One thing I love here at Brown is how eager people are to show off their unique styles. I always appreciate the diverse prints, pairings, and accessorizing I see around campus. As for me, I’m pretty basic: my go-to outfit is throwing on a pair of jeans and a top. Because of this, finding a solid pair of jeans is a huge hit. Recently, I saw my friend wearing a cute pair of jeans and asked if I could try them on. “I’m not sure if they’ll fit,” I said. She’s typically a smaller size than me.
“Try them on,” she offered. “I have just about every size!”
I wondered why a girl should need ‘every size’ to feel covered in her options. When I pulled on the jeans, they were a perfect fit. I decided I wanted to get a pair for myself, but was nervous – I found a final sale offered online, but was it worth the risk?
The same cut, the same wash, the same brand – and I was still fully questioning if I’d be wasting my money.
It may sound ridiculous, but I imagine many women are familiar with this question. Especially considering the rise of online shopping (48% of global fashion retail sales are now online transactions), finding the right fit online can feel like a monumental task. Even in fitting rooms, the same number size has been both a squeeze and practically falling down my hips.
With such inconsistent sizing within and between brands, it can feel like your own body is some amorphous, uncertain thing. It shouldn’t be this way.
So why is it?
In 1941, Ruth O’Brien and William C. Shelton published Women’s Measurements for Garment and Pattern Construction. The report, which measured thousands of women to provide a basis for a national standardized sizing system, was seriously flawed. It failed to represent the diversity of the female population in the U.S. The final statistics only involved measurements from white women, for example. This set the stage for decades of confusion amongst consumers.
Later, in 1958, a commercial standard was published by the government. It had even-number sizes ranging from 8-38, a height indicator, and a lower body indicator. But this didn’t catch on. Rather, as mass-production and heavy consumption continued to rise in the following decades, brands took the reigns on clothing sizes.
For context, Marilyn Monroe, who is cited to have worn a vintage size 12-16, would likely wear a size 4-6 today. What used to be the smallest size commercially available (an 8) would be a size 00 today. This is largely due to vanity sizing, the phenomenon wherein clothes sizes have been deflated over time so that customers can fit into smaller sizes. As brands have noticed, women in particular link concepts of self-esteem with clothing size, and thus respond favorably when they fit into a smaller number.
Today, this nonuniversal standard creates a plethora of issues for both consumers and producers.
For one, returns are often caused by inappropriate sizing. Processing a return costs retailers more than a quarter of the item’s original price. And environmentally, return culture does significant damage: millions of tons of CO2 are emitted annually throughout the process, and billions of pounds of clothes are simply sent to landfills.
For consumers, shopping has become a sort of guessing game. You need to analyze listed sizing, scan reviews for fit input, and be prepared to put in the time and effort to return an item if it ends up not working out.
In my opinion, a good amount of hesitation a woman may feel in purchasing her ‘true size’ is simply a product of patriarchal beauty standards insisting she should be as small as possible. But the more we feed into these nonuniversal sizing charts, the more power we give them.
Ultimately, I believe that reducing the guesswork involved in clothing purchases could actually improve societal views on fashion and body standards. If we consider things more empirically, it might mean we can focus less on fitting into clothes, and more on how clothes can fit us. Additionally, detangling the segregation between women’s and men’s sizing (particularly with women’s increased inconsistencies) could allow for more inclusionary and proportionate fitting for all identities.
Though it’s an ambitious idea, a universal sizing standard would benefit producers, consumers, and the world as a whole. For one, it could at least eliminate the weight of carrying three pairs of the same exact jeans into a fitting room.
However, this isn’t likely to happen (at least not anytime soon). For now, I’d encourage college students to borrow clothes from friends, thrift, and shop from reliable brands. These are all great ways to combat overconsumption and targeted marketing campaigns. Plus, shopping in person in general can eliminate unnecessary returns.
As college students, it’s most important to focus on self-expression and acceptance, not discrepant numbers. At the end of the day, your body hasn’t changed just because the label has–and neither has your worth. Embracing fashion as a means to feel comfortable, creative, and confident will always be far more important than any number on a tag.