Review: Freya Faye Plunge Balcony AA4201

Freya Faye Plunge in Creme Caramel. Image from Freya.

Oh, the Freya Faye. Quite possibly the strangest bra experience I’ve ever had.

Freya Faye Plunge. Image from Freya.
Freya Faye Plunge in white. Image from Freya.

Before you decide I’m about to start a rant about the Faye, I’ll let you know I’m not. Because after trying the Faye, I also tried several other Freyas (that experience summed up in Freya (and I mean ALL of them) Does Not Fit Me), and learned why we didn’t get along. And it wasn’t Faye’s fault, Faye is a good girl.

Freya Faye Plunge.
Freya Faye Plunge in black. Image from Freya.
Freya Faye Plunge in Creme Caramel. Image from Freya.
Freya Faye Plunge in Creme Caramel. Image from Freya.

Since Faye and I got along so poorly, this won’t be much of a review. Call this more of an honorable mention to prove that I really did try all the Freyas I could get my hands on.

Band: I tried a 38 band it was much too long. I definitely needed a 36 or smaller. This seems to be a characteristic of the Faye, so sizing down in band is probably a good idea.

Gore: Tacks beautifully. Seriously.

Wires: Okay, this is where things got weird. The wires rolled outward, away from my body. I was pretty confused by the rolling, since it hasn’t happened to me before. So, I consulted an expert – Erica from A Sophisticated Pair. Her opinion was that not all bras are suited to every rib cage shape, or the bra was defective. Since I didn’t observe any warping or misshapen wires when the Faye was off, I’m going with Erica’s opinion that the Faye is not a good match to my squarish (yet flared) ribcage.

Cups: When I first tried the Faye I was puzzled at the shape it gave me. My breasts were all over the place in the cups – bulging to the side, pointing in the front, and I think drooping. Over tightening of the straps leads to the cups digging into my breasts and causing quadraboob. After trying several more Freyas and sizing up in cup, I discovered the strange bulging was caused by the Freya wires being too narrow on the outer edges, and the wires banging into the bottom the wide bases of my breasts. Sizing up relieved that problem, but created a new one – the cups were too large. Larger cups swam around on my chest, and the cup fabric wrinkled everywhere.

Straps: Wide and comfortable. They did not irritate my pectorals (bottoms of my bases) or armpits.

Conclusion: The Faye is very comfortable, and I think a good bra for short waists and high set breasts, as well as close-set breasts…unless you have wide base breasts.  Unfortunately, the Faye was probably the best example of what too-narrow wires do to wide base breasts…and it was not pretty.

The Freya Faye is available in sizes 28D – 38J in white, black and creme caramel, and is part of Freya’s Essentials line. The Faye range also includes a brief, short and thong if you’d like to complete the look.

Freya Faye AA4201 in 38F (U.K.)

Band: unstretched 32″; stretched 38″

wire length: 12″

gore height: 2 3/4″

distance between straps: 9″

Link to Bratabase review

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Other Freya Faye reviews in the blogosphere:

A Sophisticated Pair

FussyBusty

Lingerie Abstracts

 

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As always, I welcome (and hope for) input from my readers and fellow boob bloggers! Please comment on this post or drop me a line at info[at]widecurves.com.

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4 Comment

  1. amymeemee says: Reply

    This was awful on me too, as well as all of Freya’s balcony plunge styles. I have high set close boobs and it cut in and wrinkled, the cups almost came up to my chin…. 🙁

    1. I know the Faye works for many people…just not us!

      My bases are so wide I couldn’t get it high enough to get good lift. Otherwise, it probably would have done the same to me.

      It wasn’t pretty. At all.

  2. This review reminds me that I really want to revisit some of the bras I reviewed in the past and create an “after thoughts” post on how I felt about them after wearing them for several months. For me, the Faye started out great, but I found that over the time, the fit became worse and worse. The underwire would lift, the cups would bulge, and the band would stretch out. In particular, the beige seemed to do this so fast that I felt like I really didn’t get my money’s worth out of the bra, which never happens for me.

    1. Erica, I tried the beige, also.

      And I agree, I feel like going back to some of my earliest posts and breaking down what I now know, were the problems.

      I am going to do that with my sports bras, definitely, next month.

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