Fashion Sizing Questions for Women - NON-POLITICAL!

Pierre Cardin is just plain weird.

Women will buy anything that makes them feel smaller. Pure and simple sales ingenuity.

Apparently, men's clothing is fairly standardized. So vanity sizing for women seems to be the answer.

I believe the fasion industry is downsizing the sizes. In the movie "The Devil Wore Prada", remember Nigel's line that the old 4 has become the new 2, and the old 2 has become the new zero.

Imagine a world in which size zero is a desirable goal!

No wonder at least some are looking to deal with the fashion industries obsession with emaciated, anorexic women as desirable and even looking to establish minimum weight to discourage such an unhealthy climate.

http://able2know.org/topic/60632-3#post-1599208

Thanks, saw that one.

If you are going to distract us from politics, Mame, can you find some way to work shewolf's sizing issues into this. Thanks.

Why do men's sizes make more sense? Two words: tape measure.

George - nothing to do with men vs women; in Europe the sizes are unchanged, so I know I'm still a French size 36 (German 34, Italian 38) which is what I was in high school. These sizes used to be indistinguishable from an American 6 (French size minus the 30, don't ask me why) until about a decade ago, when I discovered I'm - suddenly! - an American size zero.

Fortunately I've not turned into the invisible man, since the French still manage to get my size at the correct 36, and I simply agree with the other folks here who said the re-sizing is a pure marketing ploy.

Does it work, though? How can women shorter than me (I'm 5 ft 10) weighing a lot less than my 110 lbs, find clothes sized under "zero"? Are there any negative sizes? This whole thing is a transparent scam and I hope somebody fixes it soon.

I ask the same question. I used to take a size 5 in college (maybe a 3 depending on the outfit). I am larger now (not significantly, but a do weigh a bit more) - size 5 falls off me. I now take either a 3 or smaller size. I wonder what do women that are smaller than me wear? There are women smaller than me.

I bet you don't look emaciated or anorexic and many fashion models do, so I would guess that yes, there are American sizes smaller than size zero.

And recently I tried on a size 0 and it fit. My husband was worried I was losing too much weight or something - but I think it was the clothes sizes as everything else fits normally.

I always found it strange that in regular wear I'm one size but in high end designer clothing I'm a size smaller. It's got to be just a little extra perk for shelling out the bigger bucks because honestly"and we're talking American designers, not international" it really doesn't make any sense. A 10 is a 10 is a 10.

In The Devil Wears Prada, I think Nigel was referring to the ultra-skinny mentality of today's woman when he said that yesterday's 6 is now considered a 14. That was really pushing it but back in my size 8 days, I don't even recall a sz. 0 on the racks. Your typical models were mostly sz. 8 and all of the samples were sz. 8. I don't know where or when these 4's and 2's, not to mention 0's, came to be the norm. It's ridiculous.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_standard_clothing_size



I can remember reading, years ago, that women's waists were becoming statistically larger over time. (You're telling me!) Clothing manufacturers were adjusting their standard sizes to reflect these changes, but because of vanity, the sizes themselves got smaller and smaller.

When I was a teenager, a size 12 was considered pretty svelte!

Yup. 10s, 12s, and even 14s were considered pretty average through the 40's, 50's, and 60's.

Imagine. Marilyn Monroe wore a sz. 12! By today's standards, she would be considered a plus-size. Even Audrey Hepburn was a sz. 6 and she was very thin, even in photographs. So yes, they've been monkeying around with the sizes alright. No doubt about it.

The standard of female beauty was quite different in the 1950's than it is now. Think of who the femmes fatales were, Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield (Mariska Hargitay's mom, for those who don't know) Monique Van Vooren, Mamie Van Doren. They had a couple of things in common. They were all platinum blondes, and had buxom figures, whch were showed to their best advantage in films. It was only in the 1960's when the overly slender type most typified by Audrey Hepburn and Twiggy became the standard that teenagers attempted to emulate.

Okay, but you can't just name the great blond beauties though. There was also Vivian Leigh, Sophia Loren, Elizabeth Taylor, Annette Funicello, and (in between) Rita Hayworth, Ann Margret et al, all well endowed full bodied women who were admired, emulated, and lusted after by many.

I agree that probably Twiggy et al introduced the era of excess thinness as the goal.

I was born heavier than those ladies.

Oh yeah, sizes are different. In plus land (where I still live), the room between sizes is a lot larger, e. g. I had to lose about 40 lbs. before I went down one size. And now after losing another 50 or so I'm down three more. Wacky.

Large is sometimes 12 - 14, sometimes 16 - 18, sometimes 18 - 20. I have size 22 pants that are huge on me and size 24 pants that are somewhat snug. Huh?