"Vanity Sizing" (ie a 6 is not a 6 is not a 6)

Back when Miss Leslie Bibb was just a teen on a show called Popular, I was an editor at a very cool magazine called Jump ("For girls who dare to be real").  It was published by the same company that prints Shape, and competed with Seventeen, YM, Teen People etc for readers.  Only it was way better. (Sadly, it folded in 2000.. .but that's another story)

Anyway, one of the articles I wrote for Jump was titled "Size Doesn't Matter" and it was all about how a a girl might be a size 4 in one brand of clothing, yet a 6 or an 8 in another.  That's because some companies purposefully change the names of their sizes because they think it will appeal to consumers.  (IE, a 30 inch waist may have once been the basis for a size medium.  But heck, let's start calling everything with a 30 inch waste a size SMALL!  Then more people will want to buy our clothes because when they wear them, they'll feel thin.  And thin is good!)  Get it?

I've posted a scan of the article here in case you feel like giving it the once over....
But what I really want to do is relate all this to Spain's announcement that it's going to try to standardize women's sizing....

Because according to news reports out today, Spain's government has reached an agreement with major fashion designers to "standardize women's clothing sizes with the aim of promoting a healthier image."

Ay Mami that's good news!  Especially since the designers on board are Mango (cheap and trendy... a la H&M), El Corte Ingles (THE department store of Spain) and ZARA  (um.... famous everywhere!)

Another cool componant of the program? It will also prevent participating companies from using window displays featuring clothes smaller than a European size 38 (10 in Britain, 8 in the United States). Dude, I can dig it.

And check out this sane quote: 

"It is not reasonable for a modern and advanced society to establish stereotypes of beauty that are far removed from the social reality of a community. It is everyone's commitment that beauty and health go hand in hand," Health Minister Elena Salgado said at a signing ceremony Tuesday.

Hola Elena..., we should hang out some time.

And one more cool bit:

The Health Ministry's program aims to end a situation in which a woman who buys a size 40 dress from one designer may not fit in a size 40 garment from another designer. The ministry said the differences sometimes lead women to feel compelled to lose weight.

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Very, very interesting.  Not sure how all this will play out.... or if this is the best course of action....but I'm happy to see someone doing something at a high level on this important issue. 

What do YOU think?

Comments

[Audrey]

Y'know... all this makes me think of the announcement that came out in the fall about some companies starting to offer NEGATIVE sizes or 00. (See the MSNBC article here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15319430/site/newsweek/)

Of course the irony is that these sizes are debuting at a time when the average e woman is about 155 pounds and 5 foot 4 according to SizeUSA, a 2003 survey by the industry research group, which is about 20 pounds heavier than the average woman of 40 years ago.

The thing is though that they aren't buying larger sizes.

"According to standard size measurements, that average 155 pound woman should be wearing a size 16, but thanks to vanity-sizing, she's probably buying a size 10 or 12," says Jim Lovejoy, the industry director for the SizeUSA survey. "Most companies aren't using the standard ASTM [American Society for Testing and Materials] sizes
any more. Sizes have been creeping up a half inch at a time so that women can fit into smaller sizes and feel good about it." (that's from the MSNBC article.. as is this:)

Think of vanity-sizing as self-delusion on a mass scale. Anyone over the age of 40 knows that something isn't quite right if she can wear a smaller size now than she wore 20 years and 10 pounds ago. Yet many of us slip gratefully into a size 6 pair of Old Navy jeans even though we're pretty sure we wouldn't be able to squeeze into our size 10 Calvin Kleins from circa 1980.

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So interesting, no?

[Thomas Bailey]

The British Standards Institute is attempting to correct this problem with BS-EN 13402, which calls for a pictogram with actual measurements in centimeters. Work began in 1996, and drafted in 2003. These new labels are due in Europe soon. I have been ready for the new labels since 1983, when I began recording my measurements in centimeters. I am expecting great resistance in the USA to the new labels due to the apparently huge numbers. I myself would not mind wearing a size 95, as the new label would state.