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Sizing chaos

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Re: Sizing chaos

#251

Post by orbisvicis »

What a lovely website, and the torso silhouette sizing diagrams are invaluable.

I'm not the target demographic, but the main problems I have are proportions not simply waistsize. I was under the impression a size range [xs,s,m,l,xl] was supposed to adjust girth (bust, waist, hip, thigh) while leaving the vertical measurements unchanged (inseam, rise). Because nothing fits, I purchase a sizing range with the intention to keep just one and return the rest. It makes for pretty funny discussions: $500 on WTF! Anyway I've started measuring clothing dimensions and have found that the brands I shop generally tend to adjust other dimensions in a 2:1 girth:height ratio. This means that if I want a snug waistline I'll have a tight crotch or be forced to wear pants on or below the hip. Now I like wearing pants somewhere between waist and hip. There's a band of fat/padding/sinew (?) just above the hips that makes for the sweet spot in terms of comfort and utility. I don't understand clothing that's meant to sit on the hips... so uncomfortable.

As a rule of thumb I tend to shop Asian clothing stores in the US because they tend to better fit my proportions, but lately it's become hit-or-miss, i.e uniqlo. I've also got some pretty weird proportions due to my exercise regimen.

Also you've got to love brands that don't provide actual sizes. Wtf!

Size ranges are almost always infuriating. I sample my measurements throughout the day to get an accurate range and average. This is invariably what occurs:

store sizes: x1-x2, x3-x4, x5-x6

me: x2-x3

Infuriating! Non-contiguous ranges suck!

Then there's this little unexplained morsel:

> The average woman’s waistline today is nearly 4 inches wider than it was in the mid-1990s.

Their data is drawn from the US, so I'm wondering if this is related to the obesity epidemic, or a general change in silhouette. I was under the impression that historically, humans are trending taller and skinnier.

Re: Sizing chaos

#252

Post by tpm »

_main wrote: post #240

If you shop online and use raw measurements, then it will both fit and be available. The real concern I have is how the large majority of westerners are overweight or obese. That's a serious issue way beyond the practicality of buying clothes

> If you shop online and use raw measurements, then it will both fit and be available.

I'm a man often shopping for bike wear in Europe. I'm neither overweight or obese. The article is right that sizing is a complete mess: with my 180cm and 74kg I'm usually mass market size M in tops and L in pants because I just have a big ass (again I'm not fat, I still have a big ass when I'm 70kg during the height of the summer season). But it's often an S in tops. Anyway, in the bike brands sizing, the tops are mostly M to L.

The bike pants? I have already sent back XXL's because I just couldn't put them on. But for some brands, I'm still L, for others it's XL. The measurements don't mean anything, they are completely off quite often. The only half-usable help is customer reviews where people note their measurements and the size that fit them. Also the sizing is not only inconsistent between brands, but also for different items of the same brand.

One thing I don't really understand is the brands perspective. If someone with my measurements is forced to wear XL (and for long pants the legs are often too long as a result), what is left? Will a guy 185 cm high weighting 90kg, which is not uncommon, be forced to wear an XXXL (if they make this size, which they usually don't)? Do they look at this and think it's good sizing nomenclature?

Re: Sizing chaos

#253

Post by orbisvicis »

roenxi wrote: post #249
coldtea wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Like, why doesn't the market solve for this? If the median woman can't buy clothing that fits in many brands, surely that's a huge marketing opportunity for any of the thousands of other clothing brands? Because - in reality it's not much of a problem. Billions of women manage to buy and wear clothes just fine. Some might fit slightly better or worse, but unless you have very special body shape (and even extreme th…

> if some women absolutely can't find something in their size from a specific brand, that makes the brand even more exclusive, like it being "for fit people only" The elephants in the room from the raw data is it is very clear some brands do not want average middle aged women wearing their products. Anthropology seems to be the most clear about this in that they have a literal gap between their standard and plus-size…

> Clothing brands detect this in their customer studies and respond appropriately.

Respond how?

> lots of different sub-groups of the female population to signal lots of different things

Signal what?

Re: Sizing chaos

#254

Post by orbisvicis »

coldtea wrote: post #92
fishtoaster wrote: post #14

This is a great use of data to make a compelling case that sizing sucks for women's clothing! I do wish it attempted to answer the question at the end, though: "Sizes are all made up anyway — why can’t we make them better?" Like, why doesn't the market solve for this? If the median woman can't buy clothing that fits in many brands, surely that's a huge marketing opportunity for any of the thousands of other clothing…

> Like, why doesn't the market solve for this? If the median woman can't buy clothing that fits in many brands, surely that's a huge marketing opportunity for any of the thousands of other clothing brands? Because - in reality it's not much of a problem. Billions of women manage to buy and wear clothes just fine. Some might fit slightly better or worse, but unless you have very special body shape (and even extreme th…

> you can get in any clothes store and get plenty of clothes to wear

"Getting into the clothes" is a low bar. I can get into this brown paper bag. Comfort is underrated.

> if some women absolutely can't find something in their size from a specific brand, that makes the brand even more exclusive, like it being "for fit people only".

Heh I think mens sizing signals the opposite: too skinny = insufficiently masculine.

Re: Sizing chaos

#255

Post by vander_elst »

choilive wrote: post #66

If we can have mass produced fast fashion from runway to store in weeks... Why not tailored clothing at scale? Have a set of portable body measurements that can be sent to any retailer - make an order and have it sent from factory to door in a week or two. Or get a size that is close enough - bring it to your neighborhood tailor. Most alterations are simple and not very expensive. Unfortunately sizing is just a leaky…

> bring it to your neighborhood tailor. Most alterations are simple and not very expensive.

I think, this is a misconception, some "simple" things like resizing a shirt, when done properly, might require multiple hours + a decent amount of skills and the alterations might be cheap because they are performed by underpaid workers. Nonetheless, I like the idea of supporting local tailors and I'd be in for paying premium for a local premium product.

Re: Sizing chaos

#256

Post by vander_elst »

Waterluvian wrote: post #19

I might have missed this in the scroll format but is there any reason not to drop the qualitative size names and just use an actual dimension or two?

I would have said that this is covered under vanity sizing. I have the feeling some consumers might be more inclined to buy a product if it has size M instead of XXL, even if the product is exactly the same. So my take is that, in the name of profit, companies lie about size.

Re: Sizing chaos

#257

Post by slopinthebag »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #237
slopinthebag wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The body may try to maintain homeostasis but 50% sounds way too high. Someone with a tdee of 2200 kcal will not be able to maintain their weight at 1100 calories for very long.

Adaptation in energy expenditure includes both metabolic adaptation as well as "NEAT" ("non-exercise activity thermogenesis"); the latter includes subconscious changes in posture, fidgeting, and various other things that can increase/decrease the body's energy expenditure by a massive degree, in an effort to (as far as people can tell) maintain a "set point" in the body that is difficult to change. This set point res…

Neat can maybe explain a couple hundred kcal variance in most people, perhaps there are exceptions but 50%? I've never seen that in the literature.

Calories in calories out is just the summation of expenditure and intake, just because the body is complex and there are many interdependent factors doesn't mean it cant be resolved to a vector which determines weight gain/loss. The problem is people google a tdee calculator, get some scalar which is likely wrong, perhaps substantially, make lifestyle changes, and then have an expectation of some result in a specific timeline that isn't realistic, and then eat a bunch of sodium, put on 2 lbs in their "deficit", and think the diet made them fatter! Or they read that -3500kcal == -1lb fat, calculate their calories burned from the machines at the gym, and get frustrated when it doesn't work (I'm guilty!).

Weight loss is actually really hard because it really just requires a sustained effort over a long period of time to achieve anything. You might not see any results for weeks as your body adjusts, you get your diet locked in, etc. And since your weight can vary so much day to day, it's hard to stay motivated. Ozempic kind of bypasses these problems. You know what else works? 20k steps a day and eating on a backpacker budget :P

Re: Sizing chaos

#258

Post by altairprime »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #166
bubblewand wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure everyone who cares about getting a good fit (and isn't simply trying the clothes on in person) is looking at measurements, which you can usually find for any half-decent vendor (though it may take some poking around their site). The best have it per-garment (or per-cut), less-good but usually still alright is having a guide to the measurements they base their sizing off of. Even guys can't really get…

> Women's clothes are even trickier Oh that explains why my wife spends so much time obsessing over clothes: trying clothes, buying/returning, buying others, etc. I'm sure a few others can relate. And she's got a very normal BMI: not underweight, just plain in the middle (5'5" / 124 lbs: something like that) and a very hour-glassy/feminine shape, so many clothes are "made" to her shape/size/weight. I can't imagine wh…

Yeah, the amount of time and energy it takes to find one single piece of clothing that fits at all can exceed the amount of time some people invest in deciding whether to buy a car, what car to buy, and actually buying the car combined. It’s infuriating and humiliating to have the entire marketplace treat you like your body isn’t worth the time of day to for-profit corporations, the most greedy construct available to humanity today. You start to wonder if you’re as worthless as the industry apparently considers you after having to return the fifth pair of jeans for some error in fit that summarizes as ‘the jeans are mediocre median and you are not’.

Re: Sizing chaos

#259

Post by orbisvicis »

altairprime wrote: post #161
Rendello wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even as a guy who wears pretty loose straight-cut jeans, having stuff in my pockets can look and feel weird. Especially my AirPods case. In jeans with slightly stretchy denim, the location of my phone is permanently etched into my jeans. I'd be a pickpocket's dream. When I had the unfortunate inclination to wear tight pants, anything in the pockets looked and felt quite bad.

In women's clothes, if you're trying to target Generic Woman, you often have to put deep pockets somewhere other than the front of thigh, because for various compositional reasons that area isn't reliably available across women's various body shapes. This is how we ended up with one of the coolest innovations in pockets since leggings: the side leg pocket . Everyone has a side leg. You can put a pocket there and it's…

back waist pocket = mind blown

standard back pocket = disaster

I've ripped quite a few pants (2? 3?) getting up when the phone in the back pocket gets caught on something. And these were pants I considered "heavy duty".

side-leg pocket = ungainly

Knees and by extension thighs move more than hips, and so items in side pockets tend to bounce around and pull down the waistline, when normally they wouldn't in regular pockets.

In my opinion the best pocket is the breast pocket on jackets and heavier garments. I guess if I were a cop I'd prefer the shoulder holster.

Re: Sizing chaos

#260

Post by altairprime »

observationist wrote: post #8

Why bother with a rational, descriptive, functional system when you can use vaguely aggressive and hostile terms that subtly impugn the buyer and allow incredibly deceptive and manipulative marketing? And hey, they don't really need pockets, anyway, right? edit: Really should have used the /s, I guess - women's clothing has some appalling aspects to it, one of which is notoriously tiny pockets, which is a source of f…

I think the only error here was in thinking that’s a sarcastic explanation. Look up the history of the word ‘negging’ and consider the male-dominant business and marketing industries over the past few decades. Your sarcasm is, no joke, a valid explanation for what’s happening. I can’t assess whether it’s the most likely or how much impact it has, but you’re completely right to call it out as a possible motivation, and if you simply put quote marks around it, that would be plausible rather than sarcastic. Especially given that pockets were taken away from women’s clothing over their objections for similarly disgusting reasons. Here’s highlight from the below article from 10.2979/vic.2010.52.4.561 (2010) as an upsetting example:

> Victorian women were told that they “had four external bulges already — two breasts and two hips — and a money pocket inside their dress would make an ungainly fifth.”

https://fashionmagazine.com/style/womens-pockets/ (which cites that among many others) is a good survey of the historical and current pockets issues for those not yet familiar.

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