BEIJING — There was a time when the average Chinese undergarment manufacturer had no reason to design, create, or distribute anything more ambitious in the cup department than an A or sometimes B-cup.Those days have ended.

Due to improvements in nutrition and exercise, Chinese women are developing larger busts, in addition to growing taller than their predecessors.

“It’s so different from the past, when most young girls would wear A- or B-cup bras,” Zhang Jing, saleswoman for Triumph brand bras explained. “You… never expect those thin women to have such nice figures if they are not plastic,” she expanded, indicating the degree of surprise that the change has caused among observers.

The Hong Kong lingerie manufacturer no longer produces A-cup bras for women with larger chest circumferences, which have risen by nearly half of an inch since the early 1990s. Instead, it was increased production of B-, C-, and even D- and E-cup bras in order to meet the increasing demand for them.

According to the Beijing Institute of Clothing Technology, the average Chinese woman’s chest circumference is now nearly 33-inches.