Eleven, 12, 13, and 14 – What do these numbers have in common? Other than the fact that they are consecutive, they also represent the size of jeans I wear.
While the mystery of female jean sizes, or sizes in general for women, is not a new topic, it has become an increasingly difficult challenge for myself.
I spend 85% of my public life wearing leggings, 5% my breeches, riding pants that are very similar to leggings, and the other 10%, unfortunately, wearing jeans. There are a few reasons that I dislike wearing jeans and prefer leggings. It’s mostly because they are comfy as hell and since they are black go with literally everything, but mostly because they fit my body well 95% of the time.
I will be the first to admit that I have a larger body type, in addition to being relatively curvy (I might be bigger but I have a decent hourglass shape). Therefore finding jeans that fit all my awkward proportions is difficult.
My current favourite pair of jeans is a size 11, high-waisted pair from the brand Eighty-Two, which is sold at Ardene. The only reason I have them is that my size 10 sister let me borrow them because they were slightly too large on her and they fit me perfectly.
Over the winter holiday, I went shopping for some new jeans and tried on a pair of size 12 jeans at Old Navy. And they didn’t fit too well. So, much to my disappointment, I went up a size to a 14. And they fit. I also have a pair size 12 jeans from Bluenotes that fit almost the same as the size 14!
And while it has been proven that different brands have different sizes, what about when the same brand has different interpretations of a size? As I said, my favourite jeans were from Eighty-two. Therefore I decided to order some more online with the hopes I would love them too. I ordered two size 11 pairs and one size 13 just in case. When they arrived after a week, I tried them on almost immediately, and much to my confusion one of the pairs didn’t fit. Why am I confused, you ask? Because the one size that didn’t fit was one of the two size 11 jeans. The first pair I tried on fit like a glove, but the second pair of 11s were so small I couldn’t get them past my mid-thigh. With extreme confusion, I tried on the size 13 and they fit perfectly too! I have never been more confused in my life and I am currently a journalism student in a data and statistics course.
Like I said earlier, it is no new news that different brands have different sizes in jeans for women, but I had never experienced it to this degree. This is my unofficial call to action that we put a stop to vanity sizing on women’s clothing and just have standardized sizing that actually makes sense cause my data class should be more confusing than my jean size.