women's clothing size woes

For all those men who hate going shopping with women: It's Not Our Fault!

If you must blame someone, blame clothing manufacturers. If those lousy bastards could standardize sizes, we could be in and out much quicker.

You guys can go in and get your jeans 30 x 34 or nearly any other size you want. But not us, because a size 12 (for example) pair of jeans from two different (and sometimes even from the same!) manufacturer can be very different measurements! Even in the same store!

You may say that this is because my weight varies, but I have noticed this trend happening even on a single day.

If anything, feel sorry for us... I'd rather be out doing other things too.

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Redux.

Segnbora-t makes a really good comment about women's fashion and proportionality. This is another one where I think men get it good and women have to suffer. Men's jeans have two measurements, waist and inseam, and thus have a chance in hell of getting something that fits. Women's have just one, "size."

Furthermore, most American fashion designers pretend that all women are prepubescent anorexic boys, so it is nearly impossible to find a "size" that fits properly if you have hips or breasts or are "petite." Furthermore, you have no recourse if some parts of your body fall in different arbitrary "sizes," like Segnbora-t or myself (though I have the problem of being well-endowed and curvy but short).

Not to seem argumentative but males suffer from this phenomenon as well. I have an amazingly hard time finding clothes that fit properly off the rack. It's either it's too long or too short or too damn uncomfortable. And on the rare occasion that I DO find something that fits well I generally acheive such an enlightened state of consumer ecstacy that I forget to check the stitching before I buy and my new found piece quickly falls apart on the first spin cycle.

This should become less of a problem in the near future. It seems there was never any set size that clothing manufacturers went from, it was kind of an arbitrary thing, which is why they somewhat match, but not always and not well. Men have an easier time with, say, pants because their sizes are based on the measurements and not anything else.

There's some large project that's been going on where they've been using technology to measure the sizes of the bodies of a large number of people of all races and sizes to try and set up a standardized system for clothing sizes. If I remember correctly, within the next year or two a few clothing manufacturers will be able to start using the data to better design clothing, as they helped with the project, and then not long after everyone will have access to the measurements.

I hope Saige is right about some standard based on real people coming into use, because at least here in the U.S., women's clothing is proportioned for Barbie dolls, not realistic figures.

Myself as an example: I don't have a particularly unusual figure. My hips are bigger around than my bust, but my waist is smaller than either. I noticed when looking at the size chart in the Frederick's of Hollywood mail catalog that my bust size fell into the range of "small" for their sizing, my hips into "medium", and my waist into "large." 'Hey,' I thought, 'that explains why I can never find a teddy from any manufacturer that will fit over my hips without being way too loose in the chest.'

You might think Frederick's would be a special case, oriented toward women with the figures our society likes best. Well, recently I was ordering some jeans from a catalog called Newport News, which seems to have ordinary, everyday clothing for women. My mother and grandmother get this catalog. And again, by their sizing chart, my bust is small (size 6), my hips are medium (size 10) and my waist is large (size 14). The table of measurements and sizes takes up about a quarter of the page; the rest is full of advice on how to figure out which measurement to pay most attention to for each type of garment. (Unfortunately, when you shop in a store you aren't supplied with such a helpful table for each brand the store carries.) And this isn't even considering height (I fall at the tall end of the petite range), just girth!

Women's clothing sizes make no sense. Nor are they suppose to. Donna Karan makes her women's sizes big. Her size 8 is a "standard" size 10. She claims women feel better about themselves when the tag has a smaller number on it. Things like this are partly to blame for the confusion.

There are a few standards in women's clothing. Dress size is the best example. Some companies use a -2/0/0 pattern, which would be for someone who had the measurements of 34/26/36. Other companies use a 0/0/0, 36/26/36. There are a few other combinations. The reason they supposedly use the size system they do for women, instead of the system that makes sense for men (based on inch measurements) is because women have curves.. duh! It still is retarded.. heh

Ladies, remember.. no matter whether you wear a 8 pants at one store, or a 12 at another.. you are still the same size scientifically..unless you jogged the 1000 miles from that chic shop in Chicago, to Macy's in New York City.

I always seem to wear a size smaller at The Gap.. tee-hee!