The Review

Issue date: 4/17/07 Section: Mosaic

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So maybe I cried the day I knew I had outgrown of my size-zero Express jeans (those were the ish when I was 14), but at least I had my mom there to knock some sense into me. She looked so infuriated that I was bitching about being a size two and told me frankly to "get over it" - which I did. But in a world so focused on emaciated starlets, some people live for being a certain size - and retailers are taking advantage of our insecurities.

They are guilty of what's called "vanity sizing," which, according to fashion and apparel studies professor Jaehee Jung, is the practice of increasing clothing's measurements without increasing the size marked on the tag. This is possible because sizes are not standardized like they were in the 1950s, Jung says.

Standardized sizing was a failure, Jung says, and modern retailers now cater clothing sizes to match demographic data from their target market.

"Basically, this is kind of referring to size inflation," she says. "A dress labeled a size 10 actually fits like a 12."

The idea is that people get an ego boost from being able to wear the smaller numerical size, Jung says, and retailers get some happy, loyal customers.

"They like to find the sizes they believe they still fit into," she says.

The catch, Jung says, is shoppers will only stay happy until they try on their new size at another store.

"[Retailers] might think they're helping out by increasing self-esteem, but it can actually work the other way," she says. "[Customers] might feel negatively about not being able to fit in the same size at other retailers. It's almost deceiving."

Let's put this in context of shopping for jeans, a college staple.

Men seem to have it easy. They look for their waist size and inseam and pick a cut like "loose," "baggy" or "bootcut" that seems like it would fit their body shape (i.e. bootcut for skinny emo boys and baggy for beefy athletes).

Women look at a jeans display and think to themselves "I'm a size X in this store and a size Y at that store, so I'll grab an X and a Y - oh, and a Z because I have/haven't been going to the gym."

And that's before factoring in the different cuts.

I have always thought that women's clothing should be sized like men's (waist size, inseam, arm length, etc.) but Jung gave me good reason to give up hope.

Men's bodies do not have as much variation in shape as do those of their female counterparts whose bodies can be labeled with such terms as "hourglass," "pear" and "tubular," Jung says. Add to the mix women's penchant for wearing tight clothing, and you've got a major problem making things fit.

I'm not suggesting you start paying for custom-made apparel or wear baggy clothes in protest - just realize manufacturers don't regulate clothing sizes so don't let the numbers regulate you.

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