alt Hacker NewsSizing chaos
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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!
"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.
At a previous employer this was a problem we identified (and larger retailer customers) had recognised, although for other reasons 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)
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.
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.
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?
a good supplement for this is the Articles of Interest episode on plus size clothing: https://articlesofinterest.substack.com/p/plus-sizes
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.
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.
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.
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...
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.
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)
Very cool visualization, worked great on firefox mobile too which isn't always the case with these types of things.
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.
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.)
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.
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...
It's cool to see pudding.cool making the front of HN regularly.
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.
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.
Almost like we should use, you know, units of length, when measuring lengths/widths/etc.
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.
>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?
> 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.
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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.
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
Sizing only sucks because diet and exercise habits changed since the sizes were introduced.
Does the author know she is allowed to put down the cake and go for a jog? You'll feel better, look better, live better.
A lot of companies don't want you and your HAES friends in their clothes. The healthy, attractive women who respect their bodies and health enough to conform to regular sizing are walking billboards for their brand.
It's harsh but maybe the obese should feel a little uncomfortable in public. Evidently some are shameless and impervious to accountability for their lifestyle choices that have led them to writing blog posts self-righteously seething about other people not retooling factories to accommodate their gargantuan waistlines.
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