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The craziness of women's clothing sizes (pudding.cool)
submitted 8 months ago by to c/mildlyinteresting@lemmy.world
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[–] 57 points 8 months ago (13 children)

Sort of a naive take but it seems like you could mandate objective measurements on clothing like we have ingredient lists on food.

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  • [–] 47 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (10 children)

    Even in men's sizes where the waist is explicitly stated in a numerical measurement. And the manufacturers still manage to fuck it up!

    I may be an outlier cause I'm 6'6 ~265 lbs., but I certain brands I know 34 inch waist will be fine, but most others are a complete crap shoot.

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  • [–] 13 points 8 months ago (7 children)

    I'm 5' 11" and 175lbs, I wore 34" pants for most of my adult life. Recently, the past few years, I need 33 or 32 inch pants or they're falling off my hips. Same with shirts, I've been a medium my entire life, finding myself buying smalls lately.

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  • [–] 5 points 8 months ago (4 children)

    I’ve found the opposite. I have older pairs of jeans that are a smaller waist size that still fit and newer jeans that don’t. Shirts, too. I’ve been “L” for decades, now it’s “XL” or the sleeves and shirt are too short.

    IMO manufacturers used to pre-wash/pre-shrink their fabrics more regularly. Now they don’t. They can make more clothing by the yard with non-shrunk fabric. So as soon as that ”L” shirt hits dryer it shrinks. The XL shrinks to L. I verified this by placing two shirts, pre- and post-wash, and the size difference was obvious. Maybe some “vanity” sizing is going on, too, or just being cheap. I haven’t gotten taller, but the L size is too short now.

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  • [–] 3 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    That's fair. Especially fast fashion places like H&M. I bought a shirt I really liked there and after the first wash it was exposing my midriff. I do miss the pre washed and pre shrunk era. There's a chance I may have just gotten skinnier as I aged, but I don't objectively have a 32" waist. It measures about 33.75". So I guess the main problem is lack of a standard. [Insert relevant XKCD meme for more standards]

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  • [–] 4 points 8 months ago

    Ironically I bought some Old Navy clothes literally 20+ years ago, size “L”. Old Navy is definitely fast fashion. Just basic T-shirts and a couple pairs of shorts. They see semi-regular wear, still fit and are in good shape, good material, sized correctly. That wouldn’t happen with anything I could buy there today.

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    I've had this issue too. Always wore large, now they're too short. I've had friends take little jabs, cause I'm a little bit heavier than I was, but that hasn't elongated my torso or spine. My middle didn't get longer, and I don't think my shoulders are 3-4" more beefy than they were. Now, I get a Large and it fits like I expect for a wear or two, and then it's immediately a medium. It sucks, cause I don't buy clothes often, so I'll go to a sporting event and get a shirt, buy a L, and then it shrinks to unwearable size.

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  • [–] 6 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    I've noticed that sizes are bigger on men's clothing, and I'm of the opinion it's for the dopamine boost of fitting into a smaller size than you expect. If you normally wear a 36 inch waist and all of the sudden that's actually too large, and a 34 fits, that feels good.

    Marketing is all about subtle psychological tricks like that. It's disgusting.

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  • [–] 6 points 8 months ago

    Its more a problem with women's cloths, but there are 2 factors in play. You make them bigger than the listed size and someone can suddenly squeeze into a smaller size. A 14 fitting into a 12 is a big dopamine hit, and so a powerful selling point.

    Counter to that, reducing material usage can add up. 1/2 an inch off every pair of trousers adds up. For cheap clothes this is a noticeable saving.

    Most men tend not to try clothes on in stores. This makes us dependent on the numbers. We react strongly to errors. This kept clothing makers fairly honest. That seems to be breaking down. They are trying the same tricks they use on women, and it's annoying as hell!

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  • [–] 8 points 8 months ago

    it would be great. my partner works in fashion design and trying to learn more about plus size pattern making. bodies are not uniform and basically each body grows in different directions, so it's very challenging to make clothing patterns that fit everyone since they also need to be scaled differently depending on each person.

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