are silicone or saline filled. Implants are firmer than natural breast tissue, for sure, but they still compress a lot more than the IF forms do - because the IF forms are made from solid silicone. I'd describe the IF forms as extremely firm by comparison to a natural breast and someone who brushed against you would notice the difference instantly.

Which is not to say the IF forms aren't a good choice and I'm sure some will prefer them, partly because of the cost saving, but also because they are easy to manage and have a shape I imagine many drag artistes will adore.

Natural feel (NF) forms

If anything, the Athena NF forms feel more like a breast with an implant than the IF forms do - firmer than natural breast tissue, but not overly so.

In the hand, an Athena with NF forms feels like jelly, but once on the chest, the NF forms firm up, although they are still much, much, much softer than the IF ones. If someone brushed up against you while you were wearing an Athena with NF forms, they'd have to be remarkably aware to know. If money was no object and you are thinking of buying an Athena for private use I'd recommend the NF forms every single time.

I think the designers could have come up with a better description of the IF forms and, not that anyone is asking me, I would have gone for 'firm feel' and 'softer feel' because those descriptions are less likely to lead buyers astray.

What do breasts with implants feel like by comparison?

When breasts are augmented, a saline or silicone gel filled sac is slipped in under the natural breast tissue. So if you put your hand on such a breast, the first thing you feel is the soft tissue of the glands and fat, because all of that is sitting on top of the implant. Press more and you feel a resistance as the implant comes under pressure, but with equivalent amounts of compression even a saline implant will deform more than the 'implant feel' Athena forms. Saline implants are somewhat firmer than silicone filled ones, but neither is anything like as firm as the 'implant feel' Athena forms.

So while I still think the Athena breast plate is best in class and I'd still recommend it to anyone over its competitors right now, just be aware what the terms 'implant feel' and 'natural breast feel' mean in practice. That way you won't be disappointed when your Athena arrives.

[TanyaG]

Some good news, yesterday the European end of the Breast Form Store operation got in touch to say that my replacement Athena plate should be with them tomorrow. In my experience, the European staff (who  handle the UK operation) are super efficient and it's typical of them to flag up news like this when they don't really have to. You have to warm to folk who are prepared to go the extra mile the way they do.

So I should receive the replacement Athena in about a week's time, allowing for the bureaucracy involved in it crossing the Channel (for which we have Brexit to thank, in times past, it would have got to the UK in two days!) Assuming it's in good shape, which the one it is replacing was not, then I'll have some more feedback on the natural feel version of this wonderful plate.

For the record, I placed my order for the natural feel form Athena on 16 December and it arrived with me 28th January, with an assortment of blemishes on the outward facing surface, one of which was a total showstopper. All together, I can't imagine how it got past QC, but it did.

My first contact was with the USA/Canadian end of the operation but although I made it the day after receipt it wasn't until February 12 they accepted the product was faulty.

By contrast, the European staff actioned the replacement ordering in a matter of hours, which was impressive, despite me supplying them with the wrong order number! They've been very fair in their dealings and I've been faced with no extra charges.

So, I'll probably have the replacement Athena by say 25th March, which will be three months after I ordered the one that turned up with so many faults. If the new one arrives in good shape, it will be well worth the wait.