When my PerfectDD tops first arrived for testing, I was so eager to try them that I put one on right in the Wirecutter office restroom. I honestly can’t recall which I wore first, because the Krista and Amy shirts are nearly identical, except that the Krista features a U-shaped scoop neck, while the Amy shirt’s neckline is V-shaped.
Based on my colleagues’ reactions, as well as the several “cute top!” compliments I received throughout testing, the first detail people notice about these shirts is their signature tulip sleeves. While a basic T-shirt sleeve is typically cut from a single piece of fabric, tulip sleeves are made from two curved, overlapping pieces. PerfectDD’s tulip sleeves also feature shirred pleats to create a puff effect—which, I found, increases their visual interest while helping to accent the shoulders and counterbalance the prominence of a bigger bust. A few friends even asked to touch them—the sleeves, not my boobs.
(If you just don’t like puffy sleeves, PerfectDD recently introduced another T-shirt design, the Perfect Rolled Sleeve Tee, which we have not tested.)
On that first day, the shirt felt slightly tight on me and made me a little self-conscious, even though I’d followed the brand’s sizing guidelines. (T-shirts are sold in sizes XS to XL; your size is determined by your bra size.) But by the second wear, both tees had loosened just a bit into a shape that skimmed and draped in all the right places.
These tees give me a lengthy, hourglass torso instead of a blah, chunky one. (Kim confirmed to me that the shirts’ side seams are curved rather than straight.) The tulip shaping along the sleeves also lend a nice shape to my upper arms, which have always been on the thick and matronly side. And the necklines, as promised, hit in a “just right” spot below the collarbone that helps take away visually from the heft of my bust without showing cleavage or making me feel like the girls are spilling out. Perhaps best of all, I didn’t see those telltale tension lines that you might get from putting on a too-small tee.
“A V-neck shape like this tends to be flattering because it breaks up the width of the body by directing the eye to the center,” said senior staff writer Zoe Vanderweide, who wrote our women’s T-shirt guide. “This has the effect of enhancing an hourglass shape.” The puffy tulip sleeves, she added, “create this upward lift that visually slims the arms [and] gives a heart shape to the upper body.”
I also compared the Amy and Krista tops with one of Wirecutter’s favorite women’s T-shirts, the Mott & Bow Fitted V-Neck Marcy Tee—specifically because, as we note in that T-shirt guide, “fuller-busted testers were especially smitten and found the style [of the Marcy Tee] flattering without being too tight or revealing.”
The Marcy Tee is a great T-shirt (and, at about $40, much more affordable than the PerfectDD tees), and I agree with many of our testers’ positive comments: It’s a super-soft garment with a slightly tapered torso and short-ish sleeves that don’t add visual bulk to my upper body.
For me, the biggest difference between the Mott & Bow and PerfectDD shirts is that the latter makes my breasts look less pronounced—I dare say, perhaps even smaller than they really are. The Mott & Bow’s V-neck is shallower (as Zoe told me, “a too-high V will just emphasize the width of a larger chest”) and its bottom hem hits me just a tad higher on the waist, making me look more squat and feel more like I’m just a wall of boob coming at ya.
To put it another way, the PerfectDD shirts make my chest look like just a part of me, not the whole show. When I wear them, I feel good overall, rather than self-conscious about one specific thing.
