Clothes Sizing for Normal Women

Pretty cool to see

"41% of women have trouble finding clothes that fit."

This is a myth. The clothing industry is market driven. (Well, at least it is now. It looks like in Spain it will be turned over to a neo-Soviet Gosplan style industry).

I have no problem believing that 41% of women are unsatisfied with how they look in clothes because somehow the effect on them is not the same as on fashion models. But that's down to their bodies and their perceptions, not the clothes.

I dunno, Mark -- I think sometimes the shape of the clothes really is wrong. I'm pretty skinny down to the waist but find most jeans a real pain as they fit perfectly on the thighs/backside but not around my stomach. I'm a UK size 8 in tops and "high-waist" jeans but find a 10 in lower-cut jeans is often too tight.

My impression is that I'm pretty normal compared to other women, just not quite a flat-stomached shop-window-dummy!

So I look forward to this applaudable idea reaching Britian :-)

Ali

Mark - next time you shop for women's clothing, then you may have credibility in saying that 41% who claim finding clothes that fits properly is difficult isn't based on reality....I'm definitely one of that 41% - my inseam is long, thus I can almost never find pants long enough (36" inseam); these days it seems all the waists on pants are too big compared to the hip (designed more for apple shapes than pear/hourglass shapes IMO); tops routinely are cut very short in the body and again lean toward cut for apples not pears; and many other "basic" clothing items are cut all "wrong".....so yes, some of us really do find it difficult to find clothing cut properly so it fits our shape well....it has nothing to do with "perception" or being "unsatisfied" with how *I look* - and everything to do with the clothing isn't cut right to fit well.....if I'm an hourglass and the clothing is cut for an apple, well that doesn't fit right!

I think the size/shape of clothes leaves a lot to be desired, and that's not because I don't like how I look in the mirror. I have real trouble finding clothes with sleeves long enough. I might be taller than average (I'm 5ft10) but is that really so much taller than average that it should make finding something with long enough sleeves an issue? I don't think so. I'm a little overweight, but overall in proportion (arms included) and it baffles me as to what manufacturers think I should look like.

Don't get me started on womens shoe sizes either.

amen Regina

Using multiple measurements makes so much more sense to me. I have narrow hips and thighs, not an hourglass tummy, and just a little larger than matches my waist bust--shirts that fit at the waist are unseemly at the bust, but I still like to have form-fitting tops. So, separate tops and bottoms can work OK, but dresses that fit my torso are WAY too big at my hips. Sure, Mark, some clothes are dissatisfying just because I WANT to reshape my body, but it makes much more sense to have multiple measures--just look at men's pants with TWO measures instead of womens' pants with just one.

Oh I love this idea! I have lots of trouble finding clothes that fit too. I'm another hourglass with gaping waistbands. And blouses that don't pull at the bustline & don't fit like tents are impossible to find. And I'm 5'4" - too tall for petite pants, too short for regular pants, and I hate hemming.

I think I fit somewhere in that 41%. I have a pear shape and if the pants fit in the hip, then they don't in the waist. Thus the waist line of basically all my pants sit at the hip.

I agree with Regina. I am 5'9". I have hips,a round butt, and a small waist. When I bye jeans that fit in the hips they are way too big in the waist. Also manufacturers seem to think that taller women have longer crotches rather than longer legs. My friends and I have a good laugh over this one. I guess I am also in the 41%.

Fact: The average height of American women is 5'4". Which means half of all American women are shorter than 5'4".

Fact: Nearly all clothing designers assume that any woman shorter than 5'4" must be 80 years old with advanced osteoporosis and a penchant for flower prints.

WHY?! Certainly not "market pressure".

I am an hourglass, and have been since puberty hit. I'm obese, but my waist still nips in sharply and curves out again. When I was slimmer, I loved playing it up with big belts, tight waists, etc.

I have trouble fitting pants, because if it fits my waist, it doesn't fit my hips, and if it fits my hips, it is too big in my waist (generally). So, elastic waists are very me-friendly, or those cut specifically for hourglass or X-shape. But I'm not long-waisted, so some slacks actually have a waist too high (or too low, given the fashion for those low-riding pants).

It's a mess. NO wonder I live in top-grade athletic wear or get tunics to cover the iffy waisty-region...with all that stretchy fabric that solves a lot of the problem in the former and the simple camouflage of the latter.

La Princesa

The Princess

I'm surprised that ONLY 41% of women have a difficult time finding clothes that fit. I would have expected the number to be higher.

I'm among the 41% also. I'm an apple shape and when I buy pants to fit my waist, the butt and thighs are always really baggy and unsightly.

This really isn't a new line of thought though, Lane Bryant researched and developed a new line of jeans and slacks to fit the same body shapes noted in the Spain study. The jeans were rolled out last spring and it's amazing what a well cut jean does for your booty and your sanity.

I hope more stores follow their lead.

i'm 5' and 100 lbs, nothing fits right. the legs are too long, the waist is too big, and the pants are tight around the thighs- the way i see it, everything that is supposed to fit me was made for a waistless, hipless woman- the least retailers can do is compensate for thin women who are curvier than waif-like...

We know how manufacturers work - they have a "sample" model, and then they size up and down by adding material to certain points - i.e. My model is an 8, so to get a 10 I'll add 1" to the bust, hips, and waist. It might work for a size or two, but not for long.

Also, many manufacturers refuse to size for anything over a 10, because they say their customers don't want to wear the same clothes as fat people.

What happens if their clothes don't get sold? They end up at bargain stores. There's a business model that couldn't exist if the designers were doing their job right in the first place.

I'm somewhere between the cylinder and the hourglass, so I don't have a lot of trouble finding clothes that fit AROUND. My problem is the low-rise pants and jeans that are so popular right now. I am too short- waisted for "Misses" sizes (most of them reach near the bottom of my ribcage), and yet in the Junior's section, a lot of the pants are cut so low I'm afraid to sit down in them. I guess this is off the subject, but if any clothing designers are listening: Middle ground, please!

Who knew designing clothes could be so haaaaaaaaaaaaardd.

We need less clothing designers and more clothing engineers.

Mark, the clothing industry is also driven by the desire to mass produce clothes as cheaply and quickly as possible. This means it's easier to try and get women to conform to over-simplified, pre-defined patterns than it is to make clothes that cater to actual women's variety of shapes.

Because of the very nature of standardization, there will always be a proportion of women for whom standardized patterns just do not fit correctly. If it's as high as 41% then the current patterns could probably do with a bit of a re-think, not least because it means that all those women out there may be thinking as you seem to... that the problem is actually with them and not with them simply not conforming to a pre-defined average template.

No doubt men have it alot easier when it comes to buying clothes.

this is a digression, but i hate vanity sizing. at Ann Taylor Loft (where i sometimes buy work clothes), i'm a size 00 petite and the clothes are still loose. at H&M (where i buy my street clothes), i'm a size 2 - the smallest size they make. doubtlessly the H&M sizes better reflect reality. i know i'm small at 5'2" and 98 lbs, but come on! what are they going to come up with next? size negative 0? i think clothes sold in America should take into account women of ALL shapes and sizes as well - big, small, short, tall, apple, pear, ruler, you name it. the sad fact is that it's not cost-effective for manufacturers to make clothes that will fit everyone, so they make clothes that only fit those with measurements a few standard deviations from the "norm". those of us who are outliers might just have to invest in a good tailor.

I have a similar problem to Chicken Girl and staci: I want to dress nicely, but I'm short. This doesn't mean I'm emaciated or a retiree, though. The amazing thing is that department stores, rather than putting pressure on suppliers to provide more clothing for 5'4" and under customers are actually phasing out their petite departments! (see article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/28/business/28petite.html?scp=1&sq=petite+department&st=nyt)
I'm beginning to wonder if we're all supposed to start tailoring our own clothing?

I have a similar problem to Chicken Girl and staci: I want to dress nicely, but I'm short. This doesn't mean I'm emaciated or a retiree, though. The amazing thing is that department stores, rather than putting pressure on suppliers to provide more clothing for 5'4" and under customers are actually phasing out their petite departments! (see article here) I'm beginning to wonder if we're all supposed to start tailoring our own clothing?

I'm amazed they're banning models from the runway for low BMIs.. and personally, although I'm overweight, I don't see 18 as a super-low BMI in the first place. Kudos to the British!

Jeez, that New York Times article is aggravating.

"Gee, we have all these nice old-lady clothes in our petite section, but for some reason all the non-retired short women would rather wear ill-fitting juniors' clothing instead! The solution, obviously, is to stop offering any petite clothing at all!"

Is there an upper-bound IQ limit to work in clothing design, or something? >.<

SL said:
r customers are actually phasing out their petite departments! (see[...]

Just shop in the girls department... Many short men already do alot of shopping in the boys department.

If you ever watch the show "What Not To Wear", you'll see that indeed most women DO have problems finding clothes that fit properly off the rack. Especially shorter, smaller women. I am one of the 41% that have issues with clothing. I am relatively short (5'3") and small (98 lbs) and it seems like the only clothes that I can even remotely get to fit are in the Junior's department. But because I'm athletic, I have well-developed thighs and glutes and most Junior's jeans are cut for girls with stick legs, so if I find a pair that fits in my legs, they are big everywhere else. It would definitely be nice to see clothes, especially jeans, to be sized with multiple numbers (like waist, hips, and inseam) instead of just one meaningless number--0, 00, whatever.

Mark VII said:
This is a myth. The clothing industry is market driven. [...]

Have you shopped for women's clothes lately? It's really frustrating.

Look at some of the measurements to fit in certain clothes. And swimsuits, agh! At a 41-28-42 measurement prepregnancy, I apparently needed to wear three different sizes. That's not clothes fitting right. And it's not like I have an outlandish looking body either. Just your typical curvy woman! And instead I either had to choose things that cling to the boobs to fit, or that are so loose (so I don't like slutty) that it looks like I have no waist. Not cool.

Spectra said:
If you ever watch the show "What Not To Wear", you'll see that indeed most women DO have problems finding clothes that fit properly off the rack. Especially shorter, smaller women. I am one of the 41% that have issues with clothing. I am relatively short (5'3") and small (98 lbs) and it seems like the only clothes that I can even remotely get to[...]

Women's clothes are designed for stick-figure women only. It's a big F-U from the designers to real women.

Women sizes are always getting bigger and bigger so women will keep buying new clothes as they get fatter and fatter.

Let me explain what I mean by "market driven": If there's money to be made in supplying it, it will be supplied, as long as there are no laws or the like to stop it, and even it then it will still be supplied to a certain extent (as with heroin). Now I assume that the other commenters are not walking around nude, so the market has responded to you. But you want clothes that fit "better." Is there a market for that?

It comes down to market segmentation and price. If "you" (or women in general) were willing to pay for clothes that fit you perfectly, they would be there. To take the extreme case, even today you can buy a piece that doesn't fit you and take it to a patternmaker and have her copy it, grade it to your size, locate fabric and then hand it off to a samplemaker to construct for you. But few people will pay that. That's a market segment of 1.

Making clothes that "kind of fit" larger market segments is cheaper. Making clothes that fit well tiny, narrow market segments is expensive. On the manufacturing and design end it more expensive to grade and set up manufacturing lines as the number of sizes increase, and on the distribution and retailing end it's more expensive to keep inventory and dispose of unsold stock. So the end result is that prices have to go up, and people will not pay them. Lane Bryant's pricing shows what happens when you start to serve increasingly more marginal markets (and I don't speak of the plus size market overall, but the market for "your perfect size").

There is nothing to indicate that clothing isn't a nearly perfect elastic market. If Lane Bryant were making fistfuls of cash, someone would come in to undercut them in price until a cost, supply, and demand equilibrium were reached.

So these are myths: (1) That there is some sort of conspiracy, or some sort of incompetence, that is to blame for clothes that don't fit women as well as they want, and (2) that some outfit in Spain has all of a sudden discovered some sizing system that everyone else has missed up till now that will fill women better than current systems without vastly increasing inventory and costs.

That video is the biggest piece of bunk. Getting progressively fatter is NOT a woman's destiny if she cares about herself.

Proportionately for my 5'4" height, I have longer legs than average, a long crotch length (the dsistance from the bottom of the crotch up to the waistline), and a high waist. This remains the same regardless of how much extra weight I am or am not carrying at the moment. Here in Germany I am fortunate to be able to get jeans that are marked with shorter or longer inseam measurement -- even in women's sizes. This was not true when I lived in America. Even when I could find pants to fit in the hip/waist area, they were always too short in the leg.

However, the long crotch length is dependent on the fashion of the moment. For the last several years ALL the pants that I tried on didn't reach my waist. I am 58 years old. I did hip-huggers back in the 70's. Been there, done that. At the moment I want pants that fit. I will bow to current fashion regarding fabric and color and shape of the leg (pegged or straight or bell bottoms -- remember those???) -- but I am not interested in flashing body parts to the world when I bend over or sit down.

When my existing pants were starting to show obvious signs of wear and I couldn't find pants to fit anywhere, I got out my sewing machine and started trying to figure out how to alter old patterns to fit. I have gone through several sets of fabric and several alterations to my basic pattern, but I am now pretty close to having a pattern that fits me. It's not as easy as walking into a store and picking something out. But if it's a choice between making the pants myself and flashing my middle-aged body parts to the world, then it's pretty clear to me which choice is the necessary one.

Besides, it's winter here. I want ALL of my "assets" covered. :-)

I believe this is a terrific idea.

What I hate is that womens' jeans (and juniors which is what I wear more of) have gotten progressively more and more low-rise since the 90s or so. I have a pair of Guess? pants from around '98 that have a higher (9" or greater) rise and fit around my low waist. The length of the pants is great. These days if I go to a Guess? store and try on jeans there, the rise is twice as short and the pant legs are much, much longer. My legs haven't gotten shorter so what gives?
I'm too tall for "short" sizes, so I'm left with hemming or cuffing all my pants/jeans or searching for ones that have a bit of a higher waist (hard to find these days). So frustrating!

I actually have little problem finding clothes that fit right. I'm an hourglass, 38-25-38 and 5'8''. Because so few pants and skirts are worn directly on the waist, besides high waisted, I have no problem because despite having a small waist i wear pants on my hip bone which is wider. If the length is not suited I have the hem tailored.

What is so funny to me about all of this is that men's clothing already works this way. I just became engaged, and so now I routinely go shopping with my fiance. Men's jeans are sized by waist and by inseam, not generic 0-16 or whatever. Men's collared shirts and some long-sleeved shirts are done by neck size and arm length - again, no generic 2-16. Just now are manufacturers beginning to think that this approach would also be a good idea for women!

Mark,

Pants almost ALWAYS fit my hips but not my waist. I am a very typical hourglass shape. My needs are not driving the market because I continue to buy clothes that don't fit because I can't find clothes that do fit!

When pants fit my hips and thighs, there is a big gap around my waist. It's very annoying.

I think this new sizing could be super cool. I hope that they figure in the ratio of lower body to upper body height as well as roundness: short waisted, average waisted, and low waisted.

I am short waisted (and thus long legged) and this also very much figures in to how well my clothes fit.

I have what I think is a body typical of many black and Latina women. I have a large behind and full hips. I wear a size 8, only because my butt and thighs will not fit into anything smaller, however i always have about three to four inches of extra space in the wasit of all my pants. It's very annoying and many of my black and hispanic friends have this problem. I wish someone would take into consideration this body type when they are manufacturing clothes, but everything is geared toward the "mainstream" woman's body.

So Mark, what you're telling all of us women is, if we want the industry to change and make clothes that actually fit a majority of us, we should just go naked? Stop buying clothes until they listen? That's a GREAT idea. I'm sure you guys would LOVE that.

I understand "market-driven", but in an industry like this one, where the product is a necessity and not a luxury, the manufacturers have the upper hand. Not many people know how to sew, or have the time, inclination, and pocketbook to make their own clothing. I'm one of the few who has the time, and talent, but not the money. Making your own cloting is an expensive venture - patterns alone can run around $15. I can buy a pair of jeans for that!

You said, "Making clothes that fit well tiny, narrow market segments is expensive."

This may be true, but the clothing industry is already doing that - making clothing that only fits a tiny segment of the population. The rest of us have to just deal with what we find. I haven't found a pair of pants that fit me correctly in 20 years! I've just learned to live with it, as most women have. We've discovered that no amount of complaining will work. And frankly, boycotting the market is simply not an option.

So maybe it's not a 'conspiracy' or 'incompetence', but it IS something. Arrogance, maybe? Remember, this is the same industry that almost requires girls to be anorexic before putting them on that Catwalk. Those models have been referred to as "human coat hangars". Yep. Those people sure are worried about correct fit for women.

This is the stupidest thing that I have ever heard. No offense, but the problem is the eating habits, not the sizes. when we start compensating egos for self-inflicted weight gain, we undermine personal responsibility and initiative to change. Not everyone morphs into a whale, and they shouldn't. To say it is normal flies into the face of the truth. Which is that your own eating habits play a big part in what size jeans you wear. Changing a jean sizes to alleviate the obvious fact, people need to change their habits and get exercise, won't change the statistics that women are DYING from heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and stroke.