I've just had the radio on and listening to a news story about clothing sizes, particularly female clothes sizes. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-44367791 . It was whilst listening to this that I thought about a conversation I recently had with a fellow council who has successfully lost weight. His target is now to be of a certain chest and waist size rather than a particular weight. Combining the conversation I had and the news story I have to ask 'what is size all about ?
I have no idea what a size 12 is, or a 16, 20 etc and as clothing is often imported I wouldn't have a clue what a US size 0 is compared with Uk sizes, and then we get onto small, medium, large, xl, xxl, xxxl etc. what? no sorry not a clue.
What I do know is that my waist size is larger than is like it to be but its measured in inches as is the length of my leg so if i go out to buy a new pair of trousers I look for those measurements, and should they be labelled small large etc then they generally get ignored.
Maybe its a sign of the times, with less outfitters and more mass produced garments that we are always looking for an average fit, trying to put labels on clothing and apply those labels to ourselves.
The news story featured an interview with someone who had taken to social media to voice their concern at not fitting into a particular size they thought they were. This interviewee went on to say how devastated she felt that she could not get into the clothing that was labelled up in her size. In a world of fast passed social media and todays unreality Tv shows I can quite sympathise with the impact this would have had. Another tweeted "It's called UK size for a reason, it means all clothes UK stores should measure to that guide.". I think this however falls short of addressing the problem.
The problem is we ar all different in so many ways, and whilst i understand this creates a challenge for clothing manufacturers i still have to ask why do we not apply simple measures to clothing? In my halls at university there were a group of 6 of us in the same area, i recall one conversation whilst out shopping with one of them who had a slim waist and long legs with wide hips, he used to buy jeans that fit his waist and leg but went for an anti-cut to get a pair that fit him correctly.
Boom there's a solution - stop putting people into boxes and judging them accordingly and label clothing up based on actually measurements and different cuts from highwaisted to skinny, from anti-cut to boot cut. There's a reason bra sizes have more than one measurement why do we not apply some thought to clothing and scrap the meaningless sizes for actually measurements.
