[HN Gopher] Sizing chaos
___________________________________________________________________
Sizing chaos
Author : zdw
Score : 790 points
Date : 2026-02-18 21:18 UTC (1 days ago)
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| polytely wrote:
| Very cool visualization, worked great on firefox mobile too which
| isn't always the case with these types of things.
| ChadNauseam wrote:
| Makes me want to learn to sew to make my own clothes. I've wanted
| to for a while because seams on clothes always bothered me. (Not
| for taste or fashion, but just because I feel like the technology
| to make a seamless clothing product must exist.)
| malfist wrote:
| Very few fabrics can be fused together to make seams disappear,
| mostly your synthetics. Though technically wools could be
| felted together, but that would probably be extremely labor
| intensive.
| dylan604 wrote:
| I've had some athletic wear with "seamless" features, but
| after sometime the adhesive lets go. Fixing that at home is
| much more difficult than needle/thread fixes for normal
| stitches. To be honest, I never even realized it was
| "seamless" until the adhesive failed. It had no factor in my
| purchasing.
| ChadNauseam wrote:
| why is it that fabrics can be made in a square shape but not
| e.g. a capless cylinder shape? I can knit clothes seamlessly,
| right?
| munificent wrote:
| _> why is it that fabrics can be made in a square shape but
| not e.g. a capless cylinder shape?_
|
| Woven fabrics are naturally rectangular because they're
| made of a 2D grid of fibers at 90deg angles to each other.
| The easiest (cheapest) way to make an irregular shape out
| of a woven fabric is to make a rectangle and cut it down.
|
| _> I can knit clothes seamlessly, right?_
|
| Knit garments usually have some amount of seaming, but yes,
| you have a lot of options to make irregular shapes when
| knitting.
|
| However, knitting _machines_ tend be most efficient and
| making rectangular fabric. They can do some amount of
| shaping, but the labor and cost goes up.
|
| If you want to hand knit a garment, you can make quite
| complex irregular shapes with very little or no need for
| seaming. However, you're talking about two orders of
| magnitude more labor to make a garment. Few people want to
| pay $1,000 for a hand-knit sweater, so you're mostly
| limited to knitting it yourself or having a friend or loved
| one who likes you.
| panic wrote:
| They can be! The key phrase to search for is "tubular
| weaving".
| altairprime wrote:
| You can manage a seamless clothing product if you are willing
| to have it knit on-demand for you, either by machine or by
| person. If you start with how [1] socks are made, then consider
| how to decompose your clothes into sock-shapes, you'll find:
|
| Shirts: one tube sock for the torso, two tube socks for the
| arms, zero ends closed; Pants: two tube socks for the legs, one
| tube sock for the torso, zero ends closed; Gloves: five tube
| socks for the appendages, one tube sock for the palm, zero-to-
| five ends closed depending on fingerless style; Socks: one tube
| sock with one end closed; Hats: one tube sock with one end
| closed.
|
| So it's entirely possible to construct a sock weaving pattern
| that ends up weaving a head-to-toe single garment for you out
| of some kind of stretchy yarn, that you would then have to
| figure out how to clamber into through the face hole (since
| that's the only open-ended sock) -- but that coverall
| (literally!) pattern would have to be constructed for your
| _complete_ set of measurements [2] in every regard, and that 's
| an exceedingly costly amount of labor (measurement, knitting,
| measurement, unraveling, repeat). You can scale down that cost
| for seamless tops or bottoms somewhat, which you'll absolutely
| see high-fashion retailers do, but at the end of the day it's
| the cost of bespoke-tailored clothing from scratch _plus_ the
| cost of bespoke-knit fabric from scratch _plus_ the cost of not
| getting it exactly right the first time. None of this is
| intended to criticize your desire -- I hate awful seams and I
| have collected clothing that has seams that don 't bother me
| and/or are extravagantly seams because the sweater was
| intentionally panel-knit inside-out! -- but I wanted to offer a
| bit of depth into why it's difficult to find seamless. You have
| to start and end the knit _somewhere_ , and that's
| exponentially simpler if you start and end the knit _more than
| once_ ; thus, seams.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/shorts/_7Limzg3O60 or
| https://blog.tincanknits.com/2013/10/03/socks/
|
| [2] https://cwandt.com/products/personal-body-unit-index makes
| the point nicely enough, though I believe you need Even More
| And Different measurements for tailoring [3] that were out of
| scope for this particular creation:
|
| > _Che-Wei's Mom often does this weird finger walking dance
| along the edges of furniture, fabric or random stuff. She knows
| that the span of her hand from thumb to pinky measures 18cm. So
| she can quickly size things up. We always thought this was
| funny, until we realized it was GENIUS and started to copy her.
| We made Personal Body Unit Index so we can be more like Che-
| Wei's Mom._
|
| [3] Men's tailoring measurements are generally optimized for a
| couple dozen taken at most; further variability gets handled
| through 'adjustments' or 'on the fly' rather than formally at
| the construction stage. I think I can identify a couple dozen
| measurements just on my torso alone -- _just_ the bust is an
| entire three-dimensional construct that has to be measured
| over, across, under, rise, attachment shape, attachment height
| and width, volume, not to mention _desired_ support
| /lift/shaping, and that's before we even get to the usual
| waist-hips-butt conglomerate, torso/arm length, shoulder width,
| upper/lower arm width that men are familiar with, and the
| perhaps less-familiar belly shape/distribution (it isn't always
| above-the-belt as is typical for men) and front abdomen curve
| shape (often without a certain male sexual characteristic,
| often with varying fat pattern distributions, see also belly).
| cyberrock wrote:
| For t-shirts you're looking for loopwheel or tubular knit.
| 4gotunameagain wrote:
| [flagged]
| i80and wrote:
| ah yes, clothes not fitting, a famously bourgeoisie problem /s
|
| As somebody with an atypical body shape, not being able to find
| things that fit is an endless source of irritation and
| discomfort
| shikshake wrote:
| I'd argue this problem is more important than most of the tech
| articles on this site. Having well-fitted clothing is a massive
| quality of life improvement.
| dang wrote:
| Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments and
| flamebait? You've unfortunately been doing it repeatedly, and
| we've already asked you repeatedly to stop.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45681833 (Oct 2025)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44728916 (July 2025)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44287383 (June 2025)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36346650 (June 2023)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29857405 (Jan 2022)
|
| I don't want to ban you, but if you keep doing this, we're
| going to end up doing that. If you wouldn't mind reviewing
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and using HN
| as intended, we'd appreciate it.
| zeckalpha wrote:
| Almost like we should use, you know, units of length, when
| measuring lengths/widths/etc.
| sien wrote:
| Yeah. It's a remarkable problem. There is a clear solution that
| is happily used for men. You tell people what to measure then
| have the clothes sized for the various dimensions.
|
| Charles Tyrwhitt have this guide where they tell you what to
| measure for shirts :
|
| https://www.charlestyrwhitt.com/au/size-guides/szg-formal-sh...
|
| and for trousers :
|
| https://www.charlestyrwhitt.com/au/szg-trousers-4-2021.html
|
| Presumably some online shops for women have something similar?
| bhk wrote:
| Funny enough, vanity sizing strikes there too. The purported
| waist size of a pair of Levi's is off by almost three inches.
|
| One might argue that the size on their label is not supposed to
| indicate the size of the garment waistband, but the waist size
| of the wearer who would find it comfortable, but even with that
| interpretation it doesn't work out right.
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| Can confirm the utter _hell_ it is to shop for women 's clothing.
| I started transitioning at the ripe old age of 36, and up until
| that point, have obviously bought clothes for men. My entire
| fucking life I have bought XL shirts and jeans with a 38-44 inch
| waist, shorter legs. Never had an issue.
|
| Womens sizes... like Jesus Christ, I don't know how ANY women
| tolerate this shit. It's completely made up. A size 0 in one
| brand feels similar to a size 3 in another, feels similar to
| Large in another, feels similar to -1 in another. Anything you
| buy and like, you effectively have to pray they keep making
| forever, and always buy from that brand or you risk getting
| something else that doesn't fit correctly.
|
| I've never shopped a product category that feels so utterly
| hostile to consumer comprehension, except MAYBE microtransactions
| in videogames. And I'm not meaning to be dramatic, that's the
| only other type of market I've experienced in life where it feels
| like my attempts to understand what I'm buying are being
| deliberately frustrated like this.
| observationist wrote:
| It's intentional, to force you to engage a salesperson, and
| that salesperson knows all the jargon and unnecessary
| variations and how to size clothing that fits you. Once you
| have a positive transaction like that, it gives the company the
| opportunity to get a very loyal customer out of you, and it's
| the more pricey and "exclusive" brands. 100% emotional
| manipulation - they piss you off on purpose so they can seem
| like a hero and set you up with clothing that feels and looks
| good, but the specific fit will only match their numbers, and
| maybe even only their numbers for that season. How about
| ensuring that you can match someone who wears XL with an L
| right after holiday season, or hit them with an XL in the fall
| to set them up for a change during the holidays, etc.
|
| The schemes are ruthless and never end, and it's all arbitrary
| fashion. In some ways, it's a lot easier being a guy.
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| I mean shit, I'd happily engage with salespeople if I wasn't
| terrified of my red-state-living self getting hatecrimed if I
| go to the wrong store.
| nikkaelle wrote:
| As a trans woman who started transitioning at 43... I agree
| 100%.
|
| This article mostly discusses waist size, for which I'm in the
| lower quartile. But after 40 years of testosterone poisoning my
| underbust is above the median. Finding clothing that fits and
| is flattering is really difficult!
| observationist wrote:
| Why bother with a rational, descriptive, functional system when
| you can use vaguely aggressive and hostile terms that subtly
| impugn the buyer and allow incredibly deceptive and manipulative
| marketing?
|
| And hey, they don't really need pockets, anyway, right?
|
| edit: Really should have used the /s, I guess - women's clothing
| has some appalling aspects to it, one of which is notoriously
| tiny pockets, which is a source of frustration for many women.
| For some, it even comes as a shock when they find out men can do
| things like put phones in their pockets.
|
| The emotional manipulation surrounding many women's products is a
| different beast entirely from what men experience, generally.
| altairprime wrote:
| I think the only error here was in thinking that's a sarcastic
| explanation. Look up the history of the word 'negging' and
| consider the male-dominant business and marketing industries
| over the past few decades. Your sarcasm is, no joke, a _valid_
| explanation for what's happening. I can't assess whether it's
| the most likely or how much impact it has, but you're
| completely right to call it out as a possible motivation, and
| if you simply put quote marks around it, that would be
| plausible rather than sarcastic. Especially given that pockets
| were taken away from women's clothing over their objections for
| similarly disgusting reasons. Here's highlight from the below
| article from 10.2979 /vic.2010.52.4.561 (2010) as an upsetting
| example:
|
| > _Victorian women were told that they "had four external
| bulges already -- two breasts and two hips -- and a money
| pocket inside their dress would make an ungainly fifth."_
|
| https://fashionmagazine.com/style/womens-pockets/ (which cites
| that among many others) is a good survey of the historical and
| current pockets issues for those not yet familiar.
| tirant wrote:
| And despite all of that, women keep buying those products.
|
| I have difficulties believing that your observations are a real
| issue. If they were, rest assured the free market would have
| found out about it and would have offered the right product for
| those women.
|
| Reality is that most women buy based on looks and not
| practicality. I really had not heard before your comment any
| women complaining about small pockets.
| NanoCoaster wrote:
| > Reality is that most women buy based on looks and not
| practicality. I really had not heard before your comment any
| women complaining about small pockets.
|
| I've had the exact opposite experience. I've heard this
| complaint many, many times, and for good reason because it
| really is laughable.
|
| > Reality is that most women buy based on looks and not
| practicality.
|
| Well, it's a tradeoff, isn't it? As a man, I also wear a
| (fake) leather jacket that has some fake pockets and I
| complain about them, because they're dumb and unnecessary.
| Still like the look of it, which is why I bought it, because
| it's not a -huge- issue.
|
| To put it another way, why couldn't you have both? Why not
| have good-looking clothes that also have proper pockets?
| That's the really ridiculous part about it.
|
| Also, there's a third variable you didn't factor in at all:
| Comfort. It's not enough to produce clothes that look good,
| they need to fit as well...which is exactly what the article
| is about.
|
| So now you need to find clothes that are at least mostly
| comfortable, look at least okay to you and have proper
| pockets. And that is the point where you're really going to
| have a hard time in women's clothing and that's why a lot of
| the time, women will take the more comfortable, better-
| looking option. 2 out of 3 at least. But the fact remains
| that the pockets are completely idiotic.
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| > I took stacks upon stacks of jeans with me to the dressing
| room, searching in vain for that one pair that fit perfectly.
| Over 20 years later, my hunt for the ideal pair of jeans
| continues. But now as an adult, I'm stuck with the countless ways
| that women's apparel is not made for the average person, like me.
|
| I'm a 5'6 145lbs adult male. Y'know how many clothes are made
| that fit me? T-shirts, size S, fitted; and dress shirts by
| Express. That's basically it. Pants don't fit me because the legs
| aren't short enough, the crotch isn't long enough, and I don't
| have a butt/thighs. Basically no jacket fits me. Shoes? One of my
| feet is a different size than the other.
|
| I, too, have to try on literally every garment I see that sort-
| of-looks-like it might fit. I have tried hundreds of pairs of
| jeans, dress shirts, jackets. When I find one that fits, I buy
| two of them (or every one in a different color). And then I gain
| or lose weight... and the cycle repeats. I probably own 30 pairs
| of jeans, and a closet full of shirts that I almost never wear,
| but one day might want, and will never be able to find anywhere
| else.
|
| Human bodies are diverse. Standard sizes don't work. But you know
| what _will_ give you the perfect fit? Tailoring. Buy something
| too big, take it to a neighborhood drycleaner & tailor, and have
| them alter it to fit you. It's that simple. If you're worried
| about not having "enough" clothes and want to save money, it's
| not hard to use a sewing machine (if I learned, you can). In
| retrospect, I should've used tailoring rather than constantly
| hunt for fitting clothes. But I suspect I hunt the racks for the
| same reason women do: the idea that, somewhere out there, there's
| a better item I don't have.
|
| I don't think there's a way to reform the fashion industry, as it
| produces what the market bears. You could also - and I know this
| is crazy, but bear with me - wear ill-fitting clothes. Your
| gender doesn't have to constantly strive to be attractive. We
| will be into you regardless. And if you're just trying to live up
| to your own gender's expectations... maybe it's not a great
| expectation.
| altairprime wrote:
| This post is about women's sizing, not men's sizing. I'd love
| to see a followup post by someone doing the same analysis for
| men's sizing, though!
| exmadscientist wrote:
| Women's sizing got bad first, and is worse today, but men's
| sizing is already moving fast down the same road.
|
| This crap affects all of us and awareness that we're all in
| the same boat is a good thing.
| sublinear wrote:
| It's a similar situation for taller men (6'1" and up).
|
| All t-shirt sizing is completely wrong for me. I have a longer
| torso and broader shoulders than anything in standard sizing.
| Some "big and tall" sizes fit my shoulders and are long enough,
| but then are also insanely baggy because I'm apparently not fat
| enough.
| fishtoaster wrote:
| This is a great use of data to make a compelling case that sizing
| sucks for women's clothing!
|
| I do wish it attempted to answer the question at the end, though:
| "Sizes are all made up anyway -- why can't we make them better?"
|
| Like, why doesn't the market solve for this? If the median woman
| can't buy clothing that fits in many brands, surely that's a huge
| marketing opportunity for any of the thousands of other clothing
| brands?
|
| This is, to be clear, a sincere question - not a veiled argument
| against OP or anything! It seems like there are probably some
| structural or psychological or market forces stopping that from
| happening and I'd love to understand them. Same with the "womens
| clothes have no pockets" thing!
| pinkmuffinere wrote:
| same, I wonder why this is. Is it just that modelling /
| marketing is more effective with things as they presently are?
| It seems there is a market for better fitting clothes -- likely
| half (or more!) of clothes bought would make the end customer
| happier if the items just had a better fit. Why have financial
| incentives not achieved this?
| zamadatix wrote:
| In the "THe VILLaIN aRC oF VANiTY SiZINg" section, vanity
| sizing is framed as marketing strategy which is successful
| because of the psychology around that - linking out to
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S10577...
| for more detail.
|
| It certainly wouldn't be the first time the most profitable
| marketing strategy is unrelated to aligning with what's optimal
| for the consumer.
| apt-apt-apt-apt wrote:
| Translating the confusing science speak, basically:
|
| Appearance self-esteem takes a hit when they don't fit in a
| size. They take it out on the clothes: "I hate their stuff,
| they suck." They buy more of other stuff to compensate for
| the hit, whether non-sized accessories (I am pretty) or
| book/tech (I am smart even if I don't fit).
|
| People confident in their appearance are immune to the
| effect, and simply think it's sized wrong or runs small.
| goodmythical wrote:
| I am genuinely curious as to which words in the cited are
| 'confusing science speak' in your view.
|
| Having read the article, I can't venture a guess without
| feeling condescending...non-conforming? Compensatory?
|
| Legitimately confused.
| zamadatix wrote:
| I think they read the full paper rather than the snippets
| and agree most couldn't tell you what Cronbach's alpha
| is, how ANOVA works, or otherwise accurately interpret
| the meaning of the results sections in a casual read
| through. One can grab the full paper on resources such as
| Anna's Archive if they don't have access via a university
| or such.
|
| Of course, the trick (once you know) is you don't need a
| comment summarizing it for you. The abstract is alright
| in a pinch, but the "General Discussion" in psychology
| papers is the equivalent of "Conclusion" and aims to
| discuss the results directly. It's still a bit verbose...
| but the language should at least be very familiar in
| comparison.
| apt-apt-apt-apt wrote:
| They use precise but indirect terminology e.g.,
| "heightened level of appearance self-esteem" rather than
| "confident in their appearance".
|
| Indirect phrasing e.g., "they respond more favorably to
| products that can help to repair their damaged appearance
| self-esteem" rather than something direct and easy to
| understand like "they feel bad that they don't fit, so
| they end up buying other things like makeup/jewelry to
| feel better about their appearance".
| fao_ wrote:
| Maybe it's me, but only the first quote seems cumbersome,
| and wasn't very cumbersome in the article when I read it
| in context.
| nikanj wrote:
| "I had no issues with complex sentence structure,
| therefore the whole planet is fluent in english and
| college-level literate"
|
| Simpler language is an accessibility issue
| Maxion wrote:
| Being able to easily, and quickly read scientific
| literature is not a universal trait. You're in the top 1%
| (probably top 0.1%?) if you're able to do that and
| actually understand the source material.
|
| The average person has a hard time reading and fully
| understanding a newspaper article or cooking instructions
| on a pre-prepared meal.
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| The first paragraph is fine -- I agree. The second
| paragraph is a silly hyperbole that comes up over and
| over again on HN and needs to die. Major newspapers are
| written for about 8th grade level reading comprehension.
| Cooking instructions on a prep'd meal are probably much
| lower -- maybe 5th grade. The "average person" (whatever
| that term means) living in highly developed nations can
| read at 8th grade level or above.
| fao_ wrote:
| Well, except for America, according to statistics :P
| mrkandel wrote:
| You can't write "feel bad that they don't fit" in a
| paper. What do you think this is, the yellow papers?
| Jensson wrote:
| Why can't you write that? It is much more accurate than
| their own version since what they wrote is very
| suggestive while this is just describing what happened.
| AmbroseBierce wrote:
| Of course education could help about this and other
| psychologically manipulative tactics by corps but such kind
| of education is heavily frowned upon for being seeing as
| anti-capitalist and (more propagandistic) as un-american, so
| there is zero of such kind of education.
| altairprime wrote:
| I mourn for the retreat of critical reasoning skills from
| modern U.S. early education systems.
| rcbdev wrote:
| Thankfully, for most people on Earth, the prospect of
| seeming "Un-American" is not relevant. It's also not a
| problem to argue against free-market economies - see
| Austria's second biggest city (Graz), which has an elected
| mayor from the communist party.
|
| These seem like uniquely U.S.-American issues.
| testdelacc1 wrote:
| Education doesn't help here, what are you talking about?!
|
| Educated people can read as many books as they want about
| manipulation and still be susceptible to it. The
| manipulation works on a much deeper emotional level. We
| can't change who we are, no matter how much education we
| get.
|
| Being told by a brand "you're fat" hurts no matter how many
| papers you've read or published and "you're still thin and
| beautiful and desirable!" feels amazing.
| galkk wrote:
| This is the weirdest section, and is just unnecessary virtue
| signaling.
|
| Women don't buy their real size because it makes them feel
| bad -> market pressures companies to address that by doing
| vanity sizing -> brands bad
|
| I cannot comprehend that jump in the logic.
| testdelacc1 wrote:
| Not quite "brands bad".
|
| It's more that buying clothes across brands becomes
| confusing for women. That's a worse outcome for women.
|
| The villain isn't the brands, it's the vanity sizing.
| maxrev17 wrote:
| As a bloke I think I can see one reason why - I buy sports kit
| the model looks good in but I won't. Every damn time! Then end
| up buying again.
| trhway wrote:
| People buy heavy SUV when compact car would do, "dress for
| the job you want", "temporarily embarrassed millionaires",
| nationalistic fervor for your country getting more territory
| when even with the current one you don't know what to do, and
| so forth... Humans are an aspirational animal, and it is
| pretty easy to sell into that aspiration be it a ticket to
| Moon or a nice looking on the model jacket :)
|
| To the commenter below:
|
| Exactly. The societies where aspirations have been dampened
| or completely suppressed have been collectivistic and/or
| totalitaristic - USSR, North Korea, etc. - ie. where
| individual will is totally suppressed.
| beeflet wrote:
| Mankind is aspirational when we are allowed to act as
| individuals. The silent majority has a different character
| because it's a simpler animal.
| tirant wrote:
| Then just try it out and if does not look good don't buy it.
|
| I believe that's how most of us try clothes out. It's not
| only a matter of body shape, but also skin color, hair color,
| facial hair, face shape, hair cut...
|
| You always need to try out the clothes before buying...
| jcims wrote:
| I wonder if understanding a particular brand's sizing drives up
| repeat purchases.
| altairprime wrote:
| Yes. This is _specifically_ a driver for having brand-
| specific sizing: knowing what size I am in Wooland Jade does
| nothing whatsoever to help me assess a potentially cheaper
| option in Uniqlo Whatever. It 's the same lock-in effect as
| cloud APIs, only implemented through attributes instead.
| Imagine the chaos in the guitar market if the "bass" in "bass
| guitar" had up to +/-25% variation between guitar
| manufacturers -- it would be a total nightmare trying to
| cross-shop guitars away from your current one, and lots of
| people would just end up glued to a brand so they don't have
| to do the hard work of assessing 'is this within +/-5% of the
| bass that fits me now'.
| harrall wrote:
| Yes but it's multiple dimensions other than just waistline.
| e.g Some brands make boxier shirts and others use longer
| cuts.
|
| Because "my style" prefers one over the other, I know when I
| buy from a certain brand so it's going to fit on me better.
|
| If if waistlines were standardized it wouldn't really account
| for all the other measurements.
| Gigachad wrote:
| There's also different definitions of waistline size. Pant
| sizes "lie" because historically most pants sat further up
| your waist, now that many of them sit on your hips, they
| give you a measurement as if they were still sitting higher
| up so you can compare between the fits with the same
| number.
|
| Really the only bulletproof solution here is to just go try
| them on in store and see which fits best.
| altairprime wrote:
| Pants sizes also lie because they don't take into account
| the rise necessary to provide horizontal waistline on
| women with an angle at their rear waist-to-hip incline. A
| 14 low-rise waist that flops down at a thirty degree tilt
| in the front is a worse fit than a 12 mid-rise waist that
| doesn't, for example.
| jcims wrote:
| It's a great point that I think the article also touches
| on. Bodies are of many shapes, so the sizing question is as
| much about, possibly _more_ about, shape as it is mapping
| any particular dimension to a scale.
| iamacyborg wrote:
| Speaking for myself as a bloke, yes, 100%. If I know stuff
| from a particular brand fits me well, I'm going to buy more
| from that brand.
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| I always find it frustrating that most stores turn over
| their stock so often. I find a shirt I like then go back to
| buy another and it's gone.
| wooger wrote:
| 100%. For a time whoever the gap shirt designers measured
| up for their XL size must've exactly matched my build and
| height, and had extra long arms the same length as mine. So
| it was an easy way to get a shirt that fit right, for me.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Flipside: drastically _changing_ a brand 's sizing standards
| has _repeatedly_ driven me away from long-time favourites.
|
| This happened to me several times from the 1990s through the
| aughts. Literally between one shopping session and the next,
| the same style of clothes (tops, bottoms) which had fit
| perfectly no longer did, resulting both in a set of returns
| (of clothing) and non-returns (of myself, for future
| purchases) to those stores. As someone who generally dislikes
| the shopping experience, additional and insurmountable
| frictions such as these are absolutely fatal.
|
| More recently (as I've just commented) it's the widespread
| adoption of stretch fabrics in non-athletic wear. I _may_
| want stretch in _some_ of my workout clothes. I _don 't_ want
| it in my street clothing.
| bko wrote:
| I think the market opportunity can be a standard and eventually
| get labels to include your standard in addition to their
| traditional labeling.
|
| Figure out the variables (like shape, inseam, width, whatever
| else) for each article of clothing. Then freely distribute this
| and begin to catalog popular items. You can crowdsource some of
| this. The idea is people will look up the clothes as per your
| scale.
|
| Then after you index a lot of clothes, you can search by exact
| measurements and then you can hit up clothing manufacturers to
| use their propriety code in their marketing or promote their
| brands on your site.
| altairprime wrote:
| This works in theory, until you discover as the article did,
| that all manufacturers use one clothing shape -- hourglass --
| and so if your measurements aren't "bust == hips, waist :=
| bust - 10" then your search engine finds few or no results.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| >"Sizes are all made up anyway -- why can't we make them
| better?"
|
| I will settle for making them consistent. Multiple times, I
| have ordered the same clothing in the same size from the same
| webpage in different colors, and some colors fit, and the
| others do not.
|
| I am surprised that a women's clothing startup prioritizing
| pockets big enough for smartphones hasn't usurped the
| incumbents. I would have figured the convenience of being able
| to store a device that people have their heads down in 95% of
| the time would be sufficient to supersede more vanity related
| motivations.
| spockz wrote:
| So much this for consistency. I remember one particular bad
| occasion I went shopping for trousers in a store. I tried
| five, each had something wrong in relation with the size
| numbers.
|
| First didn't fit because it was too tight, so I tried one
| size larger. This one was even smaller than the previous one.
| So I tried an even bigger one which was only taller. Tried a
| bigger number now it was way too big. So for fun I tried one
| with a higher number which turned out to be smaller than the
| previous one.
|
| When I asked the store assistant, they shrugged and said that
| was just reality and why you need to try every item
| individually. It has to do with how much "spare" cloth the
| seamstress takes when stitching the trousers together, if the
| original piece of cloth was even already cut to size
| properly.
|
| These days I buy from the brand own size, the same item and
| it fits every time.
| tirant wrote:
| I've only seen that issue in extremely cheap, China-made,
| clothing.
|
| It helps to buy high quality, and expensive, clothing.
| Sizing is consistent, and shape stays after multiple
| washes.
|
| Googling BIFL in Reddit helps a lot.
| wooger wrote:
| Used to know someone who worked for a mass production
| company, outsourcing big clothing orders for UK
| supermarkets.
|
| It's common for clothing producers (Designers were in the
| UK in this case, clothes made in china or otherwise) to
| just pick whoever is in the design office that's about the
| right size and use them as the basis of all sizing
| measurements for a given size.
|
| I've even heard of a petite woman being used as the size
| model for boys 11-12 age supermarket clothes. There's very
| little thought involved, it's just convenience to be able
| to tailor the template garment to a real person who's
| nearby.
| dehue wrote:
| In my experience with womens clothing having pockets does not
| mean they are very practical for phones. Phones are heavy and
| they can drag pants or skirt/dress down if they are
| stretchier or don't have a tight waistband which is most of
| them. If the pocket goes too far down or is too loose or too
| big the phone ends up too far down and jiggles around which
| is quite annoying and uncomfortable. Or in items like jeans
| where the pocket is well designed the phone still sticks out
| of the top and yet when I bend my knee it jams into my hip in
| a weird way or I cant sit down with it in my pocket. I am 5'1
| so I may just be hitting some size limitations but carrying
| around a phone in a purse or sticking it into the waistband
| of tighter pants can be more comfortable than trying to use
| pockets.
| Rendello wrote:
| Even as a guy who wears pretty loose straight-cut jeans,
| having stuff in my pockets can look and feel weird.
| Especially my AirPods case. In jeans with slightly stretchy
| denim, the location of my phone is permanently etched into
| my jeans. I'd be a pickpocket's dream. When I had the
| unfortunate inclination to wear tight pants, anything in
| the pockets looked and felt quite bad.
| bubblewand wrote:
| If you think you can pull it off, I've become a strong
| proponent of blazers and sport coats. I call them
| "wearable purses for men".
|
| For me, this is basically an evolution and refinement of
| what I guess I've always been trying to do. As a teen,
| I'd wear un- or partially-buttoned button-up shirts over
| my t-shirts. Later, zip hoodies as much of the year as I
| could get away with. I'd also be sad during this whole
| period when it'd get too warm and I couldn't get away
| with wearing a coat everywhere (and it got too warm for a
| hoodie, once I adopted those) and I'd have to go back to
| putting my stuff in my trouser pockets. That just sucks.
|
| Now, I've gone to blazers and sport coats, which to me
| feel like a very similar idea but are wildly more
| practical[1] for most situations I find myself in, and
| most folks perceive them as looking a lot better, too.
|
| I've found the heavier winter fabrics to be the easiest
| to pull off. Simple tweeds, or I've got this one really
| heavy but soft wool twill in grey-black that works great.
| Corduroy (there are wool corduroys, too!) covers fall
| really well, and can do for the cooler parts of spring,
| too.
|
| Summer is trickier. Unlined Summer-weight wools can add
| effectively zero heat (and keep some of the sun off you!)
| but may look too formal, especially when nobody else is
| wearing a jacket of any kind. Really schlubby
| unstructured cotton, or a simple linen jacket can work
| without looking "too fancy", but they're a bit high-
| maintenance if you don't want them to look wrinkled to
| hell all the time. I haven't quite found what I'd call a
| perfect solution for me, here.
|
| [1] Why are they more practical? A blazer or sport coat
| can usually dress pretty far up, and pretty far down, so
| has better situational range than a hoodie. I also find
| the pocket layout is just a ton better. My standard way
| to wear them is keys in left-hip, phone in right-hip,
| wallet in left-inner-breast. Generally, these leave tons
| of room in all three pockets concerned for cramming
| change or receipts or whatever, none of them are crowded.
| When traveling, I'll give a whole pocket to my passport,
| right-inner-breast if that one's big enough, or I might
| give that to my left hip if I don't need my keys (like
| when flying or taking a train). Sunglasses can go in the
| outer breast pocket. Hip pockets are usually big enough
| to temporarily cram leather or knit-wool gloves in, for
| the winter, when I need to take those off but don't have
| anywhere to put them, without overcrowding the pockets
| enough to cause a problem. I can double up my keys and a
| big ID/keycard in the left hip, when I need to go into
| the office, still not crammed tight or anything. The hip
| pockets are also great for those "pocket size" paperback
| books, and you can even fit stuff like Modern Library
| hardcovers in there as long as they're not super-thick
| volumes, especially the older editions that had smaller
| dimensions.
| Rendello wrote:
| I appreciate the discussion. I'm always looking for ways
| to look better, although you wouldn't know it because I'm
| unkempt and wear old clothes. But _fantasy me_ dresses
| really well.
|
| > and keep some of the sun off you!
|
| This has become really important to me in the last few
| years after I realized the impact sunlight has on
| people's skin (I always think of this [1] or just
| generally the people I know who don't care about sun
| exposure). I'm not sure what my ideal summer look will be
| since I look best in sporty clothing, but don't intend to
| spend long periods of time with large parts of my skin
| exposed to direct summer sunlight any longer. The face
| and back of the neck is the hardest part to fashionably
| keep safe.
|
| https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trucker-accumulates-skin-
| damage...
| altairprime wrote:
| You might also appreciate research into the French
| accesory 'pochette', which is approximately like a
| women's clutch in the U.S. except without the gender-
| specifics (as translations 'folder' or 'case' suggest).
| Might have to site:fr a search in order to get ungendered
| results, though.
| altairprime wrote:
| In women's clothes, if you're trying to target Generic
| Woman, you often have to put deep pockets somewhere other
| than the front of thigh, because for various
| compositional reasons that area isn't reliably available
| across women's various body shapes. This is how we ended
| up with one of the coolest innovations in pockets since
| leggings: the _side leg pocket_. Everyone has a side leg.
| You can put a pocket there and it 's perceptually
| irrelevant to people. Some of my skirts have pockets
| designed along these same lines that can hold an entire
| Nintendo Switch with controllers attached and it's
| effectively invisible if I'm sitting in a chair, because
| no one notices when my thighs are a bit thicker on one
| side. In leggings it's blindingly obvious that there's a
| phone there, but leggings are typically bodycon-tight to
| begin with, so I just view it as "yup, that's a phone
| pocket" when I even remember where I put my phone at all.
| orbisvicis wrote:
| back waist pocket = mind blown
|
| standard back pocket = disaster
|
| I've ripped quite a few pants (2? 3?) getting up when the
| phone in the back pocket gets caught on something. And
| these were pants I considered "heavy duty".
|
| side-leg pocket = ungainly
|
| Knees and by extension thighs move more than hips, and so
| items in side pockets tend to bounce around and pull down
| the waistline, when normally they wouldn't in regular
| pockets.
|
| In my opinion the best pocket is the breast pocket on
| jackets and heavier garments. I guess if I were a cop I'd
| prefer the shoulder holster.
| altairprime wrote:
| Yeah, back waist pocket works _incredibly_ well if you
| have a 'rear bust', so to speak -- the waist-to-hip
| curve angle can be quite severe relative to men. I have
| bicyclist thighs so an extra quarter inch on one side is
| completely invisible -- but the placement of jacket
| pockets is incompatible with my torso shape. I believe(?)
| on many women's jackets they come out of the factory sewn
| shut by default so that they don't gape from the angular
| pressure.
| Slow_Hand wrote:
| I'm a big fan these days of a small crossbody bag (aka a
| sling bag). MY problem is that the pockets on my pants
| are too large and loose and I don't want to worry about
| things absently falling out when I sit.
|
| Uniqlo makes a solid one for $25. It's light,
| comfortable, and unobtrusive. Admittedly, it's not ideal
| for all styles or situations, but I love that it's large
| enough for items that are definitely too large or
| uncomfortable for a pocket, like a book, small notebook,
| or an accessory.
|
| https://www.uniqlo.com/us/en/products/E486766-000/00?colo
| rDi...
| Gigachad wrote:
| I started bringing a crossbody bag and now I find I drag
| half the house everywhere like one of those every day
| carry people because why not, it's so easy to carry stuff
| compared to using pockets. Very useful to have a battery
| bank and cables with you.
| adrian_b wrote:
| Me too.
|
| I use only the pockets of my jacket or vest, if I wear
| one. If it is warm and I have no jacket or vest, I use
| belt holsters or bags, never the trouser pockets.
| queenkjuul wrote:
| For me the back pockets are usually good enough to hold the
| phone when I'm walking then i just put it wherever (bag,
| table, bike mount, etc) the rest of the time. I wouldn't keep
| it in my front pocket even if it did fit.
| lucaslazarus wrote:
| re: consistency
|
| https://xkcd.com/927/
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I don't think that xkcd applies. I mean if I am on a
| clothing seller's website, and they show me a pair of pants
| and I add 4 colors to the cart of the same size of the same
| design/model number/style pants, I feel like they should
| all fit the same.
| tirant wrote:
| They usually do, never found that issue on medium to high
| quality clothing (!= luxury brands).
| matsemann wrote:
| I have. So I don't buy that it's not a problem just
| because you haven't had it..
|
| Sometimes they also use different fabric for different
| colors. Maybe a color is internally consistent, but if
| you buy one of each they're very different.
| sevenseacat wrote:
| AFAIK, this is because clothes are generally made by cutting
| pieces out of massive stacks of fabric of heaps of layers,
| and the cutting process is never perfectly straight - the
| pieces at the bottom of the pile will be very different than
| those at the top.
| dehue wrote:
| That's what sizing guides are theoretically for, if you add
| more sizing systems it gets even more confusing. I don't think
| the issue is as bad as the post portrays it though. Its true
| that sizes can be all over the place but like I am size small
| woman's and if I buy small most of the time it will fit or at
| least somewhat fit. I am not a standard model size either as I
| need things that are for more hourglass figure rather than
| straight but that just requires being selective about which
| styles to buy. A medium also usually fits if I need something
| looser. I double check the reviews if its online or try it on
| in person and as long as its not something that requires
| precise measurements its usually fine. For things like jeans I
| shop in person and try things on from a few sizes or just know
| approximate size I am or rely on reviews. Many items these days
| are stretchy and even when they don't fit perfectly they are
| wearable or you can return them, its not that complicated. I do
| only shop a few brands or from in person stores or I can often
| approximate sizing from how big something looks or by looking
| at review photos.
|
| The pockets thing is similar, not having pockets is annoying
| but its not that big of a deal. I rather buy something cute
| without pockets than search for something with some. If it has
| them great, if it doesnt oh well I will just use my purse.
| Barely anything fits in pockets anyways and I have a feeling
| other women feel similarly which is why many of us buy things
| whether or not they have pockets.
| bubblewand wrote:
| I'm pretty sure everyone who cares about getting a good fit
| (and isn't simply trying the clothes on in person) is looking
| at measurements, which you can usually find for any half-decent
| vendor (though it may take some poking around their site). The
| best have it per-garment (or per-cut), less-good but usually
| still alright is having a guide to the measurements they base
| their sizing off of.
|
| Even guys can't really get away with just "Small, Medium,
| Large" if they want a decent fit that they can predict from
| just the label. Modifiers for the cut become necessary
| (regular, slim, relaxed, extra-slim, that kind of thing). And
| that's for clothes that are pretty forgiving on the fit, like
| knits...
|
| Women's clothes are even trickier. It's basically impossible to
| boil them down to one or even two size metrics or labels unless
| you're relying on a _shitload_ of stretch in every other part
| of the garment, which is something that usually only very bad
| garments do (think: Temu). Women 's proportions are also far
| more variable. Shoulder-bust-waist-hip often sees some pretty
| wild differences, like two women will match on a couple of
| those measurements and be _way_ far apart on the others. Then
| you 've got height to worry about. Dudes can be similarly far
| outside the norm of distributions for the relations between
| their key measurements, but it's not as common--most of us have
| it relatively easy.
|
| Looking at the actual measurements, though, I've found to be
| very reliable. I buy almost all my clothes on eBay and directly
| from brands on their websites, with great success, because I
| know both my own key measurements, and the dimensions of
| clothes that fit me well (I have some notes, doesn't take a lot
| of data points to have enough to be pretty accurate). I've also
| ordered for my wife with a similar strategy, works well there,
| though you're way more likely to run into cases of "OK there
| are _zero_ sizes of this garment that will work for you, just
| gotta give up on this one " because of the issue above.
| altairprime wrote:
| Ironically, one area that both genders can have trouble with
| is crotch seam length, though typically on opposite sides of
| the garment -- but in women's clothing it's often worse than
| men's due to the spectrum of "extra high rise" to "extra low
| rise" that's added to the mix in women's clothing. Aligning
| with the hourglass-mostly point of the article, the most
| common is High Rise, which corresponds to the higher 'resting
| point' on the torso cylinder for a waistband when women have
| gained fat deposits in the usual rearward hourglass places
| (as otherwise the waistband sits at a severely sloped angle
| from back to front). For rectangle or triangle folks, you
| will rarely find Low Rise or Extra Low Rise that have the
| appropriately-shortened crotch seam. For spoon folks, you
| have to shop at shops that cater to spoon shape, because most
| major retailers _only_ cater to one specific shape and
| stretch simply isn't enough to compensate for the rectangular
| to spoon difference (as Lululemon discovered a decade ago or
| so). That's because two women with upper leg circumference 30
| may have hip sizes varying from 20 to 60, depending on which
| body type they have and where their fat deposits are -- and
| the two ends of that spectrum do _not_ indicate anorexia
| /obesity, either. Body shape and fat levels vary that widely
| under normal healthy circumstances. I envy men's jeans for
| their (relative, but not zero) simplicity.
| bubblewand wrote:
| Now _that_ is an interesting dimension (ha, ha) of this I
| hadn 't yet appreciated. I'm used, as a dude of
| fortunately-normalish proportions and skinny-enough (but
| not actually skinny) size, to only looking at a single
| measurement for rise (crotch to waist, measured on the
| front of the garment) and getting a really good idea of
| what I'll be dealing with, just from that. From your
| description I think I've understood the issue you're
| highlighting, and yeah, that'd be an annoying extra factor
| to deal with (and I'm sure it's really hard to get _two_
| rise measurements out of anybody, just about ever).
|
| You've got me thinking back to a particular brand and style
| of (not at all fancy) jeans my wife used to love, that they
| discontinued, and she's never quite found another that
| works for her as well. From how she described it, in
| hindsight, I bet this measurement is the key thing she's
| not managing to nail on her attempts to find a replacement.
| Wish she still had a pair, I'd go measure front- and back-
| rise on them so we'd know what to look for!
| altairprime wrote:
| If only there was an Anna's Archive for retail clothing
| dissected into clothing patterns..
| orbisvicis wrote:
| If only, but wouldn't dimensions work just as well as
| pattern/silhouette visualizations? And finding retail
| dimensions is the hard part.
|
| Hey, how close are we to being able to 3d print our own
| clothing?
| altairprime wrote:
| Show me a sewing machine that can cut, sew, hem, iron,
| and qacheck a stretch-fabric garment, and I'll show you a
| trillion dollar domestic manufacturing opportunity! Until
| then, look up the object called "sewing pattern"; it's
| just a clothes blueprint that assumes you only have a 2D
| printer (scissors or a pizza cutter) and need a physical
| guide for the 2D fabric cutter (which will be you), an
| instruction sheet for sewing (also you), and the
| assumption that you understand that you should have
| ironed the fabric beforehand (throw it out and start
| over). Sewing is an extremely old human craft and may
| perhaps be the most difficult challenge faced by
| industrial robotics. Threading a loom for woven fabrics
| is equally as difficult and is still done by hand, too.
| Note that most clothing doesn't fit in a normal desktop
| cutter because fabrics are typically 40" wide so you end
| up having to escort the entire process using tool-
| assisted human labor. They have, at least, figured out
| how to make robotic top-sewing machines for quilts, so as
| long as your stitches are in 2D and the fabric is already
| sewn together, you can have it sew the linear mile of
| stitches to finish the quilt (but only after weeks to
| month of piecework and assembly).
| orbisvicis wrote:
| Ironically I think the hourglass high-rise means I can wear
| (some) women's pants without tightness in the crotch, and
| the extra back rise is great when sitting.
| TacticalCoder wrote:
| > Women's clothes are even trickier
|
| Oh _that_ explains why my wife spends so much time obsessing
| over clothes: trying clothes, buying /returning, buying
| others, etc. I'm sure a few others can relate.
|
| And she's got a very normal BMI: not underweight, just plain
| in the middle (5'5" / 124 lbs: something like that) and a
| very hour-glassy/feminine shape, so many clothes are "made"
| to her shape/size/weight. I can't imagine what it'd be if she
| had uncommon "dimensions".
| altairprime wrote:
| Yeah, the amount of time and energy it takes to find one
| single piece of clothing that fits at all _can_ exceed the
| amount of time some people invest in deciding whether to
| buy a car, what car to buy, and actually buying the car
| _combined_. It's infuriating and humiliating to have the
| entire marketplace treat you like your body isn't worth the
| time of day to for-profit corporations, the most greedy
| construct available to humanity today. You start to wonder
| if you're as worthless as the industry apparently considers
| you after having to return the fifth pair of jeans for some
| error in fit that summarizes as 'the jeans are mediocre
| median and you are not'.
| orbisvicis wrote:
| eBay? Can you elaborate? Do you mean used clothes like on
| Poshmark? And does eBay really publish decent clothes
| measurements?
| bubblewand wrote:
| Yeah, I buy a very high percentage of my clothes on eBay
| (and also Poshmark, but it ends up mostly being eBay).
|
| What I don't buy used:
|
| - Socks - Underwear - Gloves - Knits in general, as they're
| too likely to be messed up, though with the odd exception
| for pieces unusual enough that I figure it's likely they
| were treated OK, provided the price is low enough I can
| take a gamble. I think all such exceptions have been 100%
| linen or ~50/50 silk/linen blend sweaters (these are warm-
| weather sweaters, basically) - Jeans. If they get creases
| and fades I want them to be from me. Plus I have my size
| dialed in on Levi's STF 501s and I can already get those
| for like $40 on sale, so... what's the point? - Modern
| sportswear in general. I don't have much of this, but what
| I get, I buy new (though from e.g. Sierra Trading Post, if
| I can manage it)
|
| Pretty much everything else comes from eBay or poshmark
| (exception: I don't think quite half my shoes are used, but
| a lot are).
|
| Belts, ties, trousers, shirts, jackets, coats. Ebay or
| poshmark.
|
| Shirts: I've got my sizing figured out really precisely
| with four or five brands. I can shop these really well by
| size tag. Like, I know with one Japanese brand I can get
| the "slim" fit of their very-largest Japanese size (these
| are neck + sleeve measurement shirt sizes) and it'll fit me
| great for a modern-fit button up shirt, except the sleeves
| will be a little too short (in the longest sleeve they
| offer! And I'm not even that big! LOL). I can get the "New
| York" "slim" from the same place, which they offer with a
| size one larger than that, and it'll be absolutely perfect,
| damn near as good as if I'd had a shirt custom made. I know
| stuff like that about a few brands. They're all nicer
| brands, so the sizing is quite consistent. All I have to do
| when I want a shirt is set a few eBay saved searches, and
| wait for one I want to come up (if there's not one on there
| already). Sometimes I've even snagged batches of shirts
| from someone with my size, resulting in stupid-low prices
| (like, $10/shirt) for things that look like-new.
|
| Jackets: mostly blazers and sport coats. I know my body
| measurements, and I know the measurements of jackets that
| fit me well (arm length from shoulder and from pit; waist
| at middle or top button, depending on 3 or 2 button; length
| down the back; chest measured across pits; shoulder, front
| and back measurement, seam to seam). I have a sense of how
| to size up for winter garments that have thicker fabric and
| under which I'll probably want to wear thicker clothes. I
| know the range of standard jacket measurements (e.g. "40R"
| for a 40" chest, regular length) I'm likely to find what I
| need in. The vast majority of sellers provide enough
| relevant measurements that I can achieve an almost-perfect
| hit rate on these, and the nicer the piece the more likely
| they are to provide them. I'd say the average I've spent is
| $100-$120, and some of the ones I've got would have been .
| I've leaned on these measurements to also get things like a
| cotton canvas chore jacket, and a leather jacket. Brand
| knowledge is all but useless for sizing here, jackets vary
| far too much and many have been tailored. Closest it gets
| to being useful is that I know a couple outdoors/sporting
| brands that either make or used to make sport coats, and
| that theirs run way large (they probably expect that you'll
| need to move in them, and that you'll wear heavy clothes
| under them) so not to automatically skip over them because
| the nominal size would be too small in ~every other brand.
|
| Trousers: Waist measurement is a must of course, nominal
| trouser sizes are basically gibberish even in good brands,
| and many trousers have been altered in the waist. Leg
| length a must (too long is fine, many nicer ones ship
| intentionally very-long anyway so you can alter them to
| your need, but too-short is a problem), measured crotch to
| end of leg so you're not including the rise. Ideally also
| leg width at the ankle, and rise (crotch to top of waist),
| though those can be sort-of eyeballed. Many listings will
| let you know if there's fabric to let the waist out or leg
| down, and roughly how much. Like with shirts, I have a good
|
| Suits: for a 2-piece, it's just jacket + trouser, there's
| nothing new here. For vests (if it's a 3-piece, or if
| buying an odd vest) the main thing to care about is pit-to-
| pit chest, which I find to be a little more forgiving (I
| can go very-slightly smaller) than a jacket provided the
| vest material is on the thinner end, and maybe the length
| neck-to-hem, especially if you've got a notably long or
| short torso.
|
| Coats: Like a jacket, but size up an inch or so, maybe more
| (for some styles that are meant to be worn very loose, a
| _lot_ more, potentially). These may go _over_ jackets or
| other thick or layered clothes (e.g. heavy sweaters), and
| generally you want them to have a looser fit anyway. If you
| buy them like a jacket you 'll find you can only
| comfortably wear them over a shirt, which makes for a
| pretty limited coat. Or, if you have measurements of
| existing coats you like, just base your decisions on those
| (basically same measurements as a jacket)
|
| -----
|
| It looks like a lot, all laid out like that, but if you
| already have clothes that fit well in each category, it's
| really just a half-hour with a surface to lay them flat on,
| and a measuring tape. Pro tips: measure several examples of
| each as there's probably a small _range_ of each
| measurement that works well, pay attention to material
| thickness and how they fit over different thicknesses of
| clothes for e.g. jackets to get a sense of what to look for
| for different seasons, and check with fit guides online to
| make sure these clothes _really do_ fit correctly (they may
| feel OK, but look _off_ in ways that may be hard to pin
| down if you don 't know what to look for), and measuring
| clothes that _don 't_ fit quite right can also be useful to
| figure out what's plainly too much, or too little, in a
| given dimension. Also, consider as you try on for fit stuff
| like "do I prefer these trousers to those because of, say,
| the rise? OK, so I need to make a note of which rise
| measurement, specifically, I prefer..."
|
| Boom, you've got what you need, and will only rarely need
| to re-do any of that (waist and chest, especially, may
| shift a little, and we all get shorter eventually, but
| otherwise you're good). Measure yourself, too (true waist,
| hip, chest, maybe neck... I also have hand [around, at the
| knuckles] and head for gloves and hats, LOL) and you're
| solidly ready to buy clothes with reasonable confidence
| online, used or new. If you do get something that fits
| wrong, measure whatever part's not fitting right to help
| refine your criteria.
|
| Measurements of your own body are mostly helpful for buying
| new. Lots of retailers will provide size charts based on
| _body_ measurements, not garment measurements. For used
| stuff, it 's gonna be 100% garment measurements, which will
| always be at least a little larger than the corresponding
| body measurements (so it's simplest to just measure stuff
| you have that fits well, for this)
| adrian_b wrote:
| All my life, for most kinds of clothes, like shirts or
| jackets, buying the standard sizes has never been a problem.
|
| On the other hand, I have never found trousers in a standard
| size that I would find comfortable. I have always worn only
| either completely bespoke trousers or standard trousers that
| have been customized for me by a tailor.
|
| Unfortunately, where I live tailors have disappeared. For now
| this has not been a problem, because I still have many
| bespoke trousers made a long time ago. I wonder what I will
| do when I will need new trousers.
|
| This is not an absolute size related problem. Many years ago,
| I have been obese for some years. Then I have learned to
| control my weight (after many failures), and for the last 2
| decades I have been a relatively slim male of average height.
|
| Despite this, I was content with standard sizes neither when
| I was obese, nor now when I am slim.
|
| I am wondering why a lot of professions that existed when I
| was a child have become non-profitable, because the existence
| of cheaper alternatives today still does not seem a
| sufficient explanation. I have grown in Eastern Europe and
| absolutely everybody (except those belonging to the hierarchy
| of the ruling party) would have been considered extremely
| poor by today's standards. Despite this, most people could
| afford bespoke clothes of very high quality compared to what
| is available today and the tailors who made them had decent
| revenues.
| goodmythical wrote:
| I mean, I get that it sucks online, but in person? Who cares
| what the label says? I'm an adult. I can easily tell by looking
| at a garment how it's going to fit me.
|
| That said, if we could just get the critical measure online
| that'd be fantastic. No need for sizes, I know how big inches
| and centimeters are.
|
| And, as it turns out, my favorite retailers do in fact include
| measurements, but I'd rather have a few quality items than lots
| of garbage, which is also why I own a sewing machine because
| sometimes I really love a dress but the manufacturer doesn't
| accommodate my specific frame. I developed this practice when I
| was broke and shopping out of thrift stores. It allowed me to
| buy almost anything and tailor it to make it fit. Really
| broadens your fashion horizons.
|
| With regard to why sizing is difficult, I'd guess it's just
| consumer laziness or cognitive dissonance. Although it's maybe
| a little bit of efficiency too. How many models should I
| produce (and how many lines do I have to run) to fit every
| woman just right instead of lying to all of them? For pants
| alone, if you really want it to actually fit, you're going to
| need ankle, calf, knee, thigh, inseam/outseam, glute, hip, and
| waist (and crotch to waistband if you're offering different
| rises). So if you've got even just 5 measurements (probably not
| enough as no way do all women fit tailored within 5 different
| calf sizes), you've got 5^9 different products (and therefore
| machine configurations) to cover just that space, because yes
| there are women with massive calfs and small thighs or same
| waist/hip or whatever combination you can imagine) and that's
| all just for literally one style. If you've got five different
| pants that's immediately 5^9.
|
| Lots of (american) women are perfectly fine with their 36in
| underbust but would be shamed to admit they need a 46in hip
| with their 32in waist for all that ass. Much better to just lie
| and say I need an 8 which will not in any world ever make it
| over my butt.
|
| Maybe we can compromise on a 'call it' measurement which is on
| average 2 less than the prevailing standard would suggest. If
| your countries' system would have you in a 8, you can 'call it
| a 6', and then we're all happy.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _Like, why doesn 't the market solve for this? If the median
| woman can't buy clothing that fits in many brands, surely
| that's a huge marketing opportunity for any of the thousands of
| other clothing brands?_
|
| Because
|
| - in reality it's not much of a problem. Billions of women
| manage to buy and wear clothes just fine. Some might fit
| slightly better or worse, but unless you have very special body
| shape (and even extreme thick/overweight/tall/short are covered
| by niche brands) you can get in any clothes store and get
| plenty of clothes to wear
|
| - some random brand making something that fits better doesn't
| mean any sizeable consumer percentage is going to buy it. First
| because see above, and also because a lot of clothes purchases
| are about brand and fashion and status signalling, not mere
| fit.
|
| - if some women absolutely can't find something in their size
| from a specific brand, that makes the brand even more
| exclusive, like it being "for fit people only". Obviously
| brands for thicker and even obese people also exist, but
| they're seen as a brand of need, not a brand you'd be proud
| having to wear
| Gigachad wrote:
| Its only a problem for online shopping. In store you can
| simply grab multiple sizes and see which one fits best. Many
| online stores try to give multiple measurements of the
| clothes but even then it's extremely difficult to predict how
| it will look on you.
|
| Online shoppers seem to solve this issue by just buying
| multiple items and returning the ones that don't fit. After
| which the retailer throws these returns in the bin.
| echelon wrote:
| > if some women absolutely can't find something in their size
| from a specific brand, that makes the brand even more
| exclusive, like it being "for fit people only".
|
| This is how many brands originally blow up and grow famous.
| Especially in Asia.
|
| You make clothing in sizes only extremely slim people can
| wear.
|
| This is an extremely popular brand that specifically does
| this, and it's hardly the only one:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandy_Melville
| Freak_NL wrote:
| Lululemon famously had that 'incident' where they flat out
| stated their brand just wasn't suitable for fat people.
| Given their brand identity this makes complete sense,
| whilst also excluding a large group of people. Expect more
| of this type of edgy marketing -- it is in line with the
| zeitgeist (consider that eugenic jeans ad).
| genewitch wrote:
| this comment did it for me today on HN.
|
| That commercial could have been any attractive woman
| without changing the tone or meaning. it just drives some
| people crazy that a subset of humans "controls" like half
| the land on earth but comprises only 7% of the
| population, therefore everything about or having to do
| with that subset or the individuals therein is
| automatically considered "bad."
|
| There were commercials that had jingles "bust a nut, bust
| a nut, just open up a can and bust a nut. you can do it
| in the bathroom, you can do it in the kitchen, you can do
| it with your best friend [...]" nearly 30 years ago.
| Commercials are generally in poor taste, but some people
| read way too much into it.
| roenxi wrote:
| > if some women absolutely can't find something in their size
| from a specific brand, that makes the brand even more
| exclusive, like it being "for fit people only"
|
| The elephants in the room from the raw data is it is very
| clear some brands do not want average middle aged women
| wearing their products. Anthropology seems to be the most
| clear about this in that they have a literal gap between
| their standard and plus-sized ranges that excludes the adult
| median woman.
|
| Now some brands might do that out of snobishness, but I
| expect there is a feedback loop here:
|
| 1) Young, attractive women want to make fashion choices that
| signal they are young, attractive women.
|
| 2) They buy from fashion lines that don't fit average adult
| women.
|
| 3) Average adult women detect that the fashionable choice is
| these brands and feel left out, because a fair number of them
| would also like to be young and attractive again. And a small
| but significant fraction feel _really_ left out if some
| clothing brand calls them a size 20 waist / fat / shaped
| like a rectangle. Clothing brands detect this in their
| customer studies and respond appropriately.
|
| 4) People who just want clothes buy from H&M or wherever and
| don't write articles about how hard it is to fit clothes.
|
| "Women" isn't really a homogeneous category when it comes to
| clothing, there is ongoing fierce competition between lots of
| different sub-groups of the female population to signal lots
| of different things. Men have it a bit easier because there
| is basically a 4-quadrant choice between upper & lower class,
| formal & casual with a lot of intricacy for people who care a
| lot about what brand of black leather shoe they own. Young
| girls are closer to men in that they aren't really trying to
| signal anything at that age, so clothing fits are a lot
| easier to manage.
| orbisvicis wrote:
| > Clothing brands detect this in their customer studies and
| respond appropriately.
|
| Respond how?
|
| > lots of different sub-groups of the female population to
| signal lots of different things
|
| Signal what?
| roenxi wrote:
| > Respond how?
|
| By destandardising sizes. It isn't that hard to
| standardise if an industry thinks it'll help them; the
| article suggests there is already a relevant standards
| body. These companies are probably doing it for a reason.
| My guess would be maybe someone doesn't want to be an XXL
| 18 at J Crew so they can go to Reformation where they are
| more of a Regular 14.
|
| > Signal what?
|
| Age, health and status for women. Group membership too
| although that is generally to a lesser extent.
| orbisvicis wrote:
| > By destandardising sizes
|
| Oh. I thought there was an outside chance you intended a
| positive response. Ah well.
|
| > Age, health and status
|
| I can understand age. But wouldn't everyone want to
| signal good health and high status?
| Maxion wrote:
| > But wouldn't everyone want to signal good health and
| high status?
|
| The thing with people is that they are all different.
| There are a lot of people who don't want to be of high
| status or signal it. There's lots of people who don't
| really care for health and value other things higher.
| roenxi wrote:
| > I can understand age. But wouldn't everyone want to
| signal good health and high status?
|
| Yeah, but generally not with fashion. Male fashion tends
| not to go to the same sort of lengths to showcase
| legs/torsos/arms/chest that women's fashion does. For men
| if they want to signal status they tend to buy a car they
| can't afford or something.
|
| And male health is one of those areas where it is very
| complicated. A fat, balding man who smells funny can make
| up for that with a high income. A fat balding woman who
| smells funny might be able to do the same thing but I
| can't help feel sceptical at the idea.
|
| Anyway, long story short, the people who aren't using
| fashion as signalling can just buy a shirt that fits and
| move on. It's a shirt. They aren't complicated.
| sfn42 wrote:
| There's also the fact that most men aren't very healthy -
| you'll often see very fit men wearing "revealing" and
| tight-fitting clothes that show off their muscles etc,
| whereas everyone else wears less revealing clothes
| because whatever they may reveal isn't very flattering.
|
| The same is true for most women of course but a lot of
| them seem to wear revealing clothing regardless of how
| flattering it actually is.
| karambahh wrote:
| Definition of "high status" vary by demographics.
|
| Some want to carry X sportswear with prominent branding,
| others take pride in high-price tag items without any
| explicit branding.
|
| The "I identify with this athlete", "I identify with this
| musician", "I dgaf what you think of me" groups probably
| don't intersect much, with brands and offering catering
| to these and multiple others...?
| wooger wrote:
| People with bad health, low status being able to wear the
| same clothes as young women with good health and status
| removes the signalling benefit of those clothes.
| necovek wrote:
| If you are in taller than 95% for men, and reasonably fit,
| you might need a bigger waistline (think 36 or more), which
| is still the same length for pants (up to 34) with your
| socks showing even when standing (depending on your
| individual proportions), but much wider around hips and
| legs than you need. I imagine for shorter men, it's the
| inverse but equally bad.
|
| Some brands will carry slim and extra long trousers, but if
| I find a model that fits (not all models from the same
| brand do), I immediatelly buy a few. Otherwise, I try to
| get tailored stuff, but that's slow and annoying.
|
| For shirts, it's even worse: unless you can find an extra
| long version, you are going to be wearing a sail and your
| underpants/ass will pop out when you sit down. But these
| are easier to get sewed for you as you can just have a
| single tailor make many of them as needed.
|
| So it's probably easier for median men, but sizes scale
| exactly the same without regard to actual proportions for
| simply bigger people.
| dandellion wrote:
| > I imagine for shorter men, it's the inverse but equally
| bad.
|
| Not really, as a quite short guy, many shops will offer
| me to have the clothes fitted, and if not it's pretty
| trivial to fit them myself. Maybe on the most extreme end
| of short it's more of an issue, but in general I suspect
| shortening pants and shirts is signficantly easier than
| lengthening them.
| abustamam wrote:
| I'm a 5'5", 110lbs man. I shop at the teens section and
| get larges. I may not get the trendiest looks, but I get
| cheaper clothes that fits and looks good on me!
|
| I also tried Stitch Fix, they had a surprising amount of
| stuff that could fit me (both fashionably and size wise),
| albeit not as cheap as kids' clothes.
| dandellion wrote:
| I might grab something like sweatpants from kids section,
| but for normal clothes I generally prefer a bit more
| quality. I work remotely so a good pair of pants can last
| me more than half a decade, so I don't mind buying
| quality and having it fitted. But yeah, I feel as a short
| guy there's actually more than plenty of options for us,
| I never felt that clothes were an issue. Well, there was
| a shop once that put the smallest sizes on the highest
| shelf, I don't know if they thought it was funny, but I
| didn't go back.
| necovek wrote:
| Thanks both for the perspective: yeah, even if simply
| scaled down proportionally, you are left with too long
| garments that you can fold/shorten, so a much better
| situation than tall men who can end up looking like
| cartoon caricatures if dressed with widely available
| garments.
|
| And don't get me wrong, tall girls (my sister is 6'1")
| have it even worse.
| orbisvicis wrote:
| > you can get in any clothes store and get plenty of clothes
| to wear
|
| "Getting into the clothes" is a low bar. I can get into this
| brown paper bag. Comfort is underrated.
|
| > if some women absolutely can't find something in their size
| from a specific brand, that makes the brand even more
| exclusive, like it being "for fit people only".
|
| Heh I think mens sizing signals the opposite: too skinny =
| insufficiently masculine.
| sevenseacat wrote:
| In reality its a massive fucking problem. This is why so many
| women end up wearing men's clothing, which doesn't fit their
| shape at all, just because they're the only things they can
| find that they can actually fit into!
|
| What special snowflake part of the world do you live in that
| any woman can walk into any clothes shop and find clothes
| that fit? Because I call bullshit on that.
| janalsncm wrote:
| Based on the article, several brands have clothes that
| range from the low 20s to the mid 50s which covers
| essentially all waist sizes. If a woman has a 55 inch waist
| or a 20 inch waist she cannot buy pants at American Eagle
| but I wouldn't characterize it as a massive problem. In
| fact the article identifies exactly where such a woman
| could find pants.
| sevenseacat wrote:
| You realize clothes are more than just waist sizes?
| Pants, for example, need to account for waist, hips,
| thighs, and length. All of these are very very different
| ratios on women of different body shapes.
|
| And what you've said actually confirms that what I said
| is accurate - women can't walk into _any_ clothes shop
| and find clothes that fit, which is what the poster I
| replied to said.
|
| Plus, some of the data there is not consistent globally.
| I don't know a lot of the brands there, but Uniqlo is one
| we do have and they do not do 3XL in women's clothing
| here in Australia.
| Saline9515 wrote:
| It's also linked to the modern trend of having tightly
| fitted clothing. You don't have this issue with skirts,
| or wider, pleated pants with a high waistline. Those
| clothes were the norm before the 60's, since it's much
| roomier and allows to fit a wide range of body types.
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| > It's also linked to the modern trend of having tightly
| fitted clothing.
|
| Exactly this. If David Foster Wallace were still alive,
| ten years ago, he would have written an essay titled:
| "Everyone wears athleisure now."
| soulofmischief wrote:
| If you read the article, you've also seen that the
| proportions do not scale properly. Waste size is not the
| only important measurement, and as men it would behoove
| us to seek to understand this issue before going straight
| to dismissal.
| YetAnotherNick wrote:
| Not saying it isn't but the part that's hard to understand
| is why can't a new brand or a sub brand fix it? It seems
| almost trivial to label differently, and solve a problem
| worth solving for and earn money?
|
| And no, don't tell me why existing brand doesn't do it,
| like all the other replies here.
| pprotas wrote:
| Women in my life often voice their frustration with badly
| fitting bras or pants. In reality, it really _is_ a problem,
| but it 's a problem everyone just accepts.
| webnrrd2k wrote:
| It's one of those "if we put a man on the moon, why can't
| we solve _this_ damn thing " kind of problems.
|
| Throughout my life I've had various girlfriends complain
| about poorly-fitting bras, especially ones with under-wires
| that bite or break. It really seems like it should be a
| solved problem, but I kinda don't think it is.
| troupo wrote:
| > in reality it's not much of a problem. Billions of women
| manage to buy and wear clothes just fine
|
| No. Billions of women _don 't have any other choice_. Take
| your wife (or even better, mom) shopping for clothes. You'll
| learn a lot about "manage just fine". Often its a multi-hour
| slog through all stores trying to find _just one_ item that
| doesn 't look like shit, and fits somewhat well.
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| I push back on this "it's only a woman problem". How is
| this any different for men? Re-read this post, but switch
| the gender. It seems unimportant in the grand scheme of
| things.
| troupo wrote:
| "The grand scheme" consists of many such "small
| insignificant problems". And no one said it was only a
| woman problem. And I explicitly called out one of the
| arguments, not the "degender, men have similar problems
| etc."
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| Men are less curved (on average) than women, so this
| problem is worse for them.
|
| It's still an issue for men though, I basically never buy
| clothes online as I don't trust the sizings and thus try
| everything on before I purchase.
| janalsncm wrote:
| The pockets issue is even more blatant since a lot of women
| would like to put their phones in their front pockets.
| postexitus wrote:
| Your question implies the answer. It's probably not a problem
| that's worth solving. The industry found the most cost optimal
| way of sizing stuff that works for most people at the desired
| price and the rest is either served through misfits,
| alterations or boutiques. Clothing is not some niche forgotten
| industry where most obvious opportunities still exist.
| osener wrote:
| There are fast fashion attempts at this like adding elastic
| material to every fabric so they can get away with having fewer
| sizes and cuts thus less unsold inventory and availability
| issues. But everything has a tradeoff. In this case the elastic
| material degrades MUCH faster than cotton so you have to throw
| away your jeans quite a bit earlier compared to a quality 100%
| cotton denim which can last you a decade. This is very
| unfortunate as most of the fabric in that piece of clothing is
| perfectly fine and this is pure waste.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| I'd noticed the near-universal adoption of stretch fabrics
| recently, and greatly dislike it. I hadn't considered that
| this is an inventory optimisation method, though that
| absolutely makes sense.
| corford wrote:
| I don't know about the womens side but on the male side, I
| recently discovered https://www.tailorstore.com/ and am trying
| them out for some t-shirts. I'm an odd shape and always
| struggle to get good fitting clothes so hoping this might be a
| solution.
| tgv wrote:
| From Dave Barry's Christmas Shopping: a Survivor's Guide
| (https://davebarry.com/misccol/christmas.htm)
|
| Gifts for Women
|
| Again, you should avoid buying clothes, but not because women
| don't like clothes. The problem is sizes. First of all, women's
| clothing sizes don't mean anything. Suppose you're looking at a
| dress, and the tag says it's a size 14. You could measure that
| dress with every known measuring instrument, checking for every
| known unit of measurement, and you would never find any
| dimension that was 14 anythings long. Not only that, but you
| would never find any dimension that corresponded to the same
| dimension on any other size-14 dress. Not only that, but
| chances are you would never find any woman in the entire world
| who would admit to being a size 14.
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| > Like, why doesn't the market solve for this?
|
| This is a classic HN reply. The market _has_ solved for what
| women want: vanity sizing that doubles as (exclusive) social
| signaling. If you look at the sizing charts from the article,
| normie brands have a huge range of sizes. The couture / elite
| brands are all much smaller. It makes perfect sense when trying
| to build a better-than-normie fashion brand. Do you really
| think Louis Vuitton or Prada wants women with a size 18 dress
| size wearing their ready-to-wear clothes? Absolutely not. But
| they are welcome to (and do) buy bags, shoes, scarfs, and other
| accessories.
| tristor wrote:
| Revealed preference vs stated preference answers the question
| of why women's clothing generally lacks pockets. Women
| prioritize aesthetics over utility when shopping. Clothing
| follows trends more than most things, though, which is why this
| is changing as younger generations prefer more casual and
| functional clothing.
| jedberg wrote:
| Women's sizing is so dumb. They could just provide inches or cm
| like they do for the men, but for some reason (well for marketing
| reasons, as discussed extensively in the article), they use these
| random sizes and numbers that aren't consistent and change over
| time.
|
| I think this is why stretchy materials are getting more and more
| popular. The women in my house use stretchy pants almost
| exclusively, because they are much more forgiving with body
| shape. As long as the waist fits, the rest will fit well enough.
| TMWNN wrote:
| >Women's sizing is so dumb. They could just provide inches or
| cm like they do for the men, but for some reason (well for
| marketing reasons, as discussed extensively in the article),
| they use these random sizes and numbers that aren't consistent
| and change over time.
|
| Relevant: TIL that while male rowers are classified as
| "lightweight" or "heavyweight", larger female rowers are called
| "openweight" instead of "heavyweight". <https://np.reddit.com/r
| /todayilearned/comments/32p2ka/til_th...>
| crote wrote:
| Lightweight rowing is pretty much dead, anyways.
|
| It was originally introduced to give countries with shorter
| people a chance to compete (as rowing depends a _lot_ on
| height), but in practice it mainly resulted in promising
| candidates who didn 't _quite_ make the cut for heavyweight
| being forced into eating disorders.
|
| Lightweight rowing has been cut from the olympics already, so
| to a lot of organisations it has lost its relevance. There
| are still world championships, but I bet it is only a matter
| of time before it'll disappear there as well.
| dboreham wrote:
| Mens sizes have changed over time. Go get a vintage t-shirt
| from the 80s, medium size, and try it on. It'll be the size of
| a small or xs today.
| jedberg wrote:
| I meant more the pants and dress shirts, which are sized in
| inches.
| exmadscientist wrote:
| > pants are sized in inches
|
| I wish! That number is kinda-sorta-related-to inches, but
| it's not, at least not anymore. I wear a 31 or 32 jean, but
| my waist is about 34.5 inches. And any jeans which fit my
| thighs properly (turns out to be about size 34) will fall
| off my waist.
|
| Measure your own waist and pants, see what you find!
|
| Sizing _is_ chaos.
| akvadrako wrote:
| I assume you are talking jean sizes, which might be related
| to inches in some historical sense, but now it's more
| abstract.
|
| However dress pants, sports pants and everything that isn't
| pants is just as bad as for women.
| Markoff wrote:
| it's not always necessarily about people being fat but also
| about style, tighter t-shirts where more in fashion back in
| 70/80s, not it's more loose style
| croisillon wrote:
| you're right! i just try the clothes i used to wear as a
| toddler, it's ridiculous how much they don't fit
| Waterluvian wrote:
| I might have missed this in the scroll format but is there any
| reason not to drop the qualitative size names and just use an
| actual dimension or two?
| carabiner wrote:
| They can lie with those too:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/fatlogic/comments/8srelb/info_graph...
| jccooper wrote:
| There is a problem with the number of dimensions. Even a
| t-shirt is described best in neck, chest, waist, and you could
| add several parameters for sleeves and also for heights.
| Neither consumers nor manufacturers can really handle the
| combinatorial explosion, so you have to boil it down to one or
| maybe two dimensions.
|
| But the reason even that isn't done is mostly history and
| market expectations. There are clothing categories that sell in
| actual dimensions, and (aside from the terrible dimensional
| accuracy of clothing in general) it works fine. But those are
| all on the "men's" side, and it seems the industry believes
| women will not like buying based on actual numbers.
| altairprime wrote:
| Sizing accuracy would definitely be an improvement, but it
| would shine a spotlight on the core issue that clothing
| manufacturers are hiding from consumers: they only produce
| hourglass shaped clothing and ignore the vast majority of body
| types altogether. If everyone's sizing was 48-38-48-15 (bust-
| waist-hip-crotch) rather than L/XL/2XL, at least it would be a
| lot simpler to write a search engine for it -- but there has,
| in the past century's history, been _extreme_ hostility from
| U.S. women in finding that their bodies are changing shape as
| they age, and so retailers are forced to choose between a sharp
| drop in profits by telling the truth, or making it difficult to
| cross-shop between different retailers. As no regulations exist
| around this, they appear to uniformly choose the latter.
| ipsum2 wrote:
| Yeah it's weird that mens pants and womens bras have numerical
| sizing but other womens clothing doesn't.
| sevenseacat wrote:
| A lot of women's clothing does have numerical sizing,
| depending on where you are in the world. The number still has
| no connection to any physical attribute of a woman and is
| totally arbitrary.
| vander_elst wrote:
| I would have said that this is covered under vanity sizing. I
| have the feeling some consumers might be more inclined to buy a
| product if it has size M instead of XXL, even if the product is
| _exactly_ the same. So my take is that, in the name of profit,
| companies lie about size.
| socalgal2 wrote:
| This feels almost like a made up issue - like, "we want to
| considered victims so lets make up something to whine about"
|
| A few concrete issues:
|
| (1) they complain there are no international standards - And? Why
| should Japan, who's average size be much smaller than the USA be
| required to use USA standards? Their population doesn't need to
| care about people outside of Japan. You could say they should
| relabel the clothing, all that would do is raise the price and
| effectively make poor people poorer.
|
| (2) they show people "Americans" get heavier - That might be
| reality but maybe being reminded you're wearing extra large is a
| good thing? Like you really are "overweight" and that's
| unhealthy. You can choose to ignore that but the rest of us
| aren't required re-label you as something you're not
|
| (3) They graph high-fashion like LV and show they don't have
| large sizes. So what? Ferrari doesn't make cheap cars. I'm not
| required to make product that suits you. If you don't like what
| I'm offering, pick some other company's products. I don't like
| donuts, I don't go to a donut store and demand they offer pizza.
| Nor do I go to jeans store and demand they carry suits.
|
| (4) they complain about vanity sizes - why is this an issue? Try
| the clothing on. If it fits buy it, if not don't. That's what I
| do because duh!, different people and companies follow different
| patterns. Some fit, some don't.
|
| If you want to fix any of these - feel free to start your own
| clothing brand. Clearly you believe the market isn't being
| served. If so, put your money where your mouth is rather than
| requiring others to risk theirs
| zamadatix wrote:
| As a healthy sized individual I've always found buying clothes
| based on measurements rather than vanity sizing much more
| useful as well. Can't say it's enough to force the hand of an
| entire market... but I also can't point to what marking in only
| vanity sizes is providing the consumer in the first place.
| 9dev wrote:
| > (4) they complain about vanity sizes - why is this an issue?
| Try the clothing on. If it fits buy it, if not don't. That's
| what I do because duh!, different people and companies follow
| different patterns. Some fit, some don't.
|
| Many people, especially women, suffer from peer pressure. You
| just seem to lack the empathy to acknowledge that a lot of them
| really struggle because of clothing sizes, out of fear of being
| stigmatised.
| WarmWash wrote:
| Its like the pockets complaints.
|
| Women desperately want pants with pockets, but pockets throw
| off the aesthetic, so they don't sell well.
| iteria wrote:
| Is that actually true though? Because I remember distinctly
| as a teen somewhere in the 00s where pockets stopped being an
| option. I could not and still cannot buy them in regular
| stores. I have to go to speciality stores or order online to
| get pockets. A lot of women have become resigned, but I
| rarely know a woman who isn't very excited about pockets for
| every day wear.
|
| I also don't know a single woman who enjoyed the hunt
| starting in their teens for a pair of jeans that actually
| fit. I exclusively shop online because at least I can
| reference a size chart using actually real measurements.
| They're still lying to me but at least I have a solid chance
| of the clothing actually fitting.
|
| While I don't doubt that there are women who disliked seeing
| the number go up on their waist size, I'm still not sure that
| if there was an easy sizing metric we could use, that it
| wouldn't get used. The example in the article was basically
| about a great many measurements and I could see how that
| would get skipped. Most people don't have tailors tape lying
| around, but I wonder if that international number was on
| everything if we'd see women like it more.
| sevenseacat wrote:
| I've only managed to find one brand of jeans ever that
| actually fit me, and then they changed their sizing system
| and new ones no longer fit.
|
| I've just stopped wearing jeans.
| starkparker wrote:
| There's a Pudding piece on that, too:
| https://pudding.cool/2018/08/pockets/
| bsimpson wrote:
| Japan was the example that stood out to me. (It's where UNIQLO
| is from.)
|
| I'm 5'11"/180cm with US11/EU45 feet. They didn't sell boots
| that fit me in Japan. I got a deal on an "XL" jacket that the
| salesman insisted I buy, because I was the only person to have
| ever come into the store that it fit. (It's the only thing I've
| ever worn labelled "XL.")
| exmadscientist wrote:
| I'm pretty much the same size as you.
|
| I am a 4XL in China (or was, when I was there last) and a S
| in the US.
|
| That blows my mind.
| Markoff wrote:
| same problem in China, usually the biggest available shoe
| size is 44, it improved a bit, but it's still lottery, I
| usually buy 46 in Europe, I was this summer in China, bought
| relatively cheap shoes online knowing it will be lottery and
| result didn't surprised me: 46 size shoes I received were
| more like 44-45 47 size shoes were actually like 47
|
| in the end I have one pair of shoes which is fairly tight and
| other pair which is very loose, but got used to that, easier
| than tight one
|
| and I tried to read reviews where people describe how
| accurate are the sizes for sizes in XL, I am quite skinny and
| very tall so I end up with something like 3 or 4XL to get
| ordinary size
|
| btw. wife got used to European sizing where she buys XS or S
| size and she had very bad surprise after shopping in China
| where she found out she is now by Chinese sizes considered
| more like M or L since those XS and S Chinese sizes are
| pretty much for small girls :-))
| Rendello wrote:
| Interesting visualizations, but I don't understand what the
| thesis is. To me, the conclusion says:
|
| 1. Luxury fashion thrives on exclusivity, which is exclusionary.
|
| 2. Clothing size standards do not match diverse body types.
|
| 3. There is no sizing standard, and companies size however they
| want.
| altairprime wrote:
| 0. _All_ commercial premade adult women's clothing is made
| _exclusively_ for a small minority of women with hourglass body
| shapes.
|
| The number one thesis takeaway for me, that I didn't realize as
| a woman even after years of dealing with sizing drama, is that
| clothing manufacturers _exclusively_ market to hourglass body
| shape alone -- which some might recognize better as "pinup
| model" proportions. As a non-hourglass along with the vast
| majority of other U.S. women, it's quite the shock to discover
| that megacorps are targeting a fraction of the market
| (hourglass) rather than the largest segment (rectangle).
| flumpcakes wrote:
| I think that must be fashion dependent though? I can think of
| plenty of women's clothes that are definitely not marketed
| for hourglass physiques.
| bubblewand wrote:
| Yeah I've shopped for clothes enough for my wife to know
| that even with an hourglass shape, you're guaranteed to
| find lots of pieces that're like "OK none of these sizes
| will work on you". Her particular problem is a small waist
| paired with an hourglass. Plenty of "ruler"-shaped cuts out
| there on the small end of waist size, that won't work for
| her.
|
| I wouldn't be surprised if women of _every_ body shape
| believe that clothes must be targeting some other shape,
| except the ones who luck into a sizing-region in which
| multiple body types have a lot of overlap.
| altairprime wrote:
| I can think of three major markets right now:
|
| Rectangle (athletics-branch brands), Hourglass (most entire
| fashion brands), and what I believe is Spoon but could be
| another shape (e.g. Kardashian).
|
| If I want to buy something I see in Vanity Fair magazine,
| and it fits me, then I will be buying:
|
| - Rectangle: athleticwear or athletics-adjacent, OR
| 'petite' sizes only
|
| - Spoon: bodycon stretch, primarily
|
| - Hourglass: 95% of the page surface area of the magazine
|
| Other magazines vary this formula, but VF is representing
| the same three body type divisions that are endemic in U.S.
| clothing. I think the article fails somewhat in this
| regard, but I honestly don't consider it a flaw; they make
| a solid point and the limited niche exceptions are
| explicitly 'niche only' in the industry in favor of
| hourglass. I'm pretty certain I can find _one_ niche
| retailer for any given triplet of { measurements, body
| shape, aesthetic style } -- and it's the introduction of
| that third component that reveals the problem. For any
| given _style_ , say plaid or paisley or bodycon or flowy or
| "any color that isn't red, gray, black, or white", given a
| set of measurements and a body shape, there may only be
| _one_ retailer known nationwide to serve that market.
| Torrid and Long Tall Sally both thrive in their respective
| triplets' niches, but if you want clothes that fit you and
| are styled differently than the one retailer offers, it's
| tailoring or nothing. (Incidentally, there's a severe labor
| shortage of tailors in the tailoring industry as all the
| skilled workers are aging out of the workforce, same as
| CPAs in the accounting industry, so good luck finding one
| at a reasonable price!)
| tirant wrote:
| I have difficulties believing that what you're describing is
| actually the case. Free markets are extremely good at
| covering many market niches, but free market is exceptional
| when it comes to cover the majority of the market.
|
| If that majority of rectangular-shaped women existed and
| wanted to buy rectangular-shaped clothes, we would see brands
| with that product everywhere.
|
| So either they're not majority or they are happy enough with
| the existing product designs so they won't buy an alternative
| rectangular design.
| itake wrote:
| 4. Women are the biggest they have ever been in history.
|
| As a 152lb American male, I weigh 11% less than the average
| American woman.
| imagetic wrote:
| It's cool to see pudding.cool making the front of HN regularly.
| uberman wrote:
| Great visualizations but you can't buy a shoe without knowing
| that a 10 in one brand is not a 10 in a second brand or that for
| example you need to size down when ordering Dr. Martens then
| there is no way to expect clothing to be more accurate than a
| shoe.
| mcgrath_sh wrote:
| Sure, not every shoe brand is equal, but if I know I'm a 9, I
| can _generally_ start there and find a shoe plus /minus a half
| size. I have yet to go into a store and wind up in a shoe that
| is 3 sizes larger than what I thought my size was. Or 3 sizes
| smaller. Or a size 8 in one shoe from a brand and a 10
| different shoe. I can order Nike/Jordan brand shoes without
| trying them on and they fit. Have done it for years.
|
| I went to re-buy the "same" jeans ~8 months after my initial
| purchase and the size I was wearing didn't fit in the new
| jeans. Tried another pair with a different wash and was back to
| the original size. I have tried on jeans from the same brand
| with similar cuts and came away two sizes apart. I can swing
| several sizes as a _starting_ point between some stores. I get
| it, not every jean is going to be identical, but it isn 't a
| ridiculous ask to be able to have a size I can start at and be
| within a size of what I need.
| altairprime wrote:
| Anecdotally, I discovered recently that I'm a full three
| sizes down in Vivobarefoot shoes versus normal shoes -- but
| for a really interesting reason. It turns out that modern
| runner's shoes actually are often shaped like a foot, rather
| than like a spatula, and so now that I don't have to size up
| for my toebox width thanks to them creating shoes that are
| _foot shaped_ in disregard to fashionable propriety, I now
| fit much better into a 3-sizes smaller shoe than I did into
| their older shoes at my prior size.
|
| Part of why retailers are afraid to change sizing is that
| lots of women install their clothing into their ego and brag
| about it socially. I don't approve, but I recognize the
| extrinsic cultural circumstances* that pressure them to do
| so. It's a a lot harder to brag about being a size
| 49-42-48-8-30 than it is to brag about being a 20UK. (The /22
| in 20/22 UK, the common size these days, is silent, because
| size lying is normalized.)
|
| It would make more sense instead for them to choose an anchor
| measurement and a body type modifier; but that gets into the
| problems of having to annotate _nine_ different body type
| letters onto a numeric size, not to mention having to
| _design_ clothing that looks good on _nine_ different body
| types, and having to hire models of _nine_ different body
| types. The modeling industry is unprepared to staff that
| need, too!
|
| * The phrase "pinup-hourglass male-gaze body-shape imposed-
| ideal" serves as an excellent starting point for research on
| _that_ nightmare. For those unfamiliar, ask your friends who
| are women about that exact phrase, and remember to listen
| rather than critique their potentially-lengthy reply. I'm
| focusing on the sizing discussion and leave that topic as an
| exercise for the reader.
| monsharen wrote:
| I've collected size charts for every shoe model across 200
| brands and found that it's not uncommon for any given size to
| vary +-1.5 sizes (a range of 3 sizes total). And that's size
| charts from manufacturers.
|
| Many online stores use outdated or outright wrong sizes
| charts. One of Europe's largest online retailers don't even
| bother providing official manufacturer size charts at all.
| They have one generic size chart for almost all of the shoes,
| so it's pretty much down to the consumer to return and retry.
| Kind of crazy state of things.
| astura wrote:
| >By age 15, most girls have gone through growth spurts and
| puberty, and they've reached their adult height.
|
| >Many have started to outgrow the junior's size section.
|
| Ummmmm.... What? I wore junior's sizes well into my 30s. Am I
| really that much of an outlier?
| flumpcakes wrote:
| Statistically, yes.
| sevenseacat wrote:
| As someone who grew out of junior sizes by the age of 10, yes
| (so am I)
| miav wrote:
| It is genuinely incredible how well-fitting clothing is only
| generally available to some one-third of women who fit well into
| the anticipated height-waist ratio. Petite options exist in some
| places, but god forbid you're tall - your choices will be limited
| to "too short" and "too short and also too wide" if you try to go
| for a size up.
| altairprime wrote:
| Skewing that further is the single length ratio of inseam to
| torso that a retailer's clothing is fit for. If you have
| short(er) legs and long(er) torso (than the median), you're
| doubly screwed, both in tops _and_ bottoms; pants will flop
| past your feet and shirts won 't reach your waist. The world is
| gradually starting to figure this out, but you typically only
| find 'tunic' (with its higher length-to-waist ratio) in a very
| few retailers at all.
| frm88 wrote:
| The same goes for shoes and if you're dedicated to minimalist
| shoes you're basically doomed to men's shoes. Shoe size for
| women is a joke and seeing that most apparel and shoes are made
| in Asia, the divergence to standard measurements or sizes is
| doubly apparent.
| tirant wrote:
| Doesn't help that high quality European made shoes are made
| either in Portugal, Spain or Italy, where women have also
| small feet.
|
| I believe there are still quite some shoe factories in
| Germany and Eastern Europe, but are mostly dedicated to
| Hiking and Mountanieering shoes
| ggm wrote:
| Regulate now. You would think it actually levels the playing
| field for everyone.
|
| Never got this, nor the bizarre dysfunctional pockets on womens
| clothes.
|
| In wartime/rationing, the government stipulated hem size, banned
| turn-ups, oxford bags, specified jacket lengths, cloth weights.
| For working class people, clothes IMPROVED. (de-mob (de-
| mobilisation) suits were for some working men the best suit of
| clothes they had ever owned)
| frm88 wrote:
| _... nor the bizarre dysfunctional pockets on womens clothes._
|
| That clearly has the function to sell purses and it works very
| well - even in this thread a commenter is writing
| (paraphrased): I'd rather wear something cute and use a
| purse... The accessory market in the U.S. is worth $ 798
| billion so nobody is keen to subtract from that by sewing on
| functional pockets.
|
| https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/fashion-...
| Animats wrote:
| You're not supposed to talk about this. Someone I used to know
| was fired from the New York Times for saying too much about
| it.[1][2]
|
| [1] https://fashionschooldaily.com/cintra-wilson-vs-jc-penney-
| th...
|
| [2] https://archive.is/md8qw
| magneticnorth wrote:
| "The average woman's waistline today is nearly 4 inches wider
| than it was in the mid-1990s."
|
| I assume they mean circumference rather than diameter, but this
| is still a shocking increase in only 30 years. I knew the obesity
| epidemic was an ever-increasing problem, but this really puts it
| into perspective. I wonder if we'll ever fully understand the
| causes behind this rapid shift.
| steanne wrote:
| part of it is just raw obesity increase, but part is also an
| aging population. even if women today WERE the same size as
| women of the same age 30 years ago, the average over the total
| population would still be up.
| magneticnorth wrote:
| Ah, yeah, the aging population is a good point.
|
| I can't find a citation now, but I recall reading at some
| point that weight gain with age (in adulthood) didn't used to
| happen very much before the obesity epidemic, though nowadays
| we take it as a given. I wish I could find a source
| for/against that idea, I'm curious now if it's true.
| Legend2440 wrote:
| Mostly though it's the obesity increase.
|
| 40% of Americans are obese, and 75% are overweight. 30 years
| ago only 20% were obese.
| lloeki wrote:
| This is what I was beginning to think around the "nobody's
| actually hourglass" section.
|
| I thought it would be worth looking at what the definitions
| are:
|
| https://www.ergo-
| eg.com/uploads/books/devarajan_full_106_04%...
|
| > Hourglass. A subject would fall into this shape category
| when there is a very small difference in the comparison of
| the circumferences of her bust and hips AND if the ratios
| of her bust-to-waist and hips-to-waist are about equal and
| significant (Simmons, 2002)
|
| > Rectangle. A rectangular subject would have her bust and
| hip measure fairly equal AND her bust-to-waist and hip-to-
| waist ratios low. She would not possess a clearly
| discernible waistline (Simmons, 2002)
|
| Over here (E.U) I'd say most women definitely would be
| "hourglass shaped" in some way more than any other shape -
| maybe some would be a tie with "rectangle" but I'm breaking
| the tie by saying it's fair to say hourglass does not mean
| _wasp-waist_ either - so I couldn 't reconcile my anecdotal
| observation from the stated facts until it dawned on me
| that this was U.S stats.
|
| > One 2007 study found that half of women (49%) in the U.S.
| were considered rectangle-shaped. Only 12% of women had a
| true hourglass figure.
|
| OK let's dig data:
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/obesity_adult_07_08/ob
| e...
|
| > Results from the 2007-2008 National Health and Nutrition
| Examination Survey (NHANES), using measured heights and
| weights, indicate that an estimated 34.2% of U.S. adults
| aged 20 years and over are overweight, 33.8% are obese, and
| 5.7% are extremely obese.
|
| And apparently it's worse for women (35.5% obese) than men
| (32% obese).
|
| Anyway I'm not sure what "true hourglass" is supposed to
| even mean (wasp-waist?); according to the definition you
| got some waistline + balanced hip and shoulders => you're
| hourglass. If you start using "rectangle" as a fallback
| when in doubt then of course it's going to rate higher.
|
| Funnily enough the very study linked is a _comparison_ with
| another country (Korea):
|
| https://www.emerald.com/ijcst/article-
| abstract/19/5/374/1249...
| tirant wrote:
| Increasing weight with age must be an American thing. My
| observations in my friends circle and family circle outside
| of US is that we have all kept same size (1 up/down) since
| early adulthood.
| altairprime wrote:
| There are some theories. Most fresh food in a generic U.S.
| supermarket has something like 10-25% of the nutrients per
| pound than it used to a hundred years ago, thanks to soil
| depletion, so each generation has to consume more pounds of
| food to get the same amount of nutrients. There's been long-
| standing corruption in the FDA "food pyramid" and "recommended
| daily allowance" systems to bias the U.S. population from
| recognizing that added sugar leads to obesity. And there's the
| advent of chemical non-sugar sweeteners, which in recent
| decades are turning out to be just as harmful as sugar, only
| differently. Those may not _fully_ explain obesity, but they
| certainly are known and understood explanations _for_ obesity
| -- and yet they remain wholly unaddressed.
|
| I think the problem is not _whether_ we'll fully understand the
| causes, but more that _every_ cause we have identified to date
| would require regulating corporations in profit-damaging ways
| to solve, and it is likely that any future causes we reveal
| will be the same. That's anathema in the U.S.: profits are
| sacrosanct to the two primary political parties, discounting
| their occasional extremists who argue (correctly) that we
| should be regulating in favor of consumers, not profits.
| Typically, the desire for a 'full' explanation is used to delay
| or derail efforts to implement solutions to each single
| _proven_ explanation, and so I tend to caution against pursuing
| a complete answer _first_ , and instead recommend asking why we
| have not yet addressed the _known_ causes while continuing to
| search for more.
| j-krieger wrote:
| There is _no source_ supporting your claim of nutrient
| decline in that magitude thanks to soil depletion. It 's
| mostly due to modern crops that grow tall fast, and are thus
| mostly made up of water.
| altairprime wrote:
| Some argue that it's instead because we've promoted food
| strains that have more sugars and less nutrients, and I'm
| still studying that, so I have no position to offer about
| it yet. Brussels sprouts is a good example of doing this in
| a way that _doesn't_ damage the nutritional value, but the
| general U.S. avoidance of anything pungent or bitter is
| reflected in having bred out all of the 'unattractive'
| nutrients from our food strains. A good litmus test for
| this is to check for dandelion greens on the shelves; if
| present, the market likely sells a broad spectrum of
| produce that isn't simply designed to be a sugar bomb; if
| absent, I'd be shocked if you found anything nutrient-dense
| at all.
| brianleb wrote:
| Similar to a sibling comment,
|
| >>the advent of chemical non-sugar sweeteners, which in
| recent decades are turning out to be just as harmful as
| sugar, only differently.
|
| requires citations. People lump sugar substitutes together as
| one class of drugs, but they very much are not. Some are
| sugar alcohols, some are glycosides, others are different
| molecules. Different molecules have different mechanisms of
| action and paths of metabolism.
|
| Much like one might take a "blood pressure" medication, it is
| a large umbrella consisting of chemically distinct ACE-
| inhibitors, ARBs, thiazide diuretics, loop diuretics, calcium
| channel blockers (dihydropyridine and non-dihydropyridine
| distinctly), and more. These drugs generally do have class
| effects, but the class effects from an ACE inhibitor
| (bradykinin cough, angioedema, etc) are quite different from
| diuretics (hyponatremia, frequent urination, etc). One
| person's 'blood pressure medicine' is not the same as the
| next.
|
| I agree that the prevalence of sugar substitutes in the
| western diet demands scrutiny, and I am concerned about their
| effects, however any current research lumping them all
| together without strict attention to pharmacological
| mechanisms supported by translational research is worse than
| useless - it is misleading.
|
| In the sense of what we 'know' about modern medicine, we
| 'know' almost nothing about sugar substitutes. The body of
| evidence is vanishingly thin. I want more research into this
| topic, but right now, it's just not there.
| altairprime wrote:
| I'm not providing citations for my tangent here; it's too
| far off-thread and I'm investing my academic research free
| time into WtHR instead (see elsethread).
| tirant wrote:
| There's also another element: the shift of women from being
| stay at home mums to joining the workforce.
|
| In the past there used to be always one family member staying
| at home and cooking food. That is not the case anymore for
| many families.
|
| I knew since the beginning how important is to eat home made
| meals, so I told my wife when we started our family that we
| would always eat home made food every day unless we were out
| for another reason. We all have healthy weight levels.
| adrian_b wrote:
| Many years ago I have switched to eating almost only food
| that I cook myself from raw ingredients.
|
| When I eat the food cooked by me, I always eat some fixed
| portions and I am completely satiated when I finish and
| until the next meal. I eat only twice, in the morning and
| in the evening. When I finish eating, I do not have any
| desire to eat more, even if I consider my food very tasty.
|
| On the other hand in the rare occasions when I eat some
| industrially-made food, unless the food is bad it is very
| frequent to be difficult to stop eating, as I am not
| satiated and I feel the need to eat more. This happens even
| when eating commercial bread, in comparison with the bread
| made at home, which does not use any ingredients besides
| flour, water, salt and yeast.
|
| I am not sure which is the reason. It could be that my food
| always has an adequate content of proteins and healthy fat,
| and no added sugar besides some naturally sweet vegetables
| or fruits, while the commercial food might contain various
| non-nutritive ingredients and excessive sugar.
| NewsaHackO wrote:
| Someone (not me obviously) should look it up, because I would
| think that if it was circumference, it would be "4 inches
| _longer_ " not wider. Because that case, ...wow.
| AlienRobot wrote:
| >According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
| (CDC), the average waist size is 38.5 inches (98 centimeters)
| for women older than 20 in the United States.2 This represents
| an increase of roughly two inches since the 1990s, reflecting
| broader trends in rising rates of obesity and metabolic
| conditions.3 Fryar CD, Kruszon-Moran D, Gu Q, Ogden CL. Mean
| Body Weight, Height, Waist Circumference, and Body Mass Index
| Among Adults: United States, 1999-2000 Through 2015-2016. Natl
| Health Stat Report. 2018;(122):1-16.
|
| https://www.health.com/average-waist-size-for-women-11796627...
| Galaco wrote:
| At a previous employer this was a problem we identified (and
| larger retailer customers) had recognised, although for other
| reasons. We had developed a size recommendation system for them,
| that used real product measurements in every size and a method of
| obtaining your body measurements from fully clothed photos. We
| also offered a statistical average measurement set for those who
| couldn't/wouldn't take photos of themselves (privacy was
| important to us, and there was no need to undress).
|
| We were able to give details about fit comfort across many
| measurements for each size, but this feature was basically
| unused. 99% of users used the statistical average body of
| themselves instead of themselves, which actually exacerbates the
| body type problem.
|
| Another interesting thing about the industry and the grading
| process we learned; many retailers had no measurements for their
| own clothes except the reference size. This was much more common
| of higher end brands.
|
| 1 last thing; some global brands actually have the same size name
| on the same product represent a different size in different
| region (eg an SKU in size S in US may have different measurements
| to the same SKU in S in Asia)
| crote wrote:
| There's also a surprising lack of consistency item-to-item.
| More than once I have grabbed two of the _same_ pants (same
| model, same size label, next to each other on the rack) and one
| would fit well while the other was way too large or way too
| small.
| Maxion wrote:
| This is a QA issue, the factory makes sizes to a pattern. But
| to be fast, they don't cut it out that accurately or sew it
| that accurately. So you end up with big variance from size to
| size.
|
| In order to get fast fashion made cheaply and quickly,
| corners are (left) uncut.
| Anamon wrote:
| > 1 last thing; some global brands actually have the same size
| name on the same product represent a different size in
| different region (eg an SKU in size S in US may have different
| measurements to the same SKU in S in Asia)
|
| I (Swiss) once ordered a T-shirt from a U.S. brand, size M
| because that fits me perfectly 95% of the time. It was way too
| big for me.
|
| Lesson learned, the next time I liked a T-shirt form the same
| brand, I ordered the size S. It was way too tight, I couldn't
| even put it on. I checked the label, and it said: "European
| fit".
| oasisbob wrote:
| > many retailers had no measurements for their own clothes
| except the reference size.
|
| When you say reference size, do you mean like a single size
| which is used in the industry for samples? I had a friend
| living in Montreal who was fashionable, she said it was like
| heaven being a size 8 in Montreal because she had access to a
| bunch of cheap, interesting, one-off samples. Wondering if this
| is the same concept.
|
| Never been in the industry, but used to follow a blog of
| someone who did pattern design for a north-american casual-wear
| company, super interesting stuff! There's lots of nuance in
| size grading.
| choilive wrote:
| If we can have mass produced fast fashion from runway to store in
| weeks...
|
| Why not tailored clothing at scale? Have a set of portable body
| measurements that can be sent to any retailer - make an order and
| have it sent from factory to door in a week or two.
|
| Or get a size that is close enough - bring it to your
| neighborhood tailor. Most alterations are simple and not very
| expensive.
|
| Unfortunately sizing is just a leaky abstraction. You are trying
| to distill many variables into a single dimension. It will never
| be particularly great.
| CGMthrowaway wrote:
| We do. For men it's brands like Proper Cloth and for women it's
| Eshakti or creators on Etsy
| gbear605 wrote:
| Bad news about Eshakti, the company shut down and didn't
| deliver many outstanding orders.
| altairprime wrote:
| If sizes were updated to, say, 14Z, where Z is a common
| industry-wide body shape code, then it would be vastly simpler
| to find clothing that fits -- and people who were a 22 before
| might now be a 16S, once the clothes are proportioned properly
| for their non-hourglass body.
|
| The problem underlying this is that retailers _do not want_ to
| advertise for more than one body shape, because that not only
| reduces their total profit (9x the models hired, 9x the designs
| to create, more complicated size ranges than simply blowing up
| a size 6 design with a photocopier), it also would force
| _everyone_ in the industry to be revealed all at once as
| cheaping out on design and production, once the use of H for
| hourglass spread (since anyone who isn't using a letter code is
| obviously Hourglass Only, based on the data). Corporations have
| multiple strong financial incentives _not_ to do this, and
| their shareholders would revolt and fire any CEO who tried to
| reduced profits by incurring massive increases in design cost,
| product variants, model staffing, and retail /online logistics
| for the sake of "unattractive" non-hourglass women.
|
| I think the EU's "no more shredding clothes" initiative is
| going to have some very interesting ramifications over the next
| few years, as clothing manufacturers will have to choose
| between seeing people buy their unsold inventory at the local
| equivalent to Goodwill here in the U.S., or have to start
| selling clothing "made to order" with only a limited quantity
| kept in the store for try-on purposes. Apple, weirdly, already
| has a perfect logistics pipeline for exactly this approach; you
| can get an off-the-shelf option in stores, or you can customize
| it in eight to ten different ways and get something labeled
| "CTO" -- Custom To Order. But that's not a cheap logistics
| pipeline for a company that only has to set the copier
| inflation percentage based on your size choice today -- the
| designs are for size 6 and then they blow it up by 140% for
| size 10 or whatever (yes, seriously, for real). So it may end
| up that once the clothing industry has to start making clothing
| on-demand, they will quickly expand into more options than the
| "print a ream of t-shirts and try to sell them in 3 months"
| profit-maxing approach that they've all coalesced into today.
| crote wrote:
| > have to start selling clothing "made to order" with only a
| limited quantity kept in the store for try-on purposes.
|
| This is already pretty much the case. The larger retailers
| have been _very_ happy to push all "tricky" sizes to the
| internet, and just stock a larger variety of items in a size
| or three in the store instead. They'd rather stock 15 items
| in 3 sizes each than 5 items in 9 sizes each.
|
| If you're not the same size as the median high-volume in-
| person shopaholic, physical stores these days are closer to a
| catalog to browse through combined with a post office for
| pickup.
|
| Combine that with today's fast fashion, and I wouldn't be
| surprised if some sizes are only being manufactured in the
| dozens or low-hundreds quantities!
| altairprime wrote:
| I believe that they're still issuing 'complete production
| run orders' behind the scenes, and only selling the items
| on the website once they arrive at the logistics warehouse
| -- in the cases where they haven't made the item yet, they
| indicate 'preorder' or 'ships in X months', because cargo
| ships are slow and they're neither paying for air freight
| nor producing garments domestically. Otherwise you'd see
| _every_ retailer taking days-to-weeks to initiate a
| shipment after the order is placed -- either it would have
| been marked 'preorder' (or 'out of stock' after
| overselling it) because you're being committed an item from
| a general pool that hasn't been produced yet, _or_ it 's
| from in-stock inventory with JIT replenishment, _or_ MTO
| /CTO and a production-line allocation is taken aside for
| your order before it reaches the general pool.
|
| I can't wait for a world where order production, inventory,
| shipping, and returns are all connected by electric cargo
| drones that fly containers back and forth using solar power
| -- but this also highlights a critical weakness of
| 'globalization': when your production, retail, shipping,
| and returns are all colocated within the same small region,
| you can do JIT or MTO/CTO with a vastly simpler logistics
| chain. It's why Walmart sells local farmers' eggs at their
| stores: eggs are an incredibly annoying food to put through
| a logistics chain, so if you're JIT replenishment like
| Walmart is, you want to replenish from the closest possible
| source of eggs -- and that's why In'n'out Burger is only in
| certain areas of the U.S., too, directly corresponding to
| whether they can get beef at their target price _including_
| transportation costs. American Apparel understood this and
| did relatively well on it for quite some time, until they
| collapsed for ( _checks notes_ ) opening hundreds of retail
| stores using debt and filing for bankruptcy. Don't count
| your chickens until the eggs have hatched, indeed.
|
| There is an unmet market niche for tailoring with the
| 'construct the garment from measurements' stage automated,
| but critically _not_ the human in the loop during initial
| measurement, construction, updating one 's measurements,
| and so forth. It was critically important when I was having
| a corset made to ensure that the folks making the corset
| took my ribcage angle into account, and they didn't have a
| 'standard' measurement for that, but they were able to
| ensure that the construction team had it accounted for.
| That corset cost four digits because a team of humans spent
| two months sewing it, and for a corset, that's not
| something you can _currently_ license or build automated
| production for. It 's a 100% CTO garment sold by a 100% CTO
| shop, because you _cannot_ non-custom a perfectly-fit
| corset -- and an imperfect fit is fine for occasional use
| for people in the relevant medians, but most people buying
| a corset are not in those medians. So, tying this back to
| the main point, if that shop had offered a service for
| "we'll also make you some shirts", I would have bought them
| by the _truckload_ because they would be, bar none, the
| best-fitting shirts I 've ever worn. They didn't, because
| their production capacity was both hyperspecialized and
| limited, which is fine. But considering mechanical
| automation lines versus where to use human beings for their
| competences, I think one hour per few years of labor paid
| to someone to measure me and make sure they get it right,
| plus the cost of the machine-production time for the
| garments, would be world-changing.
|
| Even if the garments are machine-printed and machine-cut
| and then machine-assisted sewn by humans, building out the
| CTO logistics backend of Apple's computer ordering
| processes, combined with an in-person _competent_ human
| tailor to translate "my concerns" into "less stretch, more
| structure" and a production team to translate "more
| structure" into "use a more complex dart structure and use
| the -5% stretch fabric"? It wouldn't be hand-sewn, but it
| would _fit_ , and that would devastate a great deal of
| business that today is grudgingly conceded to hourglass-
| exclusive retailers where no alternative yet exists.
| bigiain wrote:
| That article mentions that custom tailoring can often cost more
| than the article itself.
| vander_elst wrote:
| > bring it to your neighborhood tailor. Most alterations are
| simple and not very expensive.
|
| I think, this is a misconception, some "simple" things like
| resizing a shirt, when done properly, might require multiple
| hours + a decent amount of skills and the alterations might be
| cheap because they are performed by underpaid workers.
| Nonetheless, I like the idea of supporting local tailors and
| I'd be in for paying premium for a local premium product.
| pimterry wrote:
| This exists, https://www.sonofatailor.com/ for example. You put
| in a full set of your measurements, pick a type of garment, and
| they make it to fit and ship it, takes a couple of weeks or so.
|
| It is more expensive, but not impossibly so, and they fairly
| aggressively discount for larger orders which presumably
| amortizes some of the overheads.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| This has been a long-unfulfilled promise of technology for
| literally decades.
|
| I remember multiple iterations of various made-to-measure
| clothing initiatives, dating to at least the 1990s. Levi Straus
| offered this in its San Francisco Union Square flagship at one
| point, as did other clothing producers. One of the few extant
| references I can find is a 16 year old Tripadvisor question
| with answers indicating that the option existed many years
| earlier than _that_ : <https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic-g6
| 0713-i30-k3392413-Ma...>
|
| More recently, in the late aughts / early teens, there was
| something of a flood of made-to-measure selvage jeans
| merchants, though I believe these have also largely ceased to
| operate. When I checked in on them, prices were far higher than
| off-the-rack options, not by percentages but by _multiples_ ,
| as in 3--5 times as expensive. I suspect that these to remained
| niche.
|
| The broader lesson is probably that mass-produced, mediocre-
| fitting clothes simply offer vastly greater economies of scale
| that _no_ element of automation or technology can overcome.
|
| For men (speaking from experience) and likely women having
| tailored clothing made in a lower-wage region (Hong Kong,
| India, and Thailand seem to be the usual suspects) may remain
| an option. Or the self-provisioning option via a sewing
| machine, as noted in TFA.
|
| Closer to HN's interests: similar failures of promises for
| individually-tailored technologically-mediated options to
| emerge, _unless those serve the interests of advertisers or
| other mass manipulators_ seems to be a profoundly persistent
| tendency. In light of present trends (AI / LLM) I'm
| calibrating expectations accordingly.
| eszed wrote:
| Men's clothes have gone through the same process over the course
| of my lifetime. For instance, I wear the same brand and size of
| jeans that I did in college. The waist size back then was broadly
| accurate to the actual size in inches, but today, thirty years
| on, I weigh ~20lbs more, and that waist "measurement" has up-
| sized along with me. I guess it's meant to flatter me, but is it
| really fooling anyone? I guess, based on other's comments in this
| thread, that it does, and vanity sizing works, which is just sad.
|
| (Then there are men's "relaxed" fits, which bear even less
| relationship to actual measurements. Maybe "slim" sizing is
| closer to the old system? Even when they fit my waist - like, six
| nominal inches bigger than standard! I'm not _that_ much wider -
| they don 't fit my legs, so I don't know.)
|
| None of that's anywhere close to as ridiculous as women's sizing,
| but give 'em time and I'm sure it will be.
| kccqzy wrote:
| The simplest brand to buy men's clothes for me is Levi's: their
| sizes correspond exactly to the waist circumference in inches.
| Example: https://www.levi.com/US/en_US/jeans-by-fit-
| number/men/jeans/...
|
| It's basically the only brand where I can buy online without
| trying it on, and still be confident that it will fit as
| expected.
| deathanatos wrote:
| I have a pair of men's jeans. If I lay them flat, while
| buttoned, and measure the width of the cloth with a cloth
| measure, I get 16.5", so roughly a 33" circumference. They're a
| 32"x34" size pair, ... so that's basically spot on.
|
| Note that, at least AIUI, the measurement printed on the pair
| is the wearer's _waist_ measurement, so we thus expect the
| measured circumference of the top of the jeans to be slightly
| wider, since men 's jeans are not intended to sit at the waist.
| bubblewand wrote:
| The outer measurement will also be larger than the inner. If
| your waist measures precisely 32", a 32" outer-measurement
| waistband ( _sans_ some stretch) will be too snug.
| deathanatos wrote:
| While I don't disagree, the fabric is a few millimeters
| thick. I think there's more error in my measurement with a
| cloth measure with them laid on the bed than the inner vs.
| outer diameter.
| flyinghamster wrote:
| My own experience with men's jeans in recent times has been
| that the waist size is accurate, but the fit type is critical.
| I won't fit into any type of "slim fit" and "regular fit" needs
| to be one waist size up. "Relaxed fit" or its newer cousin
| "athletic fit" each work for me perfectly. That has been the
| case for two brands of jeans, at least.
| mgaunard wrote:
| Sizing only sucks because diet and exercise habits changed since
| the sizes were introduced.
| Legend2440 wrote:
| But then why haven't the sizes been updated? We've been gaining
| weight slowly over decades, they've had time.
| munificent wrote:
| We're all still collectively telling ourselves we'll get back
| in shape any day now.
| diath wrote:
| The issue is not the sizes, the issue is the obesity epidemic.
| According to CDC [1] the average woman in the US is 5'3" weighing
| 172lbs. That's not just overweight but rather first degree of
| obesity. I guess you could argue that sizes should catch up to
| the demands when half of your population is straight up fat but I
| feel like a better angle would be educating people that 1500 kcal
| worth of Starbucks sugar for breakfast is not healthy.
|
| [1] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/body-measurements.htm
| munificent wrote:
| _> I feel like a better angle would be educating people that
| 1500 kcal worth of Starbucks sugar for breakfast is not
| healthy._
|
| An even better angle is educating _Starbucks_ to stop selling
| unhealthy garbage.
|
| The idea that all blame rests on individuals and corporations
| are blame-free is crazy. They have way more agency over what we
| consume than individuals do.
| kccqzy wrote:
| That Starbucks probably saved my life after I made an unwise
| decision to bike 40 miles on an empty stomach. Bonking is
| real, and I'm glad they are allowed to sell the sugary
| beverages to prevent me from bonking.
|
| Oh and I also fainted the first time I donated blood, because
| I did not know I should not donate blood while fasting.
| Again, sugary drinks helped.
| shimman wrote:
| You really can't discern between a healthy portion of sugar
| and an unhealthy portion of sugar? I can assure you it
| should be way less than what they are serving. Especially
| since society will bare these costs in a variety of
| unexpected ways, Starbucks needs to be compelled into doing
| so. They broke the societal compact, they have to be
| punished.
| kccqzy wrote:
| I can discern it very well. And indeed I think for the
| people like me who can discern it, stores should be able
| to sell these sugary beverages. The same amount of sugar
| is unhealthy when I'm sedentary, but absolutely necessary
| in other cases.
| shimman wrote:
| That's fine but people like you are an extreme minority
| and I'd rather the government regulate the greed from
| these addiction companies rather than forcing tax payers
| to foot the bill.
|
| Corporate welfare has to end.
| queenkjuul wrote:
| You could just buy two less-sugary ones
| Rendello wrote:
| I bonked in the middle of a 100km ride on a rail trail
| through farmer's fields. I thought I'd had enough food,
| since the same amount was sufficient for the initial trip
| out a few days earlier, but it wasn't. It was the return
| journey of my first big bike trip, and it was absolute hell
| after I bonked. I'd ride for twenty minutes, then lie on
| the ground for ten. When I was laying on the ground I'd be
| searching the vegetation for anything that looked vaguely
| edible.
|
| Crazy how a glucose drop can sneak up and humble you so
| quickly!
| tikhonj wrote:
| There's a lot of area on the spectrum between where we are
| today and "sugary beverages are all banned".
|
| For example, Starbucks could limit the sizes it sells and
| advertises--you'd still be able to have as much sugar as
| you would like by buying multiple drinks, but it would
| raise the activation energy needed to do that. Making the
| healthier choice the path of least resistance works
| wonders.
| lxgr wrote:
| By that logic, should Starbucks also sell life-saving
| insulin and epi pens?
| oceanplexian wrote:
| > The idea that all blame rests on individuals and
| corporations are blame-free is crazy.
|
| You know they have Starbucks in other countries without an
| obesity crisis?
|
| No one is forcing you or I to order a particular drink at
| Starbucks; they literally put the number of calories directly
| next to the menu item. The blame is 100% on the individuals
| making their own health decisions.
| WarmWash wrote:
| Yeah but progressive ideals are a much harder sell if
| people have to take responsibility for their actions.
| "Others should pay for my mobility scooter because others
| keeps feeding me junk food" and all that.
|
| Then again, free will is an illusion, so...
| munificent wrote:
| _> The blame is 100% on the individuals making their own
| health decisions._
|
| If you put a pile of junk food on the floor, your pet will
| eat it until they make themselves sick.
|
| We are smarter than many animals and have more discipline.
| But we are still animals and do not have unlimited
| executive function. The people who architect the
| environment of incentives that surround us bear some amount
| of responsibility for the behavior those incentives create.
|
| Denying that is denying that we are living beings subject
| to all of the same limitations as any other mortal animal.
| We are not spherical rational actors in a vacuum.
| sleazebreeze wrote:
| You can't control the incentives, you can only control
| your reactions to those incentives.
| munificent wrote:
| We _can_ control the incentives!
|
| The idea that we should completely cede the environment
| and public space to corporations and give them total
| autonomy over the incentives that surround us is crazy.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Just eyeballing a map, the countries that pop out as both
| having Starbucks and not having an obesity problem are
| China and India. Other than that, it looks like most of the
| countries that have Starbucks have obesity rates over,
| like, 20%, which seems pretty bad.
|
| This isn't to say Starbucks is causing obesity, of course.
| Most likely they are showing up together as the economy
| develops.
|
| I do think it is worth noting that obesity is a pretty
| widespread problem, not uniquely American or anything like
| that.
| c22 wrote:
| This is an extremely hazardous opinion.
|
| It is true that corporations spend vast resources attempting
| to lure consumers into their webs but you _do_ have agency!
| You _can_ resist!
|
| Vote with your wallet and strip these bad actors of the power
| you handed to them when you gave up.
| raincole wrote:
| You know multinational brands sell sweeter products in the US
| than in other countries?
|
| It's not that all the rest of the world has sugar tax or
| something. It's customer profile.
|
| [0]: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32576300/ [1]:
| https://www.itiger.com/news/1184332557
| albedoa wrote:
| > They have way more agency over what we consume than
| individuals do.
|
| I walk by Starbucks every day without consuming 1500 kcal
| worth of Starbucks. You think that's due to _their_ agency??
| altairprime wrote:
| I do support addressing obesity (see my elsethreads), but duly
| noted that it's not a cure-all panacea for the problems faced
| by women. Obesity does not address the nine different U.S. body
| shapes; one can be obese and rectangular, or obese and spoon,
| or obese and triangle. Resolving obesity is a worthy cause, but
| will only reduce or remove the impact of size inflation on
| 'vanity' sizing as a whole, without addressing the significant
| disparity of sizes between manufacturers or the near-total lack
| of products for the eight non-hourglass body shapes.
| zetanor wrote:
| Despite the article highlighting only _people of width_ as the
| "millions of people who are excluded from standard size
| ranges", sizing is also a problem in the other direction: it's
| practically impossible to find well-fitting clothes if you're
| tall and in decent shape. To your point, though, perhaps there
| was a time when "large" and "x-large" meant "slightly tall" and
| "quite tall" rather than "slightly tall plus obese" and "quite
| tall plus very obese".
| mauvehaus wrote:
| As a dude who is 6' 1" or thereabouts with a 32" or
| thereabouts waist and a 34" (or thereabouts) inseam: can
| confirm.
|
| Carhartts size up a waist size to account for shrinking, and
| I can almost reliably find a 34/34. Finding 32/34 in other
| pants is a challenge. On the subject of vanity sizing, I'm 15
| pounds heavier than I was 20 years ago, and I still wear a
| 32/34. Which is why all those measurements are qualified
| above.
|
| Finding shirts that fit is a similar challenge. Fitted shirts
| can usually be found in 16 34-35 with an athletic cut. Letter
| sizes are a total crapshoot. Sometimes I'm a L, sometimes an
| M. If I'm an M across the gut, frequently the shoulders are
| far too tight.
|
| Not that I'm complaining as such, but I do agree that the
| sizes encompass too little information about body shape.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| I'm 6'0 34/32 and even still feel some of this; L shirts
| are baggy, but M shirts (and sweaters) are often too short
| in the length and arms, especially after a wash.
|
| And it's not my imagination; I have a few custom made dress
| shirts from Maxwell's and _those_ absolutely do feel
| correct in both dimensions.
|
| A tall medium where available will typically work for me
| but most brands don't have it at all and those that do it's
| a special order so what's even the point of being in the
| store; I might add well have just done a blind buy online
| from home.
| strken wrote:
| As a dude who is 6'7" with a 35" waist (34" in brands that
| do vanity sizing) and an inseam that can handle a 34" even
| if it's not quite long enough, I agree that it's tough. One
| of the more annoying problems is that the MT shirt size
| doesn't seem to exist where I shop and LT flares outwards
| at the bottom. At least it's pretty easy to get a shirt
| taken in.
| atestu wrote:
| I'm not affiliated with it but I recommend
| americantall.com They only do clothes for tall people.
| altairprime wrote:
| (And for women who've made it this deep in the thread,
| Long Tall Sally has been pretty excellent over time.)
| FarmerPotato wrote:
| For work casual (and formal!), I was thrilled to discover
| tailored shirts. Not bespoke, but actually getting fitted
| in a store like Jos. Bank that handles the alterations.
|
| The value proposition is comfort and they last a decade.
| j-krieger wrote:
| Yea, if you read between the lines in this article this stands
| out. Over half of all adult women don't fit into regular sizes.
| "Plus size" is not normal.
| Insanity wrote:
| Yeah I wanted to point out the same. This sizing problem is not
| as prevalent outside of the US/Mexico (leaders in obesity).
|
| It's less prevalent in EU and even less so in some East Asian
| countries.
| panic wrote:
| The article points out that the problem is deeper than this:
|
| > Once I compared my personalized sloper to commercial patterns
| and retail garments, I had a revelation: clothes were never
| made to fit bodies like mine. It didn't matter how much weight
| I gained or lost, whether I contorted my body or tried to buy
| my way into styles that "flatter" my silhouette, there was no
| chance that clothes would ever fit perfectly on their own.
| 8organicbits wrote:
| I'll point out a statistical hazard here. While CDC lists the
| average height and weight at 5'3" and 172 lbs, the medians
| appear to be 5'3" and 161 lbs. That's a BMI of 28 and is
| considered overweight (25-30), not obese. Although I'll mention
| BMI is a pretty rough measure to begin with.
| altairprime wrote:
| To provide context for those still using BMI as the sole 'fat
| or not' discriminator -- the CDC published an n=9894
| longitudinal study* about ten years ago; generally
| summarizing figure 1, the median starts around 0.53 +/-
| gender variance at 20-29, peaks at 0.62 +/- at 70-79, and
| then begins decreasing from there; however, they found that
| BMI fails to represent the 'fat' levels improperly (to our
| detriment) for people in their 40s (figure 2), as older human
| bodies tend to _lose_ fat in areas (i.e. arms) that have no
| significant bearing on overall health, but _gain_ fat in the
| abdomen (which other studies have shown _does_ correspond to
| increasing cardiovascular issues). They show median waist-to-
| height-ratio data as 'monotonically increasing abdominal
| adipose tissue throughout the years of adulthood but
| decreasing mass in non-abdominal regions', which bodes very
| poorly for clothing manufacturers -- because not _only_ do
| you have to account for nine body shapes in women, but you
| _also_ have to account for age skewing the waist-to-length
| ratios of the body shape further.
|
| It would be particularly interesting to repeat this sizing
| study using the garment length to identify where it falls in
| 'height' median for women, and then identifying what 'age'
| median the garment's waistline is calibrated for. I can
| certainly guess what the results will be from personal
| experience on a per-retailer basis, and it would be a useful
| way to mathematically identify 'underserved niches' in
| today's market to target with appropriately-fit clothing (
| _without_ a body scan).
|
| * doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0172245 (2017)
| https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/44820
| vpribish wrote:
| "BMI fails to represent the 'fat' levels improperly" - what
| is that supposed to say. I'm just done trying to understand
| things that the writer didn't even read.
| altairprime wrote:
| *properly. Apologies, logical negation errors are and
| always will be my bane in self-proofreading.
| queenkjuul wrote:
| You can be in perfect shape and still not find clothes that
| fit. The issue IS the sizes.
| bloaf wrote:
| Expecting mass-market, lowest-common-denominator products to
| be tailored to your special circumstance is the issue.
|
| Normalize going to a tailor, instead of grumbling about how
| you aren't benefiting enough from the sweatshops mass
| retailers are running.
| WesleyJohnson wrote:
| But they're not lowest-common-denominator products. If they
| were, clothing designers would be tailoring clothes for a
| rectangular figure. The article clearly shows that only 12%
| of women have that "hourglass" figure and yet, by design,
| almost all the clothing manufacturers are tailoring their
| clothes for this shape, regardless of size.
| bloaf wrote:
| You think companies are all deliberately leaving big
| money on the table by making hourglass clothes as an
| oopsie?
|
| They're doing it because people are buying clothes based
| on superficial appearance, and most people prefer the
| aesthetics of the hourglass shape.
|
| Rectangular clothing doesn't sell as well because it
| doesn't look as good on a mannequin even if it fits
| better.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| Yeah, I didn't want to be nasty about it, but the article
| saying that 37" is the _median_ adult American woman 's waist
| measurement is... pretty shocking. Like, I'm a 6' slightly out
| of shape dude and my waist fluctuates from 33-35". You'd have
| to be pretty large to have a feminine figure and have the
| narrow part be 2" wider than my widest section.
| jrmg wrote:
| Have you measured your waist? Vanity sizing is a thing in
| men's clothes too.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| No you're not. That's the size your brands of choice
| advertise to you so you think that you're slimmer than you
| are.
| zonkerdonker wrote:
| For anyone else wondering. Im also a 33 or 34 in pretty
| much any brand, just measured my waistline (where my pants
| usually sit), 38.5 inches.
|
| Never knew!
| mikepurvis wrote:
| Ha, TIL
| tirant wrote:
| I am really surprised about the sharp increase in body size by
| age in the USA.
|
| I have just anecdotal experience here in Europe, but I know for
| a fact that all the females in my family have kept the same
| size since they were 16-18 years old. That's also my experience
| with the male side of the family.
| Gigachad wrote:
| Most adults in the US become physically inactive after they
| leave school/collage and move to an area where they have to
| drive everywhere, while sitting in an office the rest of the
| day.
|
| While I'm well aware weight gain requires over consumption, I
| feel there is an under appreciated importance on being
| somewhat mobile rather than sitting/laying down for 23 hours
| a day
| 0xy wrote:
| You can live a completely sedentary lifestyle and lose or
| maintain weight through eating normal amounts of food.
| Exercise is not the problem, overeating consistently is.
|
| For women, it's very common to consume sugary coffee
| flavored drinks and this behavior is glamorized on social
| media.
|
| For men, the problem is worse.
| Gigachad wrote:
| In theory sure, but teenagers love sugary drinks and
| burgers too, sugar drinks exist all over the world too
| where obesity rates are significantly lower. While you
| can be slim while sitting all day doing nothing, being
| physically active is massively important for your health.
|
| The fact that the particular area you live in determines
| so much of the probability a person would be obese
| suggests the location plays a huge part. While sugary
| drinks are marketed and popular everywhere.
| FarmerPotato wrote:
| I remember a survey of explanatory variables for obesity. The
| variable that explained more was the size of corn subsidies.
|
| The hypothesis was: if you produce it, it will be consumed
| (Say's Law). Lower prices mean larger quantities demanded. (I
| know, it sounds like a confounding variable, you need a cross-
| sectional regression)
| WesleyJohnson wrote:
| The article has mounds of data that to speak to exactly how the
| clothing sizes ARE the issue. Inconsistencies within brands,
| across brands, shifting vanity sizes, and shapes designed to
| fit only 12% of women. And yet, the top comment is about
| obesity...
|
| Yes, obesity is clearly an epidemic. But discounting the entire
| article's premise to point that out?
| segmondy wrote:
| Thanks, any one with kids experiences this. It's so
| frustrating. For the same kid you could literally have 5
| different sizes that are the same. So you have to keep track
| of sizes by brand. Trying a new brand is often an adventure.
| Worse of all, if you come across a sale and rush to take
| advantage of it. You could end up having lots of items
| shipped only to have to return every single one of them. It's
| a mess.
| squidgyhead wrote:
| Here's an article from 2002 talking about how we could just have
| data-based sizing:
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/15/magazine/the-year-in-idea...
| deejaaymac wrote:
| As a male who has been on both ends of the spectrum (morbidly
| obese) and 'fit' / bodybuilder I find the whole discussion about
| size, clothing, weight, vanity, etc incredibly boring.
|
| Buy whatever clothes you're comfortable in and take steps to not
| be obese, and uninstall social media while you're at it. It
| really is that simple.
| shimman wrote:
| This is the first pudding article that does not feel as polished.
| Scrolling down the spacing between legends within the data
| visualizations are not good. Some text doesn't even appear (cut
| off from the top on the torso visualizations). My font size is
| increased by like 150% thru the OS but my zoom is still 100%.
|
| Good content tho.
| nahikoa wrote:
| As a short adult male (5'5" - 165cm), it's always been difficult
| to find pants or jeans with a 28" inseam. Surprisingly,
| AmazonBasics line of clothes is one of the few mass produced
| consumer brands that has this size. Niche alternatives like Peter
| Manning are expensive, so it's great Amazon does this.
| altairprime wrote:
| In theory, the claim in pants from retailers over time was that
| you could "just get them hemmed" -- but if your jeans shape is
| bootcut or flare, then the leg curves sewn into the fabric will
| be in the wrong places for your knees, and/or you'll end up
| hemming off the flare. This gets especially frustrating in
| women's fashion because bell bottoms _are_ popular, and there
| 's no way to hem them without losing the 'bell' at the 'bottom'
| of the leg -- but retailers only produce them in specific
| waist-inseam pairings, and so if you want to wear nice jeans
| with a nice flare, you have to get _very_ lucky in finding them
| (especially if you 're low-rise!) if they happen to exist at
| all.
| Toutouxc wrote:
| I'm like 1 cm taller than you and the pain is real.
|
| And pants are still kind of doable, but mountain bikes? My
| enduro rig is size XS on 27.5 rims and with manufacturers
| dropping 27.5ers I expect this to be the last bike that feels
| anywhere close to "nimble". Also RIP women riders, but that's
| been the case for years now.
|
| I also have proportionally small feet (size 39 EU but wide as
| fuck, so I only wear expensive minimalist shoes with wide toe
| boxes) and small hands (RIP piano, I'm not hitting an octave
| ever).
| harrall wrote:
| Women have it much worse but it's the same with men's clothes.
|
| A "large" men's shirt from Uniqlo is totally different from a
| "large" from Volcom and so on. Start making your own clothes and
| realize there'a a thousand dimensions to a shirt and "waistline"
| is barely scratching the surface.
|
| Don't get me started on shoes, especially if you have wide feet.
| Something like "wide" means totally different things. Unlike
| clothes, poorly fitting shoes will absolutely destroy you.
|
| At least pants have WxL.
|
| I've come to chalk up clothes sizing as a natural complexity of
| life.
| slopinthebag wrote:
| and then you buy two different brands of pants of the same w/l
| and they fit completely differently /)_-)
| laksjhdlka wrote:
| And you buy the same brand and model of pants from the same
| retailer and _they still fit completely differently_ due to
| variation in the product. Pretty annoying, I just want to buy
| my Levi 's 510s every couple years and get the same thing
| each time.
| slopinthebag wrote:
| yeah I dont buy pants without trying them on now, and
| usually still need to get them tailored. buying oversized
| shirts is fine online tho because if you get them a bit
| wrong in either direction its fine.
| moralestapia wrote:
| Is this not the case with men?
| crote wrote:
| To an extent, yes.
|
| However, men's clothing is generally rather shapeless, whereas
| women's clothing is usually quite figure-fitting.
|
| Women also have a lot more variety in body shape: breasts are a
| thing, for starters, and there's a wide variety in which areas
| fat is primarily stored.
|
| Is sizing an issue for men as well? Yeah, probably. But it is
| _significantly_ worse for women.
| performative wrote:
| a good supplement for this is the Articles of Interest episode on
| plus size clothing:
| https://articlesofinterest.substack.com/p/plus-sizes
| _alternator_ wrote:
| I just want to say that this is one of the best pieces of data
| journalism that I have ever seen.
| johnhamlin wrote:
| I never check pudding.cool for some reason, but I always smash
| the link when I see one
| bfung wrote:
| Hot take (?):
|
| The random sizing today is great:
|
| * If you want a better fit, go physically to a store instead of
| shopping online and try them on.
|
| * the vanity part is also fine, no need to cause outrage at
| raising the number and making people depressed cause they think
| they're even more "fat". It doesn't need to be "optimized"
|
| * Only serves online retail to "standardize", but guess what,
| 15th standard also sucks... <cue xkcd comic about standards>.
|
| Enjoyed the presentation of the site. :)
| sevenseacat wrote:
| > * If you want a better fit, go physically to a store instead
| of shopping online and try them on.
|
| Cool. If you don't have an hourglass shape, none of them will
| fit you properly. They'll either be way out in the hips, or the
| thighs, or the waist, or the length (for pants), or the waist,
| the length, the shoulders, the bust, or the arms (for shirts),
| and don't get me started on shoes. What now?
| _main wrote:
| If you shop online and use raw measurements, then it will both
| fit and be available.
|
| The real concern I have is how the large majority of westerners
| are overweight or obese. That's a serious issue way beyond the
| practicality of buying clothes
| tpm wrote:
| > If you shop online and use raw measurements, then it will
| both fit and be available.
|
| I'm a man often shopping for bike wear in Europe. I'm neither
| overweight or obese. The article is right that sizing is a
| complete mess: with my 180cm and 74kg I'm usually mass market
| size M in tops and L in pants because I just have a big ass
| (again I'm not fat, I still have a big ass when I'm 70kg during
| the height of the summer season). But it's often an S in tops.
| Anyway, in the bike brands sizing, the tops are mostly M to L.
|
| The bike pants? I have already sent back XXL's because I just
| couldn't put them on. But for some brands, I'm still L, for
| others it's XL. The measurements don't mean anything, they are
| completely off quite often. The only half-usable help is
| customer reviews where people note their measurements and the
| size that fit them. Also the sizing is not only inconsistent
| between brands, but also for different items of the same brand.
|
| One thing I don't really understand is the brands perspective.
| If someone with my measurements is forced to wear XL (and for
| long pants the legs are often too long as a result), what is
| left? Will a guy 185 cm high weighting 90kg, which is not
| uncommon, be forced to wear an XXXL (if they make this size,
| which they usually don't)? Do they look at this and think it's
| good sizing nomenclature?
| wooger wrote:
| These clothing companies are based (if no longer producing)
| in different regional markets, so focussing on e.g. the
| average Italian cycling enthusiast, which will be quite
| different to the average Dutch, American etc.
|
| I've found myself not even considering brands where I've
| found inconsistent sizing, but going back again and again to
| ones I can reliably pick a size and know it'll fit, no
| returns.
| tpm wrote:
| > so focussing on e.g. the average Italian cycling
| enthusiast, which will be quite different to the average
| Dutch, American etc.
|
| I have seen this explanation a lot and frankly I doubt that
| very much (The XXL I had to return was a Belgian brand). I
| think it's not the body size difference in regional market
| but rather the Italian market for example may be used to
| different size designations. But then they sell to other
| markets too, so they should sort this thing out. I simply
| can't buy anything from Castelli when the reviews say 'buy
| 2 or 3 sizes larger than the measurements say'.
|
| > but going back again and again to ones I can reliably
| pick a size and know it'll fit
|
| I wish those existed for my garments. Sizing is
| inconsistent between Assos Equipe RS and Mille GT lines,
| between newer and older Isadore pants, between newer and
| older Endura pants...
| sushisource wrote:
| Bikewear in particular is a bit hilarious. I'm 5'9", 150lb,
| so a bit smaller than you, but I have significantly more
| muscle in my upper body than the typical serious cyclist
| build. In my experience, the more high-end the bike clothes,
| the more they expect you to be shaped like a TDF rider, which
| is to say literally zero upper body mass.
|
| So I have almost the opposite problem from you, where an M is
| usually reasonable for me on the bottom, but _comically_
| tight on top. Even an L is usually way too tight through the
| chest and biceps for me, but now not long enough in the arms.
|
| I just live with it, because whatever, I don't mind the top
| being a little tight, but it is frustrating.
| elil17 wrote:
| You are assuming that listed raw measurements online are
| accurate (they rarely are).
| Maxion wrote:
| Or that individual pieces of a garment are consistent, which
| they aren't. Only if you buy in to the more expensive brands.
| lionkor wrote:
| > The real concern I have is how the large majority of
| westerners are overweight or obese
|
| This doesn't tell the whole story either. In Europe, for
| example, plenty of women are within the "healthy" BMI range,
| for example, but their muscle- and fat-distribution is such
| that various clothes made for normal weight do not fit.
|
| For example, for some women, finding pants which are both large
| enough at the hips, and thin enough at the waist, is a
| nightmare. You can be well into the bottom range of healthy
| weight, like closer to underweight, and still have clothes for
| normal weights be WAY too tight, because of fat and muscle
| distribution and build.
| nn3 wrote:
| What's also annoying is that sizes of the same clothes change. I
| have a pair of jeans that I ordered on Amazon in 2020. It happens
| to fit me great. So recently I decided to order two more of the
| same. I got exactly the same model with the same size on Amazon,
| just with different colors. But neither fit very well, they were
| far wider. The first one had such a horrible fit that I
| immediately sent it back. The other I can wear, but it's quite
| different from the other perfectly fitting one. Why are they
| doing that? It's insane.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| So these sizes (kid, teen, adult) are kind of ridiculous on their
| own, and combined with the different international systems even
| more. If you look at the tongue of a pair of a pair of sneakers
| for example, sometimes there will be four different numbers for
| international markets.
|
| I wish they simply measured clothing in centimeters, and all the
| complexity could be left behind.
| stackghost wrote:
| >I wish they simply measured clothing in centimeters, and all
| the complexity could be left behind.
|
| Funny you should mention shoes, because this is exactly what
| european shoe sizes are. It's really just a case of, yet again,
| Americans stick with an ass-backwards system
| (inches/pounds/feet, fahrenheit, etc.) when the rest of the
| world has settled on something much more logical and
| reasonable.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Not really, Wikipedia says it is 2/3 cm +/- 2. Snatching
| defeat from the jaws of victory.
| monsharen wrote:
| "European" shoes differ quite a lot between brands and even
| models in the same brand. A lot due to factories being
| slightly different and the materials used, but also in terms
| of how the shoe itself is designed. Size charts mostly only
| tell us one dimension (the length) of the shoe. If you're
| lucky you'll get width at one chosen point as well. Far from
| ideal.
| bdangubic wrote:
| DJT would slap 86% tariff on any imported good only shown
| sizing in centimeters so this better be inches :)
| JadeNB wrote:
| The original title made clear that this was about sizing for
| women's clothes. I'm not sure why that was removed; it wasn't
| clickbaity, and made the title more informative. In fact, I'd
| argue that just "Sizing chaos" is more clickbaity. (The article
| itself doesn't seem to have an official title.)
| dang wrote:
| The url includes "womens-sizing" but I don't see that phrase on
| the page when I view it. "Sizing chaos" is the HTML doc title
| which is a legit option HN titles (https://hn.algolia.com/?date
| Range=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...). That's why we went with
| that one.
| altairprime wrote:
| For potentially interesting context, I notice in inspecting
| past articles that the pudding site regularly uses three
| different titles between the homepage, the article html
| title, and the title in-page (if any). In this article's
| case, the homepage subtitle is _much_ better than either of
| the other options:
|
| > _The inter-generational struggle to find clothes that fit
| more than a tiny portion of women_
|
| But I'm not sure if that's a better title for HN or not. I
| sure like it, though.
| orbisvicis wrote:
| What a lovely website, and the torso silhouette sizing diagrams
| are invaluable.
|
| I'm not the target demographic, but the main problems I have are
| proportions not simply waistsize. I was under the impression a
| size range [xs,s,m,l,xl] was supposed to adjust girth (bust,
| waist, hip, thigh) while leaving the vertical measurements
| unchanged (inseam, rise). Because nothing fits, I purchase a
| sizing range with the intention to keep just one and return the
| rest. It makes for pretty funny discussions: $500 on <clothing>
| WTF! Anyway I've started measuring clothing dimensions and have
| found that the brands I shop generally tend to adjust other
| dimensions in a 2:1 girth:height ratio. This means that if I want
| a snug waistline I'll have a tight crotch or be forced to wear
| pants on or below the hip. Now I like wearing pants somewhere
| between waist and hip. There's a band of fat/padding/sinew (?)
| just above the hips that makes for the sweet spot in terms of
| comfort and utility. I don't understand clothing that's meant to
| sit on the hips... so uncomfortable.
|
| As a rule of thumb I tend to shop Asian clothing stores in the US
| because they tend to better fit my proportions, but lately it's
| become hit-or-miss, i.e uniqlo. I've also got some pretty weird
| proportions due to my exercise regimen.
|
| Also you've got to love brands that _don 't provide actual
| sizes_. Wtf!
|
| Size ranges are almost always infuriating. I sample my
| measurements throughout the day to get an accurate range and
| average. This is invariably what occurs:
|
| store sizes: x1-x2, x3-x4, x5-x6
|
| me: x2-x3
|
| Infuriating! Non-contiguous ranges suck!
|
| Then there's this little unexplained morsel:
|
| > The average woman's waistline today is nearly 4 inches wider
| than it was in the mid-1990s.
|
| Their data is drawn from the US, so I'm wondering if this is
| related to the obesity epidemic, or a general change in
| silhouette. I was under the impression that historically, humans
| are trending taller and skinnier.
| Markoff wrote:
| for non-native speakers: tweenager - a child between the ages of
| about 10 and 14. (Oxford Languages)
|
| tweenager - a young person between the ages of approximately
| eight and twelve (Cambridge Dictionary)
|
| seems even dictionaries can't decide on the age
|
| Btw S M L sizes are retarded, why they can't just write normal
| size like 128 (cm), 134, 152 for cm of height as is commonly used
| in Europe, my wife regularly checks kid sizes since some
| teenagers are taller than her. Sadly for adults it's more
| complicated.
|
| I hate buying pants as adult male since it's complete mess, waist
| size in Europe in inches, length you never know from where it's
| actually measured, so if shopping online it's always lottery
| especially since I am relatively skinny and everything is made
| either for short or tall fatsos, so if I wanna normal length I
| end up with huge waist.
| galkk wrote:
| > Cultural narratives around vanity sizing often square the blame
| on female shoppers, not brands. Newsweek once called it "self-
| delusion on a mass scale" because women were more likely to buy
| items that were labeled as sizes smaller than reality. But
| there's more to the story.
|
| > Vanity sizing provides a powerful marketing strategy for
| brands. Companies found that whenever women needed a size larger
| than expected, they were less likely to follow through on their
| purchases. Some could even develop negative associations with the
| brand and never shop there again. But when manufacturers
| manipulated sizing labels, leading to a more positive customer
| experience, brands could maintain a slight competitive edge.
|
| How one can seriously write the same thing twice in form of
| contradiction and make different conclusion?
| mrkandel wrote:
| Well, the first description puts it as "self delusion", while
| the other describes it as a rather natural reaction and puts
| the initiative for the change on the brands.
| galkk wrote:
| Old good tragedy of the commons.
| scotty79 wrote:
| Is the distribution of women waistline sizes really bimodal at
| some ages? That can't be good.
| scotty79 wrote:
| I hope with computers getting better at handling soft materials
| we could finally get fully automated tailor as a service. Mass
| production in clothing has so many pathologies that it needs to
| be replaced with something better and less wasteful asap.
| speedgoose wrote:
| If the author reads this, I think it would be great to use
| international units as an option, and perhaps by default.
|
| I have no idea about imperial units so it's a difficult read.
| sbinnee wrote:
| I as a small male struggled a lot when I started exploring
| fashion. Nothing seemed fitting to my body. You know what
| happened? I just gave up at some point. I rarely buy new clothes
| now. I absolutely don't buy anything before I try them on.
| tirant wrote:
| You should have never bought anything before trying it on in
| the first place.
|
| I myself have a very standard body shape, to the point that
| almost always fit perfectly in all clothes. Nevertheless I
| always try them on, there's never guaranteed that they will
| look nice on me.
| sbinnee wrote:
| Haha. Yes, I learned that hard way. Anyway there are not many
| options for me to try offline. Many shops have been making
| extra small size only available online, which sucks.
| RobotToaster wrote:
| There's a European standard designed to fix this, which just uses
| body measurements, although I've never seen it used.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_European_standard_for_si...
| Al-Khwarizmi wrote:
| I've always been struck by how outrageously exploitative and
| anti-consumer the textile industry is in so many ways, and how
| people just normalize it and don't even discuss it.
|
| Not just in sizing, which is also a problem -- my polo shirt and
| dress shirt sizes vary between M and XXL depending on the brand,
| and even my shoe size can vary up to 3 numbers, it shouldn't be
| rocket science to establish some quantitative standards.
|
| There's also the issue of buying a polo shirt and having it bleed
| because they've decided to save a few cents on the color-blocking
| product, and in the first wash, it ruins not only the shirt
| itself but the entire laundry load.
|
| And the fact that a cotton garment may or may not shrink, and
| it's a complete lottery how much it will shrink, so sometimes
| even trying it on in person is useless.
|
| And then there's the fact that someone up there decides that this
| year a certain trend is "coming" (let's say, pants with buttons
| instead of zippers) and that's all they sell. If you like zippers
| and you need to buy pants that year, tough luck.
|
| And all of this is compounded by the fact that even buying
| expensive doesn't guarantee you'll get spared from all this
| nonsense... I'm not a cheapskate at all, I don't mind paying if I
| know a garment will be reliable and durable, but sometimes you
| buy a designer item and the quality is absolute garbage.
|
| All of this, by the way, is much worse in Europe than in the US
| (I'm not entirely sure why. Maybe it's because in the US you
| always use a dryer, so they have no choice but to make clothes a
| bit more robust for that market).
|
| If other industries did these things, consumers would be up in
| arms. If any other product seemed to behave well when you
| superficially check it on the store, but then completely failed
| on very first use (like a shirt that shrinks or bleeds), you
| would return it. But in clothing all of this is normalized.
|
| It also amuses me when people complain about the carbon footprint
| of AI: if they saw the footprint of the textile industry
| (compared to the actual usefulness of clothes designed to last
| for one season and be replaced...).
| faeyanpiraat wrote:
| I wash new clothes by themselves for the first time for this
| reason, it's a good enough solution.
|
| I once had jeans with buttons and first I thought it was
| terrible, but after 2-3 uses I got used to it, so it's not a
| big deal I guess.
|
| And about quality there is a youtube channel where they cut
| shoes in half and rate the quality of the build, and based on
| the couple of shoes I've checked out, the price and brand
| rarely correlates with good quality.
|
| As with everything else, when buying expensive longterm items
| (like a leather boot), it is worth doing some research into
| which option is the best.
| seyz wrote:
| the real insight here isn't that sizing is broken. Everyone knows
| that. It's that fixing it would require brands to admit their
| current customers don't match the label they've been selling
| them. "You're not a size 6, but size 10" is bad for business
| HappyPanacea wrote:
| So invent new names
| severak_cz wrote:
| Forget oil rig units. Clothes sizing is the true cursed unit
| system.
| HappyPanacea wrote:
| Did you learn about them from this video?
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdWEGzWFcCc this the only thing
| that seems to match oil rig units + cursed.
| arh5451 wrote:
| Im interested to understand what is the reasoning for using the
| median and not average. I'm assuming the population is likely a
| perfect bell curve (more or less) in which case median would
| represent a higher waist size than using the average. This would
| seem to invalidate much of the presented thesis. I appreciate the
| detailed analysis of body shape, I think it is quite interesting.
| brailsafe wrote:
| Reminds me of how annoyed I am that Eddie Bower is closing,
| because there's very few other retailers that sell affordable
| medium-tall mens sizes with extra long arms. People who don't
| have anatomical size issues don't seem to understand how annoying
| it is to find clothing that doesn't fit some statistical average.
| I have to get lucky to find a medium that fits a bit thinner, but
| then usually I'm stuck if that company decides to change their
| product. If I need formal wear I need to find a niche company and
| pay niche prices. Feet larger than size 12? Sorry. Tall but not a
| rugby player? Sorry.
|
| The of the only reasons I've been wearing the same pants is
| because I haven't found anything else that fits well
| _trampeltier wrote:
| People change, not just since the 90s. Just look an old movie,
| like Dirty Harry, or look pictures from athletes in the 70s, 80s.
| It does not so much plays a role, as long you try in a store. But
| online it sucks very much right now. Recently I ordered a pair of
| pants, and it was something like 3 sizes smaller, than the same
| model in another color. I'm not sure, if online stores and
| factorys think people would not return the item and just order a
| size larger or smaller again. I think thats also a point where
| the EU should push, a true size with cm.
| thesumofall wrote:
| Beyond all, I think cost is a major driver. A key difference in
| cheaply made clothing vs more expensively made clothing is the
| sophistication of the tailoring. However, the interesting side
| effect is that cheaply made clothing sort of fits everyone badly
| while more expensively made clothing either fits you really well
| or not at all. If(!) you care about well-tailored clothing you're
| either lucky that one of the brands fits your body or you need to
| go the custom-tailoring route. Custom tailoring wasn't anything
| special for a long time but we sacrificed it to our desire for
| cheaper clothing (which isn't necessarily a bad thing!)
| vessenes wrote:
| The lede is sort of in there, but buried - or at least not talked
| about from an economic perspective:
|
| Right now, women consumers put up with one-ish body type
| (although fit model shapes vary by brand) - manufacturers thus
| make up to ten sizes or so of any given garment. Google fashion
| industry waste if you want to learn some depressing things, but -
| because of fashion lead times, production methods, etc, a lot of
| these clothes will not get sold. So there's production waste.
|
| There are roughly 10 core body types according to this website.
| So, to make 'properly' shaped garments for a much larger group of
| women is going to take roughly 120 different garments for a
| single design.
|
| This just isn't going to work for manufacturers given current
| production methods. I'm working on a fun sweater company right
| now, and it's a very analog process - with humans and production
| and yarn all in different countries - ending in a single garment
| for analysis that is then put on a model for photography. I
| cannot imagine trying to scale it to 100 different shape/size
| combos.
|
| Upshot - right now: choose from the following:
|
| 1) create mild differentiation and hit a product target that
| blends looking good on the site/shelf/model with one that looks
| good on the customer; keep 90% of the market
|
| 2) lean in hard on one of the "10"-ish body types - give up the
| rest of the market, but have happy customers
|
| 3) Try to sell stuff that can get auto-sized properly via
| algorithm and delivered "on-demand"
|
| Most big companies are big, and therefore chose 1. Some smaller
| companies chose 2. In the happy circumstance that they chose 2
| for conventionally attractive bodies, you've heard of them
| (Chanel). Some have transitioned into this space over a longer
| period, like Burberry. If you're not a target customer, they may
| still have fans, but you might not have heard of them, e.g. Good
| American.
|
| A few companies have tried 3 -- direct to consumer via brick and
| mortar retail -- (there was an MIT company deploying Shima Seki
| knitting on Newbury street in boston years ago), but they
| inevitably seem to move to a fast deployment D2C shipping model.
|
| I think this is likely because if you go into a boutique you do
| not want to pay $600 for a garment and _then_ have to wait three
| hours for it to get made. Online this feels more palatable.
|
| So, we'll probably see some continued innovation on the robot-
| knitting side of the world over the next ten years. In the
| meantime, companies mostly do what makes economic sense. And,
| it's worth noting, operating the "automated" knitting machines
| and designing for them is no joke, it's hard -- really hard, and
| the software can be abysmal. So, this is an industry that's a
| long way from rapid change, at least right now.
| MezzoDelCammin wrote:
| For everyone struggling with clothes sizing and having a hacker
| mindset, I can't recommend enough buying a sewing machine
| (~100EUR on a used market, ~150 new gets you a reasonable starter
| one you won't outgrow any time soon) and giving clothes
| alterations a try.
|
| Finding a tailor that understands you / you agree with is an
| option too, if time is a hard limit (though I'm not sure it's
| altogrther that much quicker).
|
| In my case, I started with tailors, but kept running into small
| misunderstandings. Also, my taste keeps evolving.
|
| Start small with simple stuff, ideally old / second hand cheap
| clothes. Shirts, T-Shirts and bodice waistlines / "darts" are
| almost trivial once you can follow a straight line. First one
| will take a while, second will be much quicker, by third / fourth
| it's almost a routine and you can start iterating on your own
| preferences. They likely "will" evolve as you keep wearing the
| altered clothes.
|
| Depending on how much help you can get in the beginning, with
| maybe a 2-3h intro on how to use a sewing machine done by a
| friend who has sewing as a hobby, I'm pretty sure most people
| should be able to get their first alterations done within 4-5h.
| By second or third attempt, this time should be down to around 1h
| per item, including some setup (pinning - trying - ironing). At
| that point the DIY option is probably quicker than going to a
| tailor.
| egorfine wrote:
| Is overlock a necessity?
| MezzoDelCammin wrote:
| TLDR : "nice to have, but not a necessity"
|
| For some basic jerseys (think T-shirts) a basic zigzag is
| fine to begin with. That 100EUR sewing machine will have some
| fancier stretch stitch options that are slow, but "good
| enough" to look like an overlock (but can't do the cut of
| course).
|
| If you have the space / money, overlock is definitely what
| I'd get as a second / third machine. It's much quicker /
| cleaner if you're working on jerseys or shirts.
|
| But I still keep wearing the T-shirts I did when I was
| starting. On my list the first thing to do is to understand
| how to alter something to fit you. It can be done by hand
| (needle and thread), but to be reasonably efficient, the BOM
| would be "sewing machine, box of pins, scissors, piece of
| chalk / ruler and something to press / iron".
| altairprime wrote:
| My local library has an overlock machine, so it may be
| possible to use one occasionally at a local lab somewhere
| rather than buying one, too.
| fxtentacle wrote:
| Adult clothing no. But for kids clothing you kind of need it,
| because without the cutting function attaching rubber bands
| to neck, wrist, and belly seams is very difficult.
| fxtentacle wrote:
| I also fixed clothing sizes for my family using a hacker
| mindset, but in a different way:
|
| Did you know that most professional sewing charts are just DXF
| files?
|
| And did you know that DXF is the most common file format for
| laser cutters?
|
| ;)
|
| => just let the machine cut out precisely the clothing shapes
| that you need
|
| After a few tries, I also started to add small sideways cuts to
| the outlines as alignment markers. And then you just need to
| connect the pieces where you marked them while always leaving
| roughly 0.5 cm of gap to the laser cut line. I went with 0.5
| because my sewing machine has a hardware alignment guide with
| that offset. And at that point, it takes a skilled tailor only
| mere minutes to finish a shirt, which means in exchange for
| their 1x hourly rate they will be willing to finish off 5x
| proto t-shirts for you.
| MezzoDelCammin wrote:
| Oh, I'm not claiming sewing machine is the "only" option :-)
|
| There's plenty of hacking that can be done on the subject of
| sewing and I admit that laser cutter is a cool one.
|
| I'm still pretty partial to that sewing machine route (or
| needle and thread, if handiwork is prefferable). Simply
| because it lets you quickly iterate and build the taste,
| preferences and heuristic of how to get there. Personally, I
| still can't read a pattern propetly. But I'm more than happy
| to put a few pins into a shirt and prototype in front of a
| mirror.
|
| Also, it gives me a good estimate of what I'm OK doing myself
| and what I will outsource to an actual tailor because it's
| either beyond my level, or I simply don't have time to do it.
| fraaancis wrote:
| I wonder how many layers of fabric a cutter could get through
| in one pass (without setting it on fire).
| fxtentacle wrote:
| I have never tried that because it finishes a single piece
| of clothing so quickly that it never seemed like it would
| make any sense to take risks of lower fabric layers being
| uneven/wrinkled in exchange for increasing throughput.
| Catching fire never seemed to be an issue with the CO2
| laser that I used. Most fabrics will kind of melt before
| they start to burn. And the vacuum table sucking air
| through the fabric will also cool it down.
| FuriouslyAdrift wrote:
| You can go all in and get a fabric saw
|
| https://www.amazon.com/VEVOR-High-Speed-Industrial-
| Automatic...
| graypegg wrote:
| I keep coming cross these videos on youtube from Cornelius
| Quiring, and it's been making me think about trying it out. If
| anyone is looking for videos about drafting patterns for
| clothing, I think he's stuff seems pretty approachable!
|
| https://www.youtube.com/corneliusquiring
| 153957 wrote:
| During FOSDEM 26 there was a talk about FreeSewing, a site where
| you can adapt clothing patterns to your specific sizes.
|
| https://fosdem.org/2026/schedule/event/FVQVTA-freesewing/
| morissette wrote:
| Capitalism at work. As a male and full time woman's wear person
| who has been married to a woman for 17 years I've experienced
| these truths from both sides. It's funny how rectangle and
| inverted triangle body shapes are oft ignored as this would open
| up the market for clothes to be genderless.
| belZaah wrote:
| What ticks me off in this is the statement, that a certain body
| shape is "unattainable for most". I'm pretty sure the author does
| not have the data to back this up. Difficult? Yes. Requiring
| commitment? Absolutely. Unattainable? No. I really don't care
| what body shape anyone is comfortable with. But as someone, who
| has struggled hard all his life not to be obese, I find it
| irresponsible to outright declare something that's absolutely
| doable by anyone as "unattainable". Being able to attain it might
| be someone's only hope and it's just wrong to take it away.
| Shywim wrote:
| Body shape is not only about obesity, or fat, and I think it's
| obvious the author don't talk about this when speaking of body
| shape.
| wooger wrote:
| Maybe, but for sure the range of total size would be very
| different if everyone in the study was in shape.
|
| It'd be interesting to see this study repeated after a decade
| of GLP-1 drugs being available (and cheaper).
| Aeolun wrote:
| Not sure. That level of size variance where the median falls
| off the middle seems to indicate a large extent of obese
| people.
|
| The distribution in Japan would be very different.
| akpa1 wrote:
| There is the fundamental thing of skeletal structure and build
| though - people naturally are entirely different shapes,
| regardless of fat or excess weight, wich is what the comment is
| mostly referring to in my eyes.
|
| I'm built very tall and very spindly, so there are certain body
| shapes that I will never have (or want, but that's a different
| question) purely from the point of view that my body just isn't
| the right base shape to produce them.
| globular-toast wrote:
| True but nobody changes shape fundamentally after puberty.
| The only change is fat and, to a much smaller extent, muscle
| (not including anabolic steroid use).
| matsemann wrote:
| You're wrong. They even explicitly call out that it's not about
| weight. Everyone has different proportions.
|
| > _Once I compared my personalized sloper to commercial
| patterns and retail garments, I had a revelation: clothes were
| never made to fit bodies like mine. It didn't matter how much
| weight I gained or lost, whether I contorted my body or tried
| to buy my way into styles that "flatter" my silhouette, there
| was no chance that clothes would ever fit perfectly on their
| own. Finally I understood why._
|
| Later they show how J.Crew has a certain ration between
| hip/waist for all sizes. Even if you had the same sized waist,
| chances are you wouldn't have the same sized hips as they
| expect. Most bodies just aren't that shape.
| globular-toast wrote:
| It's not just about that, though. Have you looked at many
| women's bodies? Some are almost like men: broad shoulders,
| narrow hips. Some are like boys: narrow everything. There are
| "hourglass" shapes, "pear" shapes, big boobs... so many
| different shapes.
|
| It might be possible to have a one-dimensional sizing scale for
| men's clothing, but it seems impossible for women's. There's at
| least 3 or 4 dimensions that are independent and nothing to do
| with being fat.
|
| It's true, everyone can be not fat. But I don't blame people
| for this. I blame fast food and us not cracking down on food
| addiction as a society.
| abkolan wrote:
| What a beautifully made website.
| bloqs wrote:
| The well is pemanently poisoned by marketing, this is not an
| engineering exercise
| jakub_g wrote:
| Semi-related thing that suprises me as a man (this is in Europe):
|
| I go to a clothing shop at the start of a new collection, and
| look at men's shirts for a given type:
|
| - there's 10 XS, 10 M, 10 XXL versions
|
| I go towards end of the season:
|
| - there's like 1 M remaining, but 8 XS, 8 XXL.
|
| Like if they were surprised and had no data that most population
| is M.
| anilakar wrote:
| I had subscribed to clearance sale newsletters from quite a few
| retailers but unsubscribed when I noticed they put stuff in the
| outlet section only when they run out of sizes S to L.
| d--b wrote:
| My impression is that at the end of the season, there's like 0
| XXL, and 8XS, and 8Ms, but maybe that's just a perception
| problem.
| altairprime wrote:
| As far as I can tell, this is a key driver of why the EU
| implemented anti-waste provisions for clothing starting in a
| couple years: because retailers will just order arbitrary
| amounts of clothes and shred (!) whatever is unsold, which
| since they made their profit, doesn't cost them anything and
| saturates the planet in formerly-wearable clothes that have
| been destroyed out of wasteful sloppiness. If they actually had
| to put in effort to design production runs -- or else see their
| clothes sold at the bargain store -- then they may well start
| acting less "why bother, we got our money, next". One hopes,
| anyways.
| KK7NIL wrote:
| > because retailers will just order arbitrary amounts of
| clothes and shred (!) whatever is unsold, which since they
| made their profit, doesn't cost them anything
|
| This is so obviously untrue. It's painfully obvious that the
| less they waste, the more profit they make, so there's plenty
| of incentive for them to order the right amount.
| altairprime wrote:
| > _there 's plenty of incentive for them to order the right
| amount._
|
| If the incentives to avoid waste were effective in the
| market, the EU wouldn't need to introduce regulations to
| halt it -- but their industry is destroying a bit over ten
| kilos of finished products _per person_ there each year, so
| the market carrot isn't working and manufacturers have more
| than earned the regulatory stick (and can afford the share
| of profits compliance will cost them).
|
| https://www.eea.europa.eu/en/newsroom/news/many-returned-
| and... is a good start if you're unfamiliar with the issue
| as a whole.
| KK7NIL wrote:
| You seem to not even be addressing my point that what you
| said is objectively false.
|
| You've instead changed the discussion to whether or not
| those incentives are "effective", which is a very
| different and subjective discussion. You also make the
| dubious assumption that we should halt all destruction of
| retail clothing when the truth is that a supply surplus
| is a good thing to prevent supply shocks for consumers
| and the unused surplus does not necessarily make sense to
| donate or reuse. So a complete prohibition on the
| destruction of retail clothing seems like a very blunt
| tool here.
|
| But, to engage with your new point: I would argue that
| retail clothing waste is not unique and that a much
| fairer system would be to tax commercial/industrial waste
| in general. For that reason, this move by the EU seems
| more like a publicity stunt than a meaningful measure to
| me.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| It's worse for women, than men, but all tweens/teens have this
| issue, and it drives parents nuts. Also, these kids are
| chronically insecure, and the need to be "fashionable" is
| intense. I remember hating JNCO pants, for my daughter. To be
| fair, at least they were baggy.
|
| I have similar issues with shoes, and I'm in my 60s. My wife
| refuses to buy me shoes.
|
| If I buy Clarks, I'm size 9. If I buy New Balance, I'm size 10.5.
| If I buy Hoka, I'm size 11. It's crazy.
| jakub_g wrote:
| I was surprised recently when browsing on Amazon (I rarely buy
| clothing/shoes there, but I did a few times).
|
| I chose my usual size, but Amazon told me "nope we think you
| want one size smaller, based on your history and our data for
| this product".
| jagged-chisel wrote:
| I'm curious to know if that was an accurate assessment by
| Amazon and if you were (or would have been?) satisfied with
| the purchase of their suggestion.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I have gone to the manufacturer's sites (I tend to avoid
| Amazon for purchases over about $50, because fraud).
|
| They usually have something like "If you are a 10.5 for
| Adiddas, then you are a 10 for us" kind of thing.
|
| Those have worked for me.
| monsharen wrote:
| Will risk sounding like an ad but I created a service for this
| exact problem because I grew tired of the returns. Size charts
| sucks and it should be treated as a data problem.
|
| You have shoes at home that fit you well, and I have shoes at
| home that fit me well. If we have shoes that fit well in
| common, then I know which size to get in your models. Scale
| that up to millions of users and the problem of sizing is
| solved. The service is live, it works and it's collecting
| people's sizes.
|
| Don't want to post the URL but it pops up when you search for
| shoe models and size guides on Google. Just wanted to let you
| know that your wife might be able to buy shoes for you again
| soon.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Cool. Thanks!
| Aeolun wrote:
| I buy shirts with a collar and length size. Surely it can't be
| that hard to do the same with waist size?
|
| Wait, I buy my pants with a waist and length size. So the problem
| is already solved?
| throwawy_gender wrote:
| I need to say this out loud: Can you really imagine a similar
| article being written about men's clothing sizes? Seriously, get
| in shape. Lose weight. I don't care if it takes drugs (ozempic,
| whatever). If women in other highly developed countries can have
| a median body weight _much_ less than American women, then I am
| not very symapthetic to their "clothing size crisis".
| pickleRick243 wrote:
| I was looking for the first comment along these lines.
| Regardless of your views on this topic, everyone has an opinion
| and it's funny how the entire comment section finds a way to
| self-censor.
| olliebrkr wrote:
| Not sure how we expect this to be fixed when women still don't
| get proper pockets.
| brikym wrote:
| Please make one on US measurements and metric.
| bnxts21 wrote:
| I love sites like this
| d--b wrote:
| Here's an asumption:
|
| When you get into the overweight category, sizing becomes a lot
| more difficult, because then the ratios that are relatively
| standard for non overweight bodies (like waistline to tallness)
| completely break down.
|
| So now you don't need just one parameter, but at least two: waist
| and tallness. And this causes the number of different sizes to
| explode. So instead of (S, M, L, XL, XXL, XXXL, XXXXL), you'll
| need (S, M, L, XL, XXL, XXXL) waist x (S, M, L, XL, XXL, XXXL)
| length. And it becomes unmanageable for brands to cover all the
| different sizes without having a large amount of waste.
|
| Men trousers and shirts do this, because generally men fashion
| don't change that fast, so the brands can carry many models for a
| longer time period.
| tantalor wrote:
| I wish people would stop with the scrollytelling for data pieces
| like this. It does not help the case, and distracts more than
| anything.
| moodyScarf wrote:
| on this website i thought it was nice, although i agree in
| general. i think it really varies between device and is
| sometimes super awkward.
| abustamam wrote:
| My wife is petite (4'11") and always struggled to find clothes
| that fit her. She dresses conservatively because we're Muslim but
| she doesn't really like wearing the long gowns that many Muslim
| women wear, so she wears jeans and long sleeved shirts.
|
| Anuway, she always struggled to find clothes that fit her well
| because she's small. Her uncle had to tailor a lot of her clothes
| growing up. A while back she found a fashion-as-a-service called
| Short Story, which markets itself for petite women; it basically
| sends her clothes every X-months and she tries them on and send
| back the ones she doesn't like or fit, tells her stylist why she
| is sending them back, and pays for the ones she keeps. Every time
| she keeps something from them she donates something from her
| wardrobe (net zero is the goal). And she looks great in them!
| They're fashionable (to the degree that my dev opinion on fashion
| matters), modest, and most importantly they fit her well.
|
| Disclosure: I interviewed with Short Story last year as a
| consulting role but it didn't pan out.
| npilk wrote:
| The opposite issue exists in men's clothing - it seems to be
| harder to find clothes that fit shorter/smaller men. "Medium"
| sizes tend to be quite large.
|
| I made a page about this myself - Model is 6'2" Wearing Size
| Medium - https://pilk.website/2/model-is-6-2-wearing-size-medium
| scherlock wrote:
| Don't get me started on torso lengths! I'm 5'11 but wear a 30"
| inseam pants. My torso is long, so most shirts are too short
| for me. I'm not overweight, I'm 160 lbs, so finding a shirt
| that actually fits me is very difficult. If it's long enough,
| its too wide. If its the right width, it's too short.
| lrivers wrote:
| Bruh. Short leg long torso bro here as well. I try to buy
| shirts in tall sizes. I can tuck them in!
|
| Good news, Italian sports cars and motorcycles seem designed
| for our body.
| anthomtb wrote:
| I have the exact same problem. 6'0 (183.5 cm) height, 160lbs
| (72kgs), and a long torso. Mediums and even smalls are ideal
| for my shoulders and chest but it's a crapshoot if they will
| keep my belly button covered through a normal range of
| motion. I don't want to bare it and can't imagine anyone
| wants to see it.
|
| Tentrees, Fox and Prana are the brands I've found that
| consistently fit my upper body.
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