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This isn’t just a problem with women’s jeans which have arbitrary size numbers. Even men’s jeans which are size by the actual waist and inseam measurement can be wrong. In addition to vanity sizing, cheaper jeans are also made from larger material cuts out of the patterns at the same time to save manufacturing cost sometimes twice as many as shown here:
Those at the top or bottom of the stack may end up a bit smaller or a bit larger than the pattern, but they all get marked with the same size.
Whether it was this manufacturing problem or vanity sizing, this is why I stopped buying Old Navy jeans. I could pick out 3 jeans all labeled with the same size and one would fit okay, one would be too small, and one too large. I have never had this problem with Eddie Bauer jeans.
Edit: I found picture showing the larger stacks (which can introduce the mismatched sizing) I was referring to:
Holy shit. This man jeans.
This is fascinating! thanks for the pics, it makes so much sense.
The only question is why they are making jeans with wax instead of denim
The ultimate jeans post
Even men’s jeans which are size by the actual waist and inseam measurement can be wrong.
They’re not generally sized by the actual waist measurement. I wear 33W and my pants all measure about 36" around the belt line. The “waist” measurement derives from many decades ago when men wore high-waisted pants where the waist was a few inches smaller than the circumference around the hips, where waistlines are today. Men were also generally a lot fitter back then, too!
Is that then called a jeack?
Dickes’s work pants are always like this, horribly inconsistent. But they were cheap and they last forever so you just have to grab a pile of the same size, try them all on and buy the ones that fit. Good luck ordering online…
Even for men’s clothes the sizing seems to only really be consistent within the same item, maybe brand. Even though they’re supposed to be measurements you still have to try everything on.
I was in a clothing store last week that only started at L for mens clothing. Theres also a shoe store closeby that only sells mens shoes for 40 (EU) and above.
Like wtf, there are plenty of men that are smaller than 180cm and that have small feet. At least give me some options. These are the same stores that complain that everybody orders their shit online nowadays.
Maybe those are specifically for big people, it’s really hard for them to find suitable sizes in regular stores.
No, it was a normal store from a german name brand. They had one jacket in S and one shirt in M. Even the employee said that its just a shitty order policy by their bosses.
A shitty order policy or just knowing their regular customers?
The employee told me that there are tons of other men having the same problem at that store. Just because 80% of your customers wear L or larger doesn’t mean you shouldnt stock any inventory for the 20% that wear S or M.
Oh, they are just minmaxing you out. I’m not in retail, but my manager always tells me to only go for the easy 80%
Yeah! Last time I go into a store called “Destination XL.”
(I’m joking, I saw the rest of your comments about this.)
Really? I’ve been buying the same size of trousers since I stopped growing. And I only went up one size for some upper body garments because I put on quite a bit of muscle.
I was buying pants the other day and I was a 34 in one brand and a 36 in another.
I know this is a problem, as I see my wife deal with it frequently.
But understand that men’s sizes aren’t consistent either. I have a 32" waist…maybe. Some jeans and shorts fit me perfectly, some are way too tight, and some are way too loose. Even within the same brand and product. The jeans I have on today are pretty good for fit. A different pair of jeans I was wearing a few days ago required regular adjustments to keep from falling down. My weight hasn’t varied THAT much.
The situation for men isn’t as bad as women’s sizes, though. I’d love to know how they think they can compress all of the different measurements a woman’s body can have into a single number. At least they haven’t tried that with men - for example, pants are waist and inseam length, so you can usually get what you need, or at least pretty close (notwithstanding the above issue). If they condensed that into one number, I have no idea how that would work.
Yeah as a trans woman it was bittersweet when my hips stopped fitting in men’s jeans. They’re sturdier with bigger pockets and way more (but not really) consistently sized.
The problem in men’s sizes is tolerances in fabric cutting as they stack more and more sheets per cut. Women’s clothes do that while also playing calvinball.
All this means rhat as a long legged skinny girl with thick thighs, biker’s calves, and an ass I’d only trade while pant shopping, pant shopping is a long pain in the ass.
Big and Tall brands don’t give waistband sizes often anymore in my experience. They just add xs to ls now
There’s a slightly better balance with consistency for men’s clothes because styles and patterns don’t need to change as frequently.
That being said, it varies by brand and varies more when the brand is lower quality. Old Navy clothes might as well be sized “No way,” “I dunno,” “maybe, well, no,” and “Woah, way too big.” But something higher end like BR will be consistent with themselves on things like jeans that rarely change. All the people in some sweatshop in Bangladesh have the patterns down doing the same thing for years.
I’m a size M guy, everything from head to toe is M. If M doesn’t fit, I will try S, but most of the time that is too small, so I just skip that fit or brand. Sometimes the size difference is so ridiculous it might as well be two different shirts. One time I tried a polo in M and it looked like an oversized 90s hip‑hop shirt on me so I tried the S and it was so tight it looked like swimwear lol.
i know the author is only familiar with their own experiences and i don’t expect them to know the other side but this is definitely not exclusive to women’s clothes. every brand just uses their own sizes for everything from hats to pants to shoes.
Some woman shop for/wear “men’s” clothes, either because they shop for the men in their life, or for themselves because the standards are more sensible (even if not perfect) compared to women’s sizing. In other situations, we wear “men’s” cut clothes because it’s the default - like when a workplace gives everyone a free T-shirt. 9 times out of 10, it’s probably a cut designed for men - even if the workplace has a majority of women (as was the case when I worked in a nursing home.)
At least for pants, a lot of men’s pants sizes usually go off a band + length measurement, which is a ratio that women’s clothes don’t offer at all. T-shirts can be bad either way, but I once grabbed two (“women’s”) shirts off the same rack in a store and both fit me perfectly - one was Small, the other was Extra Large. I’ve never seen that bad of a difference when trying on “men’s” clothes, and that’s part of why I prefer to buy from the men’s section. It’s more sensible.
So yeah, vanity sizing hurts everyone. But unless you do shop for both men’s and women’s clothes, it’s hard to appreciate just how awful vanity sizing is for women in particular.
Shoes are there worst. I need EE width. Some brands, the"Wide Fit" works. Others, “Extra Wide”. And that doesn’t even address how extremely difficult it is to even find wide shoes in-store nowadays.
I really want a law that requires clothes sizes to use actual, verifiable measurements.
yeah hope they’ll get right on that, add it to the list. we’ve already got one on the list: pass a law saying you cant shrink portion sizes on your labels until you can say “zero calories” in each of 1000 servings of oil
I just want to see more women’s clothes with pockets.
Big pockets! Bigger than a chapstick
I don’t understand why women say this, then buy clothes without pockets (or without useful pockets).
Because often the options are non existant
This is one of many reasons I don’t buy textbook economics of capitalism.
For example, if they’d just put lots of pockets in women’s clothing decades ago as standard, they’d have sold SOOOO much.
This idea that capitalism and the free hand of the market will gravitate towards bulk of demand is bullshit.
I use to work retail selling (mostly) women clothes. At one point we had the same model of sundress with and without pockets. Every one of them that was watching or trying the one without got like super hyped and excited when we told them we had it with pockets. The pocketless one still sold better. And it wasn’t even a tight fitting dress, it was slack and baggy.
Capitalism’s goal is profits. Not helping the customer, selling more, or anything else. We’re in late-stage capitalism, so it is ‘Profits Uber Alles’.
I read a thing (not sure if it’s true) that the reason there’s no pockets in women’s clothing is that women have more diverse body shapes than men. Pockets are designed not to interrupt the lines of the garment where possible - it’s more straightforward to place men’s pockets because they’re going to be in a more predictable place when worn Vs women where it ends up making the clothes fit poorly.
where it ends up making the clothes fit poorly
a.k.a makes the clothes fit anything but skin-tight because the pockets need space so the clothes have to be wider-cut
That seems like an oversimplification, outside looking in for me, but there’s no way a single dimension could ever adequately describe an item of clothing - my sister and wife have similar sized waists, but something tight round the posterior on my wife would be baggy on my sister.
It’s less extreme but men’s clothing is like this too. I found a cut of jeans I liked in a store then ordered 4 mor pairs in different colors. None fit the same and 2 were unwearable.
I wear size 34 cargo shorts.
There is no point near my waist that is even close to a tape measured 34 inches.
Its been a long time since I’ve actually been measured but I must be somewhere between 32 and 38 inches based on the pants in my closet. My 36/34 jeans fit the best. I have to wear a belt but they aren’t so loose that they immediately hit the ground without on. I picked up a 34/34 pair. Same cut, wash, and color and they are wearable but they’re tight at the waste and crush my balls a little when I sit. The inseam must be at least an inch shorter than the first pair.
The wonder of “relaxed fit”
I did the same! It was not jeans but pants that is supposed to look like they are a bit more formal but are more comfortable. From the website did I just pick 3 different colors of the same size but they all fit so differently, and one pair had much thicker fabric, felt more like they went “close enough” and called it a day lol
No one’s mentioned bras and how they are significantly worse? Lets make arbitrary cup and band sizes, but then add in how each bra has a different shape and projection even in the same brand. Are you full on top, full on bottom, average, shallow? What about root width and height? Well you won’t know if any bra will fit until you try, even changing cup and band sizes won’t make a bra not made for your shape fit properly. Each brand does their own different sizing even in each bra, each global country has their own sizing system, and it is madness.
Lemmy needs a community for A Bra That Fits. It’s hard to express just how bad the bra-sizing problem is in the US. It goes far and beyond vanity sizing. I don’t even bother with US sizes anymore. Not only do the sizes mean next-to-nothing, but most stores only carry up to about ~ 44 DDD. Which means that many people who require different sizes end up wearing what’s available - even if it doesn’t fit right. When I measure myself and plug it into a bra sizing calculator, I end up with something even specialty lingerie shops don’t carry. But that’s not a problem for Victoria’s Secret or whatever - they’ll attempt to push whatever they have in stock, even if its sizing makes no sense, because their end goal is to make a sale - not to actually help you.
I suspect the powers of capitalism (aided by the internet/shopping online) have convinced most stores not to carry sizes that aren’t mainstream. Yes, this even applies to boutique shops that supposedly cater to larger sizes. They don’t want to keep stock that isn’t likely to move, which means tons of people like me end up getting completely shafted. I could spend hours researching places, making calls, traveling across the state to find these places, find the one or two bras in the entire building that actually fit me, just to end up with a material that makes me itch or has an ugly style that only a grandma would wear. (Sexy lingerie? For massive titties? LOL good luck finding that.) I’ve wasted days doing this, and it’s only gotten worse since Covid (when many stores moved inventory out of physical buildings and made them exclusively available online. Which defeats the point of actually going to their stores at all.) My only real option is to bra shop online, using British sizes, and fucking pray that everything will work out all right.
On top of that, bras are expensive. Prices vary with sales and all, but I’d say about $50 is average for one. Add in the scarcity aspect and the varying quality levels (that I can’t afford to be picky about), and I’m lucky to own 2-3 bras that fit at any given time. I have to hand-wash and thoroughly dry my bra most nights so I can wear it again the next day without risking a yeast infection. It absolutely sucks and there isn’t a damn thing I can do about it.
I agree! I was wanting a woman-oriented instance that could host things like ABTF. If I went with piefed it would help with voting being available to subscribers, but I would also like a way to have it hidden from /all. I would like to get it up and running but we’ll see.
Even when I tried Victoria’s Secret, they never had pretty/sexy colors/styles in my “size” (they sized me incorrectly, too small at 34DDD). Even the calculator got me wrong and told me 34FF/F (too big). I ended up being 36E in Panache in certain styles. They are expensive, but I’ve been ordering it online at places that accepts returns to try on, then buy cheaper on places like ebay. I was also a 34G in Chantelle. Have you tried Polish bras? I think they are much more expensive but people on that sub were always bringing up Ewa Michalak. I haven’t tried it since I’ve found some consistency in Panache.
I hate hand-washing btw, I usually throw them in a washing machine with a lingerie bag and air dry them but recently tried hand-washing and fuck that noise. I’m going to try to stick with hand-washing to extend the lifespan but ugh. I also managed to scrub off one of my bras’ label info on accident q.q It was so exhausting. I can’t imagine having to do that every day, so sorry.
The whole “cup size” thing is so weird. Even the name “cup” makes it sound like it’s based on volume, but it’s not. It’s the difference between a measuring tape wrapped at boob height vs a measuring tape wrapped just below the boobs. This means that a 36A and a 28E might have the same volume of breast tissue but wildly different “cup sizes”. It really seems like the whole thing would be a lot easier to manage if there were just a “breast volume” measurement and a “band length” measurement.
I got two work shirts at the same time. Both size 44, same manufacturer, theoretically identical shirts.
Almost a full letter grade size difference, one is basically a L and the other was almost an XL.
How do they fuck up 2 supposedly identical shirts? Fucked if I know.
It’s so frustrating. I’ve most often experienced this with two of the same item in different colors or fabrics, but not always. Once I was trying on a particular jacket at Uniqlo and the size medium was super tiny but the size small fit just right. Did they mix up the size tags sewn into the jackets, or what?
How do they fuck up 2 supposedly identical shirts? Fucked if I know.
Well, clothes are still sewn by low-paid workers in sweatshops, not industrial robots, so I guess some variation is to be expected.
Where were they manufactured?
Not just a women problem, my own jeans are 32. My workout pants are M, my work pants are size 50.
Shoes should be standardized, i have pair of converse size 39 and a pair of nike jordan’s (possibly fake, not sure got them as a gift from a friend) size 44. I’m usually a 42 or 42,5.
Oh so I know about the shoe one. The sizes are standardised in length but not in width so you can have narrow fit and need a larger length in one shoe, or wide fit and a shorter length in a different shoe.
So the shoes are standardised (sort of, Europe and the US have 2 different standardised systems), but the standard is so confusing it may as well not be a standard.
At this point I’m wondering if the designers just roll dice and put the result on the label.
If anyone is down for a fascinating video essay about this by a textile historian: Standardized Sizes Ruined our Clothing Quality
Have you ever wondered how we let clothing quality get so bad? It wasn’t just desperation for cheaper options- the 18th century consumer would never have been willing to pay so much for such poor quality cloth. And yet, they stayed clothed. Even their cheaper options lasting years of hard wear. But they knew what quality looked like and for the most part, we don’t.
When did we forget how to shop for good clothing rather than just trendy? What makes clothing “high quality” is so complex and nearly impossible to track with online shopping. Even in person, it’s not a simple answer. But it used to be that more money meant more quality, plain and simple. Where did we mess up this system? Turns out, standardized sizing allowed (and even encouraged) far more than just issues with poor fit and body image.
Back in the day you’d get a pair of jeans and they’d tailor it to your needs. If it was high quality materials I’d pay 200€ for a pair. Much cheaper than 5 x 60-80€ for bad / low quality crap.
My guess is that’s more about fashion than not knowing how to buy good quality things.
In ye olde days, like the 1950s, jeans were jeans, and a pair that lasted years was great. Then in the 1980s trends started emerging like stone washed jeans, or acid washed jeans. Then there were the boot cut, tapered leg, loose cut, baggy, bell-bottom, and all kinds of other trendy cuts.
What’s the point in buying a $200 pair of jeans that will last decades if they’ll be out of fashion in 5 years?
High quality clothing is still out there, but it’s not fashion clothing, it’s work clothes. If you go to a store that caters to construction workers, factory workers, or other people who have to wear durable clothes as part of their job, you can still get stuff that lasts a very long time.
For a mechanized process with no customization; the fucking lack of standards is really maddening.
What makes you think it’s so mechanised? Material is often cut on bandsaw in stacks inches thick, they’re sewn on machine, sure, but manually controlled by a human. Different designers, different factories, different QA levels.
Okay, thats fair, but it’s way less fun to say ‘corporatized and taylorized’
Ha, my point was more that the bandsaw wasn’t tracking straight so all the blanks on the bottom are bigger, the seamstress runs a hem 10mm (more or less) from the edge so the dimension remains out and the QA guy couldn’t give a fuck because it’s 8:30 on a Friday night and he’s been working 21 days straight.
Even the same garment is going to have a different size in different countries, large in Italy, medium in UK etc etc. the real size is somewhere in between, but no one makes that level of granularity.
You should watch some of these garments being made, it’s mind blowing.
Cutting blanks and this is a tame/slow process Vs some other factories I’ve seen on the tube.
See, regional differences that i can fix with a conversion chart im fine with. That’s just more sizes. As long as they’re printed.
Just ordering on Amazon the same product in the same size with the same material, but you want a different color. Turns out the size is all fucked up, it’s not even the same material. But it’s a different color.
Maybe it has pockets where the origibal didnt! Maybe it doesnt where the original did! Who can say?
“outside straight sizes” wat? they have gay sizes too?
Shopping for trousers as a fat kid before elastic waistbands became mainstream on “regular” clothes was an extended humiliation. “The waist is too tight! the legs are too long!” No, I’m just fucking deformed because I’m fat.
I used to be a “husky” kid. Now I have the opposite problem - so difficult to find 34x34 in thrift shops/marketplace. Seems everyone my height has more waistline than inseam.
I’d smarm it up with “what’s wrong with a belt/bracers” but having lost weight (then regained it) the amount of folding over that can happen for trousers that are for people much bigger than you can be quite uncomfortable
