Molly Christianson, Staff Writer
Size numbers on women’s clothing mean nothing until you try something on and that is not OK.
Shopping for women’s clothing has become less about knowing your size and more about hoping that the clothes actually fit. Instead of walking into a store and grabbing their usual size, shoppers are often expected to bring multiple sizes into the fitting room in hopes that one works.
Online shopping makes this even more complicated because there are no fitting rooms. Customers have to rely on size charts, reviews, measurements and sometimes multiple returns just to find something that fits.
The problem is that women’s clothing sizes are not based on universal measurements. A size six does not necessarily mean that the garment is made for one specific set of body measurements. Different brands have their own sizing systems, patterns and ideas about how clothing should fit. You can technically know your “size” and still have no idea whether something will fit.
Someone might normally buy a size six in one store, but need a four in another and an eight somewhere else. Even within the same brand, a pair of jeans, a skirt and a dress can all fit differently despite having the same size printed on the tag. Jeans make this especially obvious because waist, hips, length, cut and rise can all change how the same labeled size feels. A “low-rise” pair from one brand might sit completely differently from a “low-rise” pair from another. The number on the tag is really more of a label than a standardized measurement.
The return of low-rise jeans adds another layer to the problem. Their comeback also brings back some of the beauty standards that surrounded them the first time around. In the late ’90s and early 2000s, low-rise jeans were closely associated with the ultra-thin “heroin chic” aesthetic, where extremely thin bodies were heavily represented in fashion and popular culture.
The jeans themselves did not create that standard, but they were designed and styled around a particular idea of what a fashionable body looked like.
This raises a different question about sizing: How much do clothing sizes reflect the bodies that brands expect their customers to have?
Vanity sizing is one example of how these numbers have changed over time. Clothing can be labeled with a smaller size than the measurements historically associated with that size, meaning a modern size eight may not correspond to the same measurements as a size eight from decades ago.
The point remains: We need a standardized sizing chart.
I am willing to bet that the answer to why one does not exist involves money. Clothing companies are in the business of selling clothes and if changing sizes, fits and trends helps them sell more, there may be little incentive to make sizing universal.
This universal sizing seems to exist more often in men’s clothing, where pants are typically labeled using waist measures instead of arbitrary “sizes.” A 32-inch waist generated size is more consistent regardless of whether the pants are from one brand or another. While there are still discrepancies between fabrics and fits, men’s clothing tends to be generally more reliable.
Regardless, if the number on the tag keeps changing depending on the brand, style or year, what is it actually telling us? More importantly, why are shoppers expected to figure it out themselves?