@jespah,
Y'all think it's tough for you. What about the cross dressers?
@wandeljw,
wandeljw wrote: can you find some way to work shewolf's sizing issues into this. Thanks.
Cute..
I wear a mans size 36/32 and the 32s are just a tad too long, resting on the top of my feet.
I have stopped purchasing womens size clothing about 2 months ago. Mens clothes just make more sense. Except for the lack of hip room , I can always pick up a 36 and walk out with a 36 no matter the designer, no matter the store, no matter the brand.
Since June I have gone down over 4 sizes, coming from plus size land before.
Now I can fit into 14/16 womens clothing.. but good luck in finding someone who makes a 14 for a real 14 and a 16 NOT meant for an 18 size body. It is frustrating... and I agree , it makes no sense.
But, for women.. our bodies are constructed differently no matter what. And that could also contribute to the differences too.
I mean, a woman at.. lets say 150 lbs, never had a baby could be a 14
But take that same woman, and lets say she stays exactly 150 AFTER having a baby, now her hips are too wide to fit into a 14 even though the rest of her body has not changed. So now she will have to buy a 16 just to fit around her hips, but the waist line will be too big and the bottoms will be too big giving her clothing a sloppy appearance.
If you begin to vary the size 14 to have a bit extra hip room but keep a normal to small cut , voila. A size 14 IS a size 14 , is a size 14
I think that is why womens sizes have so many variances. That and as eoe pointed out, vanity in high priced stores.
When I was in college I walked from wherever I was in the southern part of the university to a bus stop in Westwood Village, sometimes via the med center through Bullock's Dept. store, which I couldn't afford - I just had enough for the bus, the one I needed coming every hour and a half. But killing time in Bullocks bred a certain level of material desire in my young heart.
Once I got out of school and scored paychecks, I shopped some. Mostly for things like a broom and cookware, blah blah, but also to buy some clothes.
In the later sixties and early seventies, boutiques got to be a name and a kind of shop.. but when I was just getting out of school, department stores were pretty much it (say, '64). Penny's and Sears to Bullock's and Saks. I remember spending money on an ill fated knit dress, don't get me started - not only the dress but the heels, the hat, and yes, the gloves. The dress was, I think, a 6, but that was Bullock's - sort of high end as department stores went.
As time went by and I stayed virtually the same size and shopped at boutiques, I tended to wear a 9 or once in a while an 11, almost never a 7, except for that french suit, (I still love suits as well as I love jeans).
I think I continued, for a while, to look at stuff in Bullocks and every so often to try something on, but the sizes were always tastefully smaller for the tasteful woman, er, me, for that number of minutes, and after the damned dress, I don't think I threw money there again.
Seque to the ill-fated dress. It was white wool knit. The first time I wore it was to a wedding with a reception at the old and revered Ambassador Hotel. Spilled red wine on it, or someone else did, I forget now. Went to the ladies room, took off the dress and washed it in the sink. Dumb but instinctive. Well, not the whole dress, just the stain area. Put the dress back on and rejoined the revelers, who were about to leave there anyway.
Took it to the cleaners the next work day. They couldn't get the stain out, for x amount of money. So I had them dye it navy blue, for x amount of money. This worked, you couldn't see the stain, but now the dress was appox. size, 2 to 4. And, knit, as I mentioned. Sort of a navy mermaid get-up. I should have had it blocked, and I think I did. Still mermaid wesr.
I proceeded to have the hat fade, lose one of the gloves..
This was a formative experience re my sense of clothes and their relationship to me.
In every fashion house there is at least one, if not two, "fit models" on either staff or on-call. Fit Models are perfect Size Fours at the shoulders, bust, waist, hips and about ten other points of reference.
They make six figures a year based solely on their body having just the right boob-age and hippage. Yes.
They show up and try on every new garment produced and special care is made to make sure the every new garment FITS at every point of measure. (What's the point of making 30,000 dresses if they don't fit??)
Next comes the sloper.
Who's he? (It's almost always a he.)
He is the guy who figures out how to make that size four into a size ten and a size twelve and a size - well, you get the idea.
But here's the fun part:
the size four at Bloomingdale's is a size ten at JCPENNEY's. It's about money and prestige, ladies, and if you shop at the low=priced stores just be prepared to be sold clothes that are labeled BIGGER.
Joe(Your ass is the size they say it is.)Nation
@ossobuco,
Adds, I don't think it was a french suit, it just said that on the label. Sigh.
@ossobuco,
ossobuco wrote:
When I was in college I walked from wherever I was in the southern part of the university to a bus stop in Westwood Village, sometimes via the med center through Bullock's Dept. store, which I couldn't afford - I just had enough for the bus, the one I needed coming every hour and a half. But killing time in Bullocks bred a certain level of material desire in my young heart.
Once I got out of school and scored paychecks, I shopped some. Mostly for things like a broom and cookware, blah blah, but also to buy some clothes.
In the later sixties and early seventies, boutiques got to be a name and a kind of shop.. but when I was just getting out of school, department stores were pretty much it (say, '64). Penny's and Sears to Bullock's and Saks. I remember spending money on an ill fated knit dress, don't get me started - not only the dress but the heels, the hat, and yes, the gloves. The dress was, I think, a 6, but that was Bullock's - sort of high end as department stores went.
As time went by and I stayed virtually the same size and shopped at boutiques, I tended to wear a 9 or once in a while an 11, almost never a 7, except for that french suit, (I still love suits as well as I love jeans).
I think I continued, for a while, to look at stuff in Bullocks and every so often to try something on, but the sizes were always tastefully smaller for the tasteful woman, er, me, for that number of minutes, and after the damned dress, I don't think I threw money there again.
Seque to the ill-fated dress. It was white wool knit. The first time I wore it was to a wedding with a reception at the old and revered Ambassador Hotel. Spilled red wine on it, or someone else did, I forget now. Went to the ladies room, took off the dress and washed it in the sink. Dumb but instinctive. Well, not the whole dress, just the stain area. Put the dress back on and rejoined the revelers, who were about to leave there anyway.
Took it to the cleaners the next work day. They couldn't get the stain out, for x amount of money. So I had them dye it navy blue, for x amount of money. This worked, you couldn't see the stain, but now the dress was appox. size, 2 to 4. And, knit, as I mentioned. Sort of a navy mermaid get-up. I should have had it blocked, and I think I did. Still mermaid wesr.
I proceeded to have the hat fade, lose one of the gloves..
This was a formative experience re my sense of clothes and their relationship to me.
Holy ****. I can just hear you telling me all that, but my question is - What is your point? lol lol You are SO funny!
@ossobuco,
Joe Nation is so right.
Oh, I bought expensive navy blue buttons for that loser knit too.
Dress love gone wrong...
@ossobuco,
Sizing, Mame, sizing - 'tis vanity and profanity.
@jespah,
jespah wrote:
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?
Jes!! Way to go. You lost 90 pounds? That's fabulous! Who cares what number it is, you're down, down, down on the pounds, pounds, pounds. Good for you!! We need to do another "story", hon. Get it goin'!
@George,
Not really, George. I've come to appreciate Dockers. Amongst other reasons, the seem to come in at about 1" above the nominal waist size. I like the new, skinny me.
@Mame,
Heh, yeah, m'story is hiding on the Everything Eaten Yesterday topic, mainly.
Thank you.
@Phoenix32890,
Sophia Loren
http://imagecache2.allposters.com/images/pic/MMPH/170613~Sophia-Loren-Posters.jpg
she, today would be made fun of, considered obese and other wise shunned.
I WISH i looked that good.
Soft in all the right places, round as a woman should be.. tall and beautiful.
I may be young, but I have an appreciation for the 40's/50's woman. I wish the days of women looking like THAT were happening now. THAT to me.. is a woman. That is what a womans figure should 'start at' .
@Phoenix32890,
Don't you find the more expensive the clothes the smaller the size you can wear. It seems to me if I buy something from Target it is going to be a much larger size than if I buy something at a nicer place - say Saks or something.
@shewolfnm,
I should have been a young woman in the 40's - honestly I loved the fashions and the music. I love that era.
@shewolfnm,
I wish, someone could explain to me why this figure ever went out of style
http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w223/tumandia/sophia-loren.jpg
why seeing BONES through skin became sexy and having no real shoulder / hip ratio became desirable.
I think women today are made to look like young boys.
The tall , lanky 12/14 year old boy with little to no hip, wide shoulders and straight legs. It is like women are being DE-sexed... if that makes any sense
@Phoenix32890,
I love Beall's Phoenix...buy all kinds of things there. My husbands Izod casual work shirts are dirt cheap there.
I am starting back to work soon - so I am going to have to go buy some casual dress. I have been a stay at home mom so long that most of what I wear is shorts and jeans and khakis...very casual easy wear. So I will have to go to Macy's. But I love Beall's. We also have a Marshall's here that I can buy good name brand clothes for a lot less than if I bought it from Macy's or Belk's. Although Belks end of seasons sales are amazing. I can go and buy Liz clothes for $2 a piece at the end of the season and wear it for a few weeks and have it for the Spring. It is wonderful!
@shewolfnm,
That's just not true, SheWolf, models in the 1920s looked thinner than those we have now. In the '40s they got chubbier, then thinner again - it's some periodic phenomenon. I doubt that clothes sizes kept changing, though!
Models this year were noticeably chubbier than a few years ago - though nobody could call them fat:
