[elisagamal]

ok. this is my understanding of egyptian bra sizing. for what it's worth!

jumping ahead to the bottom line: if you order from a designer that's familiar with making costumes for western dancers, they should be able to get you the right size costume if you give them your regular bra size.

egyptian cup sizes are the same, no matter what the rib band measurement. so a 34 cup size 1 has the same volume as a 38 cup size 1. with american (and, I imagine, european) cup sizes, the *volume* of a cup size increases with the band measurement: a 34d, 36c and 38b in theory have about the same volume.

so! the trick for the very best fit that you can order from any egyptian designer with confidence is to find out what cup number you are. when I was looking for a gold bedleh to fit a 34dd, dahlal sent me what she had in stock. one was a cup size or so too small, the other a good cup size too big. turns out the small one was a cup size 4 and the big a cup size 6. so to me, the volume of egyptian cup sizes *seem* to correspond like so: 1 = 34/36a, 2 = 34/36b, 3 = c, 4 = d, 5 = d, 6 = dd. this is how it has worked for me, your mileage my vary! all I know is a cup size 5 very comfortably accommodated a 34/36dd cup. as we all know you can stuff a d into a b or pad a b into a d, you can order a cup size according to how you like your bra to look.

a note if you have a full bust on a small ribcage: from talking with both hallah moustafa, and the nice lady (am forgetting her name!) that runs shop like an egyptian, a cup size 6 is pretty big and will overwhelm a smaller frame. so for me, even though I need a really deep cup since I've been lactating (!), I don't go above a 5. for the record, my pharaonics 5 cups measure 8" across at the widest point and 6.5" top to bottom - which oddly measures exactly the same as your c cup, melly! interesting...

another note: some costumers run big, others small. I find SIMS to have bigger cups.