It came to me this morning, while I was in that no-zone stage between being on the verge of falling back asleep and saying “heck with it” and waking up for real, that one of the little but significant problems in our society is the issue of clothing sizes.
Men have always had the choice of small, medium or large/x-large as have women, but then they also get to select their clothes based on their measurements. Women, on the other hand, have a variety of numbers assigned to them. Junior sizes are always odd-numbered, and I don’t really know why, but I suspect it’s because the Size Gurus think that, since the folks who normally wear junior clothes–adolescents–are a little off-kilter as they develop anyway, the non-even numbers fit perfectly with their profiles. Then we have Misses, Womens and half-sizes. Women are considered anybody who fits a size 14 or more, again for reasons I probably wouldn’t believe if they told me anyway. In fact, in the women’s department they normally give a designation of “W” for size 14s and up that are built for. . . .shall we say “more ample” females. Misses’ size 14 are not as proportioned.
We also deal with something manufacturers politely call a “rise.” This is how much trouser body you want to extend from your belly button, down and around and up to the small of your back, hoping to avoid a look that is considered undesirable in your plumber when viewed from behind. Some women don’t care if they have a low rise: in fact, they crave the exposure. That’s not me.
There is a chain store called Size 5, 7 & 9 that now carries other sizes. I don’t know why only this one group of sizes is singled out. I also can’t fathom the concept of Size 0. That’s right: zero, as in no size. Of course you would be holding a garment in your hands, but it is a null size. Unfortunately I think anorexics might crave the status of such a designation.
Why can’t women have clothes that are cut to fit the waist and hip? If you take a 24 waist and a 36 hip, so could your brother or spouse, right? Is that a crime? Wouldn’t it be easier for the overall feeling of humanness we all crave to be considered worthy of real clothing measurements as men? I’m just putting the thought out there, because it made sense this morning.
Oh, and we want alterations on the premises, too.
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One thought on “The Clothes Size Thing”
Kavita
Thanks so much for the post. I have been wondering how define ‘the rise’ for sometime. Now I need to ask the girls at Whatsmysize.com to figure out how we incorporate the info in our work.
I am also intrigued by 0 as this is something we see in America. We recently added some stores to show how sizes are translated between US to UK and Australia sizes. Hopefully this will shed some light what how size 0 works.
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