Vanity Sizing: Dislikes

What measurements relate to what size number has varied over the years for women.  I only recently learned that this also varied for men.  Men sizing is a little worse because what dimensions it should be are in the size of the pants.   I hate this vanity sizing.  I hate it for multiple reasons and I will get to them all.

The Style Blog wrote a piece on this a few months ago:

Your pants have been deceiving you for years. And the lies are compounding:

The pants manufacturers are trying to flatter us. And this flattery works: Alfani's 36-inch "Garrett" pant was 38.5 inches, just like the Calvin Klein "Dylan" pants — which I loved and purchased. A 39-inch pair from Haggar (a brand name that out-testosterones even "Garrett") was incredibly comfortable. Dockers, meanwhile, teased "Leave yourself some wiggle room" with its "Individual Fit Waistline," and they weren't kidding: despite having a clear size listed, the 36-inchers were 39.5 inches. And part of the reason they were so comfy is that I felt good about myself, no matter whether I deserved it.

However, the temple for waisted male self-esteem is Old Navy, where I easily slid into a size 34 pair of the brand's Dress Pant. Where no other 34s had been hospitable, Old Navy's fit snugly. The final measurement? Five inches larger than the label. You can eat all the slow-churn ice cream and brats you want, and still consider yourself slender in these.

This is science, damnit. Numbers! Multiplication tables don't yield to make us feel better about badness at math; why should pants make us feel better about badness at health? Are we all so many emperors with no clothes?

I don't know why I've thought vanity sizing was only for women. I guess I figured guys didn't care.  After I thought about it, I remember that episode of Seinfeld where Jerry changed the label on his pants so people thought he wore a smaller size.  He scratches out 32 to write 31. That episode was in 1995. 

I have thought that companies used vanity sizing to flatter their customers. I have constantly said that it does not and will not work on me. An article in the the Daily Mail provides some evidence that it doesn't work  it also doesn't work on customers.

Shopkeepers probably thought women would love it if they could still slip into a size 12... despite those extra pounds.

But it seems that vanity sizing, in which stores alter the dress sizes to flatter their customers, may have backfired.

According to research, many chains have secretly increased the measurements they allow for a standard dress size. Some allow as much as an extra 1.5in on the waist, hips or bust. 

But the ploy means shopping for clothes has become a time-consuming lottery for customers, who have no idea what size they should pick off the rail in any given shop. And nine out of ten women find it annoying, researchers say. 

The Which? study, across eight leading High Street fashion chains, found massive variations. [Refer to article for details.]

But far from feeling flattered by the size differences, nine in ten women are simply irritated by it. Almost six in ten end up trying more than one size in each dress or top they like. And half feel  they waste too much time in changing rooms because they don’t know what size to pick.

Some 82 per cent of women surveyed thought  shops should be more clear about their sizes.

I did hear on the Early Show about 3 years ago from a segment Julie Chen did that vanity sizing does work on customers. I can't seem to find data on that segment though. (If anyone finds it, please let me know.) Perhaps 3 years ago vanity sizing worked a lot more than it does not.  That segment interviewed a few people who were the same size. I believe they were a size 6 or 8 and they all mentioned that if they could buy a 4 from a certain store that they were more likely to go to that store in the future to buy more clothes.

People are aware of vanity sizing and we don't like it. Yet companies continue to do it.

I dislike vanity sizing because I'm being sized out at numerous stores. I say sized out because now their smallest size is too big for me. Many stores are trying to accommodate this by adding size 0 and then later size 00. I now fit into a 00 at Express but there is no way I should be that small. There are plenty of women smaller than me. I wonder how they can even buy clothes. I hear they buy girls sizes but that just wouldn't work for me. I couldn't find pants long enough in girls sizes in 4th grade which is why I started buying womens.  In 5th grade I purchased a 5 or 7 in juniors and 5 was the smallest most stores even had at that time. I weighed between 75 and 85 lbs in 5th grade. (My weight graph doesn't go back that far so I don't know how much I weighed but people thought I was sickly skinny up until late high school or even early college.)

Some seamstresses do not like this because patterns are still based on the old sizing so then they have a hard time handling the difference in what size they have to make versus what size they can purchase at the store.  I don't sew my own clothes yet, but sometimes I want to and so I still feel for people who dislike the difference between pattern sizing and clothes sizing from the stores.

Over the last 8 years, I have outgrown jeans from Express and had to go buy new jeans. Each time I go to buy new jeans I either get the same size or a smaller size than the ones I previously owned even though the jeans I previously owned had become too tight. I currently own a size 0 from a few years ago that are too tight and yet when I went back most recently 0 was too big and the 00 fit. I refused to buy 00 so I left without purchasing any pants.

Vanity sizing makes it extremely difficult to purchase clothes online unless you already know how that brand of clothing fits.  It even makes shopping more difficult in stores. I have learned to take 2 or 3 sizes of everything to the dressing room with me the very first time. At least then I don't have to talk to someone to bring me a different size.

The only time vanity sizing helps is when people are no longer in plus sizes and can buy regular sized clothes. The style of clothes for plus size and regular size is usually different and people I know do not like this.  It is also helpful for kids in school who want to wear clothes similar to all their friends.  But then this also makes it more OK to be heavy and kids are heavier and heavier than they have ever been before.  At one point I thought maybe they were continuing with vanity sizing because the average size keeps increasing so perhaps they want sizing to be appropriate instead of having 80% of women shopping at plus size stores.

What do you think of vanity sizing?  Does it annoy you as much as it annoys me? It what ways does it annoy you?
Image courtesy of  Life Hacker.