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Sizing chaos

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Re: Sizing chaos

#311

Post by altairprime »

orbisvicis wrote: post #259
altairprime wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 poc…

Yeah, back waist pocket works incredibly well if you have a 'rear bust', so to speak — the waist-to-hip curve angle can be quite severe relative to men. I have bicyclist thighs so an extra quarter inch on one side is completely invisible — but the placement of jacket pockets is incompatible with my torso shape. I believe(?) on many women's jackets they come out of the factory sewn shut by default so that they don't gape from the angular pressure.

Re: Sizing chaos

#312

Post by tirant »

frm88 wrote: post #265
miav wrote: post #49

It is genuinely incredible how well-fitting clothing is only generally available to some one-third of women who fit well into the anticipated height-waist ratio. Petite options exist in some places, but god forbid you're tall - your choices will be limited to "too short" and "too short and also too wide" if you try to go for a size up.

The same goes for shoes and if you're dedicated to minimalist shoes you're basically doomed to men's shoes. Shoe size for women is a joke and seeing that most apparel and shoes are made in Asia, the divergence to standard measurements or sizes is doubly apparent.

Doesn’t help that high quality European made shoes are made either in Portugal, Spain or Italy, where women have also small feet.

I believe there are still quite some shoe factories in Germany and Eastern Europe, but are mostly dedicated to Hiking and Mountanieering shoes

Re: Sizing chaos

#313

Post by pprotas »

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…

Women in my life often voice their frustration with badly fitting bras or pants. In reality, it really is a problem, but it's a problem everyone just accepts.

Re: Sizing chaos

#314

Post by pimterry »

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…

This exists, https://www.sonofatailor.com/ for example. You put in a full set of your measurements, pick a type of garment, and they make it to fit and ship it, takes a couple of weeks or so.

It is more expensive, but not impossibly so, and they fairly aggressively discount for larger orders which presumably amortizes some of the overheads.

Re: Sizing chaos

#315

Post by Toutouxc »

nahikoa wrote: post #130

As a short adult male (5'5" - 165cm), it's always been difficult to find pants or jeans with a 28" inseam. Surprisingly, AmazonBasics line of clothes is one of the few mass produced consumer brands that has this size. Niche alternatives like Peter Manning are expensive, so it's great Amazon does this.

I'm like 1 cm taller than you and the pain is real.

And pants are still kind of doable, but mountain bikes? My enduro rig is size XS on 27.5 rims and with manufacturers dropping 27.5ers I expect this to be the last bike that feels anywhere close to "nimble". Also RIP women riders, but that's been the case for years now.

I also have proportionally small feet (size 39 EU but wide as fuck, so I only wear expensive minimalist shoes with wide toe boxes) and small hands (RIP piano, I'm not hitting an octave ever).

Re: Sizing chaos

#316

Post by sbinnee »

tirant wrote: post #302
sbinnee wrote: post #297

I as a small male struggled a lot when I started exploring fashion. Nothing seemed fitting to my body. You know what happened? I just gave up at some point. I rarely buy new clothes now. I absolutely don’t buy anything before I try them on.

You should have never bought anything before trying it on in the first place. I myself have a very standard body shape, to the point that almost always fit perfectly in all clothes. Nevertheless I always try them on, there’s never guaranteed that they will look nice on me.

Haha. Yes, I learned that hard way. Anyway there are not many options for me to try offline. Many shops have been making extra small size only available online, which sucks.

Re: Sizing chaos

#317

Post by sevenseacat »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #38
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…

>"Sizes are all made up anyway — why can’t we make them better?" I will settle for making them consistent. Multiple times, I have ordered the same clothing in the same size from the same webpage in different colors, and some colors fit, and the others do not. I am surprised that a women's clothing startup prioritizing pockets big enough for smartphones hasn't usurped the incumbents. I would have figured the convenien…

AFAIK, this is because clothes are generally made by cutting pieces out of massive stacks of fabric of heaps of layers, and the cutting process is never perfectly straight - the pieces at the bottom of the pile will be very different than those at the top.

Re: Sizing chaos

#318

Post by tirant »

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…

And despite all of that, women keep buying those products.

I have difficulties believing that your observations are a real issue. If they were, rest assured the free market would have found out about it and would have offered the right product for those women.

Reality is that most women buy based on looks and not practicality. I really had not heard before your comment any women complaining about small pockets.

Re: Sizing chaos

#319

Post by sfn42 »

roenxi wrote: post #279
orbisvicis wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> By destandardising sizes Oh. I thought there was an outside chance you intended a positive response. Ah well. > Age, health and status I can understand age. But wouldn't everyone want to signal good health and high status?

> I can understand age. But wouldn't everyone want to signal good health and high status? Yeah, but generally not with fashion. Male fashion tends not to go to the same sort of lengths to showcase legs/torsos/arms/chest that women's fashion does. For men if they want to signal status they tend to buy a car they can't afford or something. And male health is one of those areas where it is very complicated. A fat, baldi…

There's also the fact that most men aren't very healthy - you'll often see very fit men wearing "revealing" and tight-fitting clothes that show off their muscles etc, whereas everyone else wears less revealing clothes because whatever they may reveal isn't very flattering.

The same is true for most women of course but a lot of them seem to wear revealing clothing regardless of how flattering it actually is.

Re: Sizing chaos

#320

Post by sevenseacat »

ipsum2 wrote: post #197
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?

Yeah it's weird that mens pants and womens bras have numerical sizing but other womens clothing doesn't.

A lot of women's clothing does have numerical sizing, depending on where you are in the world. The number still has no connection to any physical attribute of a woman and is totally arbitrary.
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