Imagine my surprise when I learned that men's wear manufacturers practiced vanity sizing! I had always labored under the (mistaken) belief that men's sizing was the last bastion of truth, and that a 36 waist meant a 36 waist, that Large was always Large no matter where one bought it, but au contraire!
Esquire Magazine has a very enlightening and amusing expose on men's vanity sizing.
It looks like Old Navy and Dockers are the worst offenders, I mean, flatterers. Last night my son and I were talking about sizes, and he said pretty soon, someone will introduce negative number sizes and then it will be a race to even lower numbers. You heard it here first.
Possible solutions to vanity sizing:
Color codes instead of numbers
No size at all, you would have to try everything on
Metric numbering
Sizes in Chinese dialects (since they make the clothes there anyway)
What solutions can you think of for the vanity sizing crisis?
4 comments:
Custom-tailored clothing provided by, you know, tailors. Then everyone could have three pairs of pants, five shirt and some underwear, which would last a really long time and fit perfectly.
Oh wait. I forgot it's not 1896.
Um.... I like the "you have to try everything on" plan.
I've already seen size 00, the size smaller than 0.
Why don't they really post the actual sizes on all clothes? Like waist/hip/inseam combinations or bust/waist? Sizing is so frustrating if you are not a model size.
I'm in favor of no sizes, you just have to try everything on. Or labeling the sizes in a random order, like 12, 8, 4, 16, 10, etc.
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