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A collection of some classic Lemmy memes for your enjoyment
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.
For 20 years i buy pants size 32. They always fit. But yeah, somehow my work pants are size 46 to 48 for some reason. M is often to big on the waist and S is tiny.
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.
Not limited to gender. I'm stronger built than the average man and have to live with too long XXL jeans with too less ass.
I'm tall and thin. A pullover size M fits perfectly, but i need the arms of a L pullover. I have a Pullover size M that is bigger than my other L pullovers. I bought a Pullover size M with nice arms, but the rest is velly free. And that are not cheap chinese clothes where ut's notmal that an XL is a M. I just don't understand.
It's not a women's problem it's just a clothing problem in general.
I was extremely upset the other day to find out that I need an extra large in shirts at this one store. Apparently in Next if you are tall you must also be fat other body types are impossible.
And yes I have also seen the same cut in the same store but two different colours be different sizes for the same declared size.
Womens clothing tends to be worse as even more expensive clothes are sold by dress size or the generic small/medium large and only a limited number of items offer any build variations for an item. Next typically offer a petite and a tall range for some items, but not for all and they quite rare in high street retailers offering that.
Men you tend to find a waist, length, chest, neck measurement in cm/inches, which is far more useful. A lot, but not all, of trousers with actual measurement on them also offer different lengths, and in some cases different cuts (jeans are very good for this).
Nexts shirts, like a lot of high street fashion, have two broad ranges for men, casual and formal. The former is shit for sizing as its the small/medium rubbish that I wouldn't touch with a barge pole, not least because the arms are always too fucking narrow for my arms. The latter most definitely comes in a range of body fits and actual measurements.
The best clothing is sold by the actual measurements of the garment so you can actually compare against stuff that actually fits you. I typically get stuff tailored from there as I buy larger to fit my chest/shoulders and its too long. Its not expensive (about £15 for a t shirt) if you are not buying endless fast fashion garbage and buy stuff to last instead.
I didn't even know they had gay sizes.
Just buy in Temu, they put these BS sizes but there's always a chart in cm so if you know your numbers you get it right.
Same thing when I wanted Business shirts. Where I live it's all s m l bulshit. I went to Macy's online and they sell most brands by 3 measures I think, can't remember, it's collar size, arm length in inches. Well worth the international shipping fees for a week's worth of shirts. Now I mostly work from home, I think they'll last until I retire lol
Support slave owners and fuck the planet is a wild suggestion.
Thinking again, I'll grow my own cotton and assemble my own spinning thing to make yarn. I'll be back in a year.
We're getting jackets as a christmas present from my employer and they had us fill out a size form. "Sizes are as usual."
Made me think of this.
The last time I went shopping for pants it took a fabric tape measure.
Even as a guy, every pair was six to ten inches larger than listed in the waist.
i am simply too impatient to buy tight or normal fitting clothing - i just buy loose M or L everything and eyeball if it should be M or L, bonus points for drawstrings but i do also own belts so anything will do.
besides, finding a well fitting pair of jeans is borderline impossible for me, because: 1. i'm a guy 2. i'm short 3. i have a big ass. those 3 combined seemingly make me a mythical creature, clothes designers don't seem to even be capable of thinking to make jeans that'd fit me well.
jeans that fit my ass and are short enough? guess i don't get to have pockets (because i'd need to buy in the women's section)
guy design and big ass variant? baggy on the rest of my legs & now i need to cut them to walk
guy design & good lenghts for my legs? my ass doesn't fit
:(
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:
Is that then called a jeack?
Holy shit. This man jeans.
This is fascinating! thanks for the pics, it makes so much sense.
The ultimate jeans post
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.
We haven't even talked about kids clothing yet....ohhh boyyy does that one suck
Being the kid sucks worse
You're dragged around the store as a living mannequin, while simultaneously being bored out of your mind
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.
Men's pants too. And at the same store, by the EXACT SAME maker.
I have 34's, 36's and 38's in different colours and materials. They all fit comfortably, and if i get different sizes in those particular styles, they're either too big or too small.
Make it make sense, please.
I really want a law that requires clothes sizes to use actual, verifiable measurements.
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
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.
I just want to see more women's clothes with pockets.
Big pockets! Bigger than a chapstick
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.
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.
"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.
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.
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.
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.
For a mechanized process with no customization; the fucking lack of standards is really maddening.
At this point I'm wondering if the designers just roll dice and put the result on the label.