Recently, I have received a lot of emails from shoppers with smaller frames who feel that American size systems are distorted. As much as I hate to admit, these petite shoppers are right.
Boston Globe published an article recently on the topic. It found that clothing sizes are decreasing as Americans grow in weight (due to our obsession with looking thin). What was once a 14 is now a 8, and a 8 is also a new size.
Women’s clothes have shrunk, even though Americans are statistically bigger. This is if you believe the labels. While it’s not a secret that for many years retailers played on women’s vanity by shrinking the sizes of clothing labels this practice reached an extreme with the recent introductions of sizes “double zero” (or “extra small”) and ‘extra extra small.’
Analysts say that if vanity sizes continue on their current path, then it’s only a question of time until clothes sizes become available as negative integers.
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The standardized size system that was abandoned in 1983 should be brought back. We can all be a little bigger if that’s what it takes.
We tend to be a mess because we are too focused on our size, and not what suits us ( high rise denim anyone?
My celebrity stylists friends cut off the labels of clothing (especially those from French or Japanese designers) and give them to their clients, because they know that their clients will freak out if it is discovered they are really wearing a US 8/10.
This size issue has to go.