You know that time of your life when you turn thirteen years old and everything begins to be so confusing? That’s what I at least experienced in my life. But to add on to that, my mother would take me out clothes shopping. I would have no clue what my jean size was at that time. And this put me in a spiral when I actually entered the dressing room and removed the first pair of jeans from the hanger. I would try them on and hooray, it fits! I am all excited. Flash forward to a couple months, and I would go to a different store. Again, repeat the loop: pick a pair of jeans, enter the dressing room, take the jeans off the hanger and- wait. Hold on. Why won’t it go past my thighs? What is going on? Let me check the tag. It says the same size as the one I got last time. Oh my god. Something is terribly wrong with my body. Flash forward 7 years later, and I am now aware that there was nothing wrong with my body, because we are not supposed to fit in jeans, jeans are meant to fit us.
To further prove this point, I scrolled through social media and came across TikTok. One specific TikToker named Brittani Lancaster shared many videos of this topic, and this one really caught my eye. In one of her videos, she gives an example of how this idea (how it’s not our bodies that are the problem, it’s the clothes) impacts our brains so much. It was how if someone buys another pair of jeans that say the same size but it doesn’t fit, the person will keep those jeans and “try to change their body.” But in reality, it’s going to be sitting in the closet for years because they decided to have a tag with a number on it dictating their body’s worth.
Another TikTok thread I saw was a girl trying on jeans from different clothing stores: Zara, Old Navy, American Eagle and Garage. She tried on jeans from every store in the same size. Old Navy and American Eagle fit her just right, and Zara/Garage barely fit her. It just proves the point of why women’s jeans are like this.
In conclusion, we should stop thinking that there is something wrong with our bodies, when in reality, jean sizes are inconsistent. It messes with our heads. We are not supposed to fit in jeans, jeans are meant to fit us.