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Sizing chaos

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Re: Sizing chaos

#381

Post by tpm »

wooger wrote: post #367
tpm wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 s…

These clothing companies are based (if no longer producing) in different regional markets, so focussing on e.g. the average Italian cycling enthusiast, which will be quite different to the average Dutch, American etc. I've found myself not even considering brands where I've found inconsistent sizing, but going back again and again to ones I can reliably pick a size and know it'll fit, no returns.

> so focussing on e.g. the average Italian cycling enthusiast, which will be quite different to the average Dutch, American etc.

I have seen this explanation a lot and frankly I doubt that very much (The XXL I had to return was a Belgian brand). I think it's not the body size difference in regional market but rather the Italian market for example may be used to different size designations. But then they sell to other markets too, so they should sort this thing out. I simply can't buy anything from Castelli when the reviews say 'buy 2 or 3 sizes larger than the measurements say'.

> but going back again and again to ones I can reliably pick a size and know it'll fit

I wish those existed for my garments. Sizing is inconsistent between Assos Equipe RS and Mille GT lines, between newer and older Isadore pants, between newer and older Endura pants...

Re: Sizing chaos

#382

Post by soulofmischief »

janalsncm wrote: post #321
sevenseacat wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In reality its a massive fucking problem. This is why so many women end up wearing men's clothing, which doesn't fit their shape at all, just because they're the only things they can find that they can actually fit into! What special snowflake part of the world do you live in that any woman can walk into any clothes shop and find clothes that fit? Because I call bullshit on that.

Based on the article, several brands have clothes that range from the low 20s to the mid 50s which covers essentially all waist sizes. If a woman has a 55 inch waist or a 20 inch waist she cannot buy pants at American Eagle but I wouldn’t characterize it as a massive problem. In fact the article identifies exactly where such a woman could find pants.

If you read the article, you've also seen that the proportions do not scale properly. Waste size is not the only important measurement, and as men it would behoove us to seek to understand this issue before going straight to dismissal.

Re: Sizing chaos

#383

Post by matsemann »

belZaah wrote: post #352

What ticks me off in this is the statement, that a certain body shape is “unattainable for most”. I’m pretty sure the author does not have the data to back this up. Difficult? Yes. Requiring commitment? Absolutely. Unattainable? No. I really don’t care what body shape anyone is comfortable with. But as someone, who has struggled hard all his life not to be obese, I find it irresponsible to outright declare something…

You're wrong. They even explicitly call out that it's not about weight. Everyone has different proportions.

> Once I compared my personalized sloper to commercial patterns and retail garments, I had a revelation: clothes were never made to fit bodies like mine. It didn’t matter how much weight I gained or lost, whether I contorted my body or tried to buy my way into styles that “flatter” my silhouette, there was no chance that clothes would ever fit perfectly on their own. Finally I understood why.

Later they show how J.Crew has a certain ration between hip/waist for all sizes. Even if you had the same sized waist, chances are you wouldn't have the same sized hips as they expect. Most bodies just aren't that shape.

Re: Sizing chaos

#384

Post by fraaancis »

fxtentacle wrote: post #377
MezzoDelCammin wrote: post #342

For everyone struggling with clothes sizing and having a hacker mindset, I can't recommend enough buying a sewing machine (~100EUR on a used market, ~150 new gets you a reasonable starter one you won't outgrow any time soon) and giving clothes alterations a try. Finding a tailor that understands you / you agree with is an option too, if time is a hard limit (though I'm not sure it's altogrther that much quicker). In…

I also fixed clothing sizes for my family using a hacker mindset, but in a different way: Did you know that most professional sewing charts are just DXF files? And did you know that DXF is the most common file format for laser cutters? ;) => just let the machine cut out precisely the clothing shapes that you need After a few tries, I also started to add small sideways cuts to the outlines as alignment markers. And th…

I wonder how many layers of fabric a cutter could get through in one pass (without setting it on fire).

Re: Sizing chaos

#386

Post by matsemann »

tirant wrote: post #301
lotsofpulp wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that xkcd applies. I mean if I am on a clothing seller's website, and they show me a pair of pants and I add 4 colors to the cart of the same size of the same design/model number/style pants, I feel like they should all fit the same.

They usually do, never found that issue on medium to high quality clothing (!= luxury brands).

I have. So I don't buy that it's not a problem just because you haven't had it..

Sometimes they also use different fabric for different colors. Maybe a color is internally consistent, but if you buy one of each they're very different.

Re: Sizing chaos

#387

Post by dandellion »

necovek wrote: post #379
roenxi wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

If you are in taller than 95% for men, and reasonably fit, you might need a bigger waistline (think 36 or more), which is still the same length for pants (up to 34) with your socks showing even when standing (depending on your individual proportions), but much wider around hips and legs than you need. I imagine for shorter men, it's the inverse but equally bad. Some brands will carry slim and extra long trousers, but…

> I imagine for shorter men, it's the inverse but equally bad.

Not really, as a quite short guy, many shops will offer me to have the clothes fitted, and if not it's pretty trivial to fit them myself. Maybe on the most extreme end of short it's more of an issue, but in general I suspect shortening pants and shirts is signficantly easier than lengthening them.

Re: Sizing chaos

#388

Post by troupo »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #371
troupo wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in reality it's not much of a problem. Billions of women manage to buy and wear clothes just fine No. Billions of women don't have any other choice . Take your wife (or even better, mom) shopping for clothes. You'll learn a lot about "manage just fine". Often its a multi-hour slog through all stores trying to find just one item that doesn't look like shit, and fits somewhat well.

I push back on this "it's only a woman problem". How is this any different for men? Re-read this post, but switch the gender. It seems unimportant in the grand scheme of things.

"The grand scheme" consists of many such "small insignificant problems". And no one said it was only a woman problem. And I explicitly called out one of the arguments, not the "degender, men have similar problems etc."

Re: Sizing chaos

#389

Post by d--b »

Here's an asumption:

When you get into the overweight category, sizing becomes a lot more difficult, because then the ratios that are relatively standard for non overweight bodies (like waistline to tallness) completely break down.

So now you don't need just one parameter, but at least two: waist and tallness. And this causes the number of different sizes to explode. So instead of (S, M, L, XL, XXL, XXXL, XXXXL), you'll need (S, M, L, XL, XXL, XXXL) waist x (S, M, L, XL, XXL, XXXL) length. And it becomes unmanageable for brands to cover all the different sizes without having a large amount of waste.

Men trousers and shirts do this, because generally men fashion don't change that fast, so the brands can carry many models for a longer time period.

Re: Sizing chaos

#390

Post by d--b »

jakub_g wrote: post #361

Semi-related thing that suprises me as a man (this is in Europe): I go to a clothing shop at the start of a new collection, and look at men's shirts for a given type: - there's 10 XS, 10 M, 10 XXL versions I go towards end of the season: - there's like 1 M remaining, but 8 XS, 8 XXL. Like if they were surprised and had no data that most population is M.

My impression is that at the end of the season, there's like 0 XXL, and 8XS, and 8Ms, but maybe that's just a perception problem.
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