After the news that a glamour model has gone up 18 bra sizes, there's been an outcry that the 23-year-old Australian Sarah Marie Summer has undergone such severe surgery.

Summer went up from an 8A (32A in UK sizes) to an 8M (32M) in four separate operations, giving her the largest breasts in Australia.

How many bra sizes are there? Sarah Marie Summers is a 32M, the largest cup size available.

We were interested by the fact that there are 18 bra sizes to go up.

There are actually 19 bra sizes

You may have thought that bra sizes stopped at F, but there are actually 11 more bra sizes in the UK! Though the UK average is 34DD. That's up from the average 34B less than five years ago. 

Here is a list of all the UK bra sizes: AA-A-B-C-D-DD-E-F-FF-G-GG-H-HH-J-JJ-K-KK-L-LL

Summer is an M cup, which is actually bigger than any UK bra manufacturers can accommodate. She'd have to get her bras in Australia, New Zealand or the US. The weight of breasts at that size can cause back problems, such as Summer is now reportedly suffering.

This is tiny compared to the woman with the largest natural breasts, however. Annie Hawkins-Turner has boobs that would put her at a size of 48V. This cup size cannot be found in shops!

A table showing a rough approximation of how cup size relates to weight and circumference can be found here. It also depends how slim the woman is.

The average breast weighs about 0.5kg, 1kg together. At the maximum cup size they can weigh up to 5.3kg.

Breasts are 1% of a woman's body weight

Breasts make up 1% of a woman's bodyweight

Boob jobs in the UK have tripled in the last 10 years


According to the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons, there were 11,135 boob jobs in the UK in 2013. That's up from 5,655 in 2004.

Other surprising boob facts                      

  • Sarah Marie Summer went up to an M cup. The maximum size shops do in the UK is LL and the smallest is AA.
  • Humans are the only primates with permanent breasts              
  • The average woman in the UK owns 16 bras              
  • The most sold size used to be a 34B - but it turns out that some women were buying the wrong size. The average bra size in the UK is now 34DD.              
  • Breasts make up on average 1% of a woman's bodyweight
  • Marilyn Monroe was a 36D- which is smaller than a lot of glamour models today, and not far off today's national average.
Marylin Monroe
  • 90% of women's breasts are asymmetrical to some degree.

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History of bra sizing

1911- Parisienne Madaline Gabeu got a patent for a brasserie with soft cups and a metal band that supported and separated the breasts. Before that, there was a fashion of a bra which held together and flattened the breasts, creating a monobosom.

1932- SH Camp and Company were the first to measure cup sizes by the letters of the alphabet- A-D

1934- Band size was first used, utilizing multiple hook and eye closures

1950- Britain adopts the cup size system

Early 1950s- Brigitte Bardot introduces the 'Bardot Neckline' which exposes both shoulders and has a wide open neck- a more modern look.           

1964- Invention of the wonderbra

1977- Hinda Miller and Lisa Lindahl create the first sports bra, by sewing two jockstraps together and calling it the jogbra

Madonna's cone bra

1990- Madonna's bullet bra, by Jean Paul Gaultier becomes a sensation.

2005- Oprah Winfrey found that 8 out of 10 women are wearing the wrong bra size

2007- M&S introduces the J cup