Clothes sizing: Why can the fashion industry not get this right?

Unintentional clones

If you were to wake up randomly in a park or playground, having lost your power of hearing, in my opinion you could still pretty quickly work out if you had landed in the UK despite not being able to hear the language being spoken.

How?  Just a quick glance at the fashions being sported by the mums.

As with any culture built by humans with an innate need to fit in, we have developed different uniforms for different roles in society.  In England the uniform is fairly clear for a trip to the park with the kids.  If you are less than a UK size 12 and therefore can get away with skinny skins, or Jeggings,  these will be your uniform of choice.  Combined with a fairly snug Tee, or a fitted smock top (the sort that look like a mini dress but are worn with leggings.)

However, you might, like me, be unable to find a pair of skinny jeans or Jeggings that actually fit your hips.  You may, after all, have hips, and an hourglass figure, that the manufacturers of fashion often forget exist.  For you, the trip will, despite your better intentions, probably result in the Sweats uniform.  You'll have plenty of pairs of sporty tracksuit bottoms from all the good intentions of joining and subsequently not attending the gym.  Add a bland v-necked T-shirt and you can kid yourself that everyone will assume you have come straight from Yoga class to the park.  

Do we have a choice?

It's not that we want to opt for these casual, some would say scruffy, others may even go as far as saying slovenly clothes.  We often have limited choice.

Unfortunately, this uniform is one bred of poor UK fashion sizing.  Whoever decided that all woman could be categorised by a number that supposedly tells you your entire shape somehow got away with the stupidest sizing system in history.  Show me two size 12 women who are identically proportioned and I'll show you two identical Rose buds. 

If this was it, if it was just a case that there were clothes that were size 12, and clothes that were size 14, and I could work out which I best fit into and buy that size from any store with confidence as to what dimensions it would be, well that would be brilliant.  But it isn't like that either.  

We are fed this misconception that we are one size, but then all the fashion houses dictate their own sizing and proportions for each of the 'sizes' given.  It means that I can buy size 14 jeans from one shop that will fit perfectly, and size 12 jeans from another that are, confusingly, enormous on me.  It means that women spend HOURS trudging the high street, having their confidence slowly but surely ground down by store after store full of clothes that just don't fit.  

If you get REALLY lucky, you find a store who seem to cut their clothes to a size that works for you.  The danger then is that you end up looking like a walking advert for one store, and if they suddenly go a bit crazy with the fabrics and you don't like the actual colours and styles, well, you are stuck.

What about the men? Do they fair any better?

Men at least get the comfort of a neck size, measured by actual inches with a tape measure, when picking shirts, but again the fashion world has decided that apparently the size of a mans neck will dictate EXACTLY the rest of the size of their torso!  

How has this happened?

As consumers we are usually extremely demanding folk.  It is our consumer behaviour that eventually led to the downturn of high street giant HMV.  What we buy, and how we buy it, dictates the success, or not, or billions of businesses.  So why have we not been able to demand a better system of clothing sizes than this?

Maybe all tape measures are actually different!

Is there any fashion company anywhere that would be willing to size clothes using a tape measure?  I'd love to be able to measure my hips, waist, bust, and maybe even, gosh let's go crazy, my height too, and pick up a dress off a rail that was precisely proportioned to my measurements.

The closest we have got to this is the sizing of bras, and even then the designers seem to use different tape measures.  I, according to my tape measure, am a 34E.  Even with the aid of supposedly precise measurements, I can't order a bra on-line and guarantee it will fit.  My 34 inches are strangely converted to 36 in many bra designs, and often even the E cup isn't suitable.

We have the ability to build houses, without getting the size of the roof wrong, so why can't clothes designers and manufacturers use a tape measure properly?

What about children's sizing?  Is that any better?

The problem unfortunately starts at an early age.  We went shopping for some shorts for this summer for our two girls.  They are not skinny, but they are not overweight. They like their food and have something of a belly on them after a good meal.  Princess Peppa, nearly 6 years old now, has a curved build like me and will never have a Twiggy figure.  Little Miss George is now 4 and has the stocky build of my husband.

Our choice of store to buy some summer clothes was Marks and Spencer's, more for convenience than anything else as its close by.  The clothes for children are, as you'll be aware, marked by height and age.  Again, a ridiculous system that presumes everyone grows at the same rate.  If you are going to put a height on it, why bother with the age bit too?  The clothes are also, as I expected, designed for girls that have slim frames and no tummy to speak of.

The shorts that fitted Princess Peppa, even with an adjustable waist, were age 9.  Age 9!  She isn't 7 yet.  Already, at 6 years old, she is in danger of worrying about her size because she doesn't fit into a standard system built, it would appear, by people with absolutely no idea what size and shape children are.

Anyone with children will also know that often their growth spurts are predicated by a period of being constantly hungry and getting slightly pony around the middle. Then they shoot up and grow into their weight and the process starts again.

Resigned to a future of depressing shopping trips?

So what are we going to do?  Can we do anything?  Who would we lobby anyway?  I have no idea.  

I have resigned myself to a depressing trip around our local shopping centre prior to our summer holiday to find some summer trousers for me.  I know that the ones that fit over my 'mothers' tummy will be saggy around the back of my waist.  I know that most pairs, that fit over my bums nicely, won't fasten over my tummy because the waist line will be too low.  I know that the ones I find that do fit my waist and hips (if I get lucky) will probably be too short on the leg.  And I know with absolute certainty that the ones that fit won't be skinny jeans or Jeggings.

So this post is a long, convoluted question to the fashion industry:- is this really the best you can do?