(no subject)

[vixenesque93]

A post on vanity sizing.


Yet another reason I envy men. They never have to puzzle over why the size 12 jeans are looser and more comfortable than the size 14's.

They just get to admire what's underneath.

Comments

[tzaddi-93.livejournal.com]

Ok.. That was fucking brilliant. I think I liked this paragraph best:

(The fact that 'fat and ugly' seem to be goals of the fashion industry half the time makes me semi-homicidal. I know beautiful women of every possible size, shape, and build. I also know ugly women of every possible size, shape, and build. Being thin doesn't make you innately beautiful; being too thin turns you into a scary pinchy mantis woman who looks like she's considering the nutritional benefits of bathing in my blood. Do not want. But that's the message -- Nicole Kidman wears a size 2! Why don't you?! And all across the land, women who already need to eat a damn sandwich starve themselves for vanity sizing...)

[ashley-y.livejournal.com]

Is this why I keep seeing women wearing jeans too low and way too small, creating a "spare tyre" effect?

[flasher702.livejournal.com]

I'll post it here too so you have every opportunity to scold me if I blundered too horribly. But it's not as though tall skinny people and short skinny people don't have just as much trouble finding things that fit and this whole "[fat] women can't find clothes that fit right" complaint is so old and played out. Nothing fits me either and it's not as though lose fitting t-shirts, dress shirt, polos, etc. make me feel "smexy"... I HAVE NO CHOICE. If they fit my chest they choke me. If the pants fit my waist they're too short and I'm not even that tall (I do have the advantage of knowing this as soon as I pick them up and look at the size.. but they STILL DON'T FIT). Yet somehow I manage to survive.


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An entertaining read. But I don't understand your bizarre phobia of the number Zero. It's just a number. You seem to be well under the sway of the very numerology that you are complaining about (and I don't quite understand why you blame it on the industry either).

Also, it's not as though you need to wear skin tight clothing all the time. Mens clothes aren't exactly on some significantly higher level as far as size consistency goes, they are just nearly all loose fitting. Complaining about tight form-fitting clothing not fitting properly while you are admittedly +30lbs overweight like you did in one section is just plain silly. How are the manufacturers supposed to psychically know *where* on your body you have gain and lost that much body fat?

The bra sizing is also an example of how it can't really be all blamed on the industry. Even when they have standard sizes based on reality (though the cup sizes are sometimes inconstant) they still don't make them widely available in every possible configuration.

Overall you are a good writer and this is a good modernization of an age-old complaint... but it's still an age-old complaint that you haven't added anything really new to. Margin-sensitive mass production, genetic and cultural diversity, and form-fitting clothing will NEVER coexist perfectly. Just. Get. Over. It. Get things custom fit when it matters and wear loose practical clothing when it doesn't. You apparently did it for years as a "fat girl". Just keep doing it. Dress up for parties, not every day. You wonder where impressionable young girls get the idea that they ought to squeeze into small tight clothing? Could it be from watching older women constantly trying to squeeze into small tight clothing (whether it fits properly off the rack or not)???

Being thin doesn't actually hurt anyone's health. Malnutrition certainly does but outside of a small number of extreme cases that seems to strike the obese just as frequently (along with a slew of other maladies) in western culture so I wouldn't blame the clothing industry for poor nutritional habits...

If the currently defined sizes were consistent there would be even more people who couldn't find clothes that fit right. Better defined sizes to accommodate variations in proportion (and explicitly state what accommodation they made instead of the vague sizes used now) would be nice but you'd still end up with a wide range of sizes and size variable combinations that fit you and I doubt the average consumer would be anything less than completely baffled by, for example, having a pair of pants have 6 or more size variables listed on it (waist, hips, thighs, knees, calves, ankles, inseam, crotch, inseam to knees, can you think of more?). That's the solution. I don't think we'll get it anytime soon though and if we did I bet people would complain about it xD

[clayshaper.livejournal.com]

I can TOTALLY understand the mind-numbing frustration of the women's sizing system... (maybe this is the REAL reason women do more 'shopping' than men... when was the last time they could just grab a pack of undershirts and run? ...knowing they'd fit, be the right colour, and so on, especially...)

At the same time, know that a lot of men don't dress the way they WANT, because of marketing. We dress the way we're expected to. Meaning- for example- I might wear a pair of jeans because men's slacks are NOT attractive on a semi-fat dude like me. If I fasten them at my beltline, I get a crotch at my knees- if I pull them up, I look like a comedian playing granpaw... you know what I mean?

So I wear workpants and jeans, which have a realistic hip-measurement... which a LOT of guys do. (a few of those brave souls wear utilikilts... I might, but damn are they expensive) You might someday see me thinned just enough to wear sexy leather pants- but probably never in slacks... they aren't cut for men's bodies, they're cut for the models they show them off on. ;) Look at how they fit 'normal' people? Not so good. :/

Marketing sucks.

[fearless-son.livejournal.com]

I got a Utilikilt from my family as a birthday present and damn is it comfortable. I hear that they even have models with a front that is arched down to accommodate a belly. How is that for fitting for size?