What's Wrong with Women's Clothes
Feb. 28th, 2020 02:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysabetwordsmithLots of things.
Among the worst is sizing. By this point it is basically meaningless. I can take a whole armload of clothes into a fitting room and 0 of them fit. It's one of several reasons I can't shop for clothes online except for extremely simple things like T-shirts.
But there's a simple fix for that issue, and people aren't thinking of it.
1) Require designers to print the measurements of each garment. So numbers will fit on tags, I propose:
TOPS / FULL-BODY GARMENTS
Bust at (width / distance below neckline)
Waist at (width / distance below neckline)
Hips at (width / distance below neckline)
Length (total distance between neckline and hemline)
BOTTOMS
Waist at (width / distance below neckline)
Hips at (width / distance below neckline)
Length (total distance between neckline and hemline)
2) Require that sizes be accurate, permitting a fault tolerance no more than 3/8 of the size difference. If it's a half-size bigger than the label says, it's fraud.
Designers could still print their own brand sizes (Small, Medium, Large or Aardvark, Windmill, Doorbell -- whatever) because it's convenient to have an approximate idea of range. But with physical measurements on the garments, people would have a better idea what would fit their body without needing to drag a tape measure to the store.
An alternative is expanding the use of bodyscanners, but that has rampant privacy issues in a civilization with no real privacy protections left. If the numbers are on the clothes and required by law to be accurate, then people can carry their measurements in the privacy of their own minds and just compare those to the tags.
EDIT 2/29/20: Various folks have suggested other measurements that determine wearability. There are many of these. They will not ALL fit on a tag, unless it is a full sheet of paper which is unfeasible. A scancode is useful only to people who carry a smartphone, which is not everyone. Hence, I suggest a summary of 3-4 measurements on the tag and the rest online or a separate display instore. For reference:
See detailed lists of measurements and how to take them for WOMEN, MEN, and CHILDREN. If you fit none of those categories or your body is quirky, consider browsing all of them to determine which measurements seem relevant to your needs.
Among the worst is sizing. By this point it is basically meaningless. I can take a whole armload of clothes into a fitting room and 0 of them fit. It's one of several reasons I can't shop for clothes online except for extremely simple things like T-shirts.
But there's a simple fix for that issue, and people aren't thinking of it.
1) Require designers to print the measurements of each garment. So numbers will fit on tags, I propose:
TOPS / FULL-BODY GARMENTS
Bust at (width / distance below neckline)
Waist at (width / distance below neckline)
Hips at (width / distance below neckline)
Length (total distance between neckline and hemline)
BOTTOMS
Waist at (width / distance below neckline)
Hips at (width / distance below neckline)
Length (total distance between neckline and hemline)
2) Require that sizes be accurate, permitting a fault tolerance no more than 3/8 of the size difference. If it's a half-size bigger than the label says, it's fraud.
Designers could still print their own brand sizes (Small, Medium, Large or Aardvark, Windmill, Doorbell -- whatever) because it's convenient to have an approximate idea of range. But with physical measurements on the garments, people would have a better idea what would fit their body without needing to drag a tape measure to the store.
An alternative is expanding the use of bodyscanners, but that has rampant privacy issues in a civilization with no real privacy protections left. If the numbers are on the clothes and required by law to be accurate, then people can carry their measurements in the privacy of their own minds and just compare those to the tags.
EDIT 2/29/20: Various folks have suggested other measurements that determine wearability. There are many of these. They will not ALL fit on a tag, unless it is a full sheet of paper which is unfeasible. A scancode is useful only to people who carry a smartphone, which is not everyone. Hence, I suggest a summary of 3-4 measurements on the tag and the rest online or a separate display instore. For reference:
See detailed lists of measurements and how to take them for WOMEN, MEN, and CHILDREN. If you fit none of those categories or your body is quirky, consider browsing all of them to determine which measurements seem relevant to your needs.
Online
Date: 2020-02-28 10:20 pm (UTC)It is a gigantic pain in the tuchus.
And, frankly, it's still not terribly accurate.
Re: Online
Date: 2020-02-28 11:01 pm (UTC)Some companies just have letter or number sizes and refuse to tell you measurements. Most give just 1-2 measurements if they give any.
But then there are the cool ones. The places that give a whole sizing chart with a dozen measurements. The places that have 3-6 body types and the shape is pictured for each garment what types it is designed to fit. The places where you can customize what sleeves, neckline, and hemline you want on a dress.
I don't know how accurate the cool ones are, but I would bet their customers get better results than from the previous categories of sellers. This is because many of the companies doing detailed fits exist because their founder(s) got fed up with the shitty sizing nonsense. It is a good business strategy to meet needs that your competitors are failing!
Re: Online
Date: 2020-02-29 02:37 am (UTC)http://retrorack.blogspot.com/2014/07/gails-10-rules-of-shopping-eshakti.html?m=1
Re: Online
Date: 2020-02-29 08:04 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-02-28 10:42 pm (UTC)Well ...
Date: 2020-02-28 10:57 pm (UTC)Ideally, manufacturers would use a long list (which can be a dozen or two) for each garment that they post on their website or a larger sign in the store. But if we could get a law passed to require disclosure, it will probably focus on the short list.
Re: Well ...
Date: 2020-02-28 11:09 pm (UTC)Re: Well ...
Date: 2020-02-28 11:13 pm (UTC)I often wear men's clothing when I can find some that fits. Sweaters, vests, cardigans, flannel shirts, silk shirts, T-shirts, etc. are often easier to get good ones there. It's hard to find things that fit, but women's isn't much easier.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-02-29 03:36 am (UTC)* Shoulder width, from joint to joint
* Bicep/upper arm diameter
Some cisladies "lift" and some are just burly AF. :)
(no subject)
Date: 2020-02-29 11:05 am (UTC)Vanity sizing is ridiculous and it's invading men's clothing, too.
Thoughts
Date: 2020-02-29 08:52 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-02-29 01:23 pm (UTC)Yes ...
Date: 2020-02-29 08:20 pm (UTC)Forget fitting my weird body at all well; it's hard enough finding things that have normal proportions without something exaggerated for fashion purposes.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-02-29 04:03 pm (UTC)About 75% of clothes I can eliminate without trying them on (must be natural fabric, must have sleeves/long legs/go to mid-calf, with skirts, I need to be able to take long strides, plus a specific range of colors).
I buy at thrift stores, mostly. (I astonished someone in college by saying I expected a pair of pants to be $5,not $40.) I can also sew a bit, to compensate for slightly off fits. Skirt or sleeves too long? Hems too low? Elastic waistband dead/too lose? Plus my current preffered store does not have changing rooms, so I'm getting good at eyeballing fit.
I do buy men's cashmere or merino sweaters (cheap secondhand), and alter them to my size - very comfy. (I also have some wool leggings that used to be men's sweaters - not a perfict fit, but the black is forgiving of mistakes and they are ment to be worn under other things. Much stretchier/comfier and cheaper than the store-bought wool leggings I tried once.)
Overall I find replacing zippers, parching socks, and hemming my own jeans to be easier and more relaxing than clothes shopping, and all this fashon nonsense is probably why. Plus my yearly colthing budget might buy me /one/ fancy designer blouse.
Thoughts
Date: 2020-03-01 11:05 am (UTC)We can hope. But so many people seem to prefer online shopping for clothes. I can hardly imagine it. Perhaps they have extremely standard bodies and tastes. This seems improbable since manufacturers don't actually make clothes sized for what is now a majority of women, but whatever.
>> Some things like clothes and fabric are better bought in person <<
I agree.
>> (although I keep wanting to see a fabric store with sample swatches like they do for wallpaper).<<
I have seen those.
>>About 75% of clothes I can eliminate without trying them on (must be natural fabric, must have sleeves/long legs/go to mid-calf, with skirts, I need to be able to take long strides, plus a specific range of colors).<<
I eliminate almost everything. It's getting harder and harder to find anything even worth trying on, because natural fabric is rarer and rarer. Most synthetics feel bad to me. And the few I like -- well, this fall I bought several things because they were soft and fuzzy, only to discover that they shed horrendously. Not only is that bad for the environment, it means they won't last very long. >_<
>>I buy at thrift stores, mostly.<<
Yeah, I like those too.
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2020-03-02 05:10 am (UTC)I'd really love one where you could order sample swatches (ie these are our Fair Trade wool knits) before ordering large expensive pieces of fabric.
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2020-03-02 07:10 am (UTC)8x8" swatches of some fabrics
16x9cm swatches of all fabrics
Free swatch kit
Fair trade swatches but does not give size
Cheap swatch books by fabric type
Fair trade swatch bundles by fabric type, but expensive
And then there's this
Date: 2020-02-29 06:38 pm (UTC)Dammit, I want things I can wear that aren't shapeless and drab, but don't make me a walking billboard for sex With Men, and don't constrain my movement by being too tight or flimsy or awkward to move in, or having so much fabric as to require my specific attention in order to move around.
To be fair, the Cracked article did call out some examples of that, but (at least for me) didn't specifically name the concepts they represented.
Re: And then there's this
Date: 2020-02-29 08:07 pm (UTC)Re: And then there's this
Date: 2020-02-29 08:40 pm (UTC)Behold the Assumed Female Gaze.
He looks like a page from a pinup calendar. Do you think a man would enjoy looking at another man's clothes practically falling off his body? Do you think most men want to wear a shirt half open and untucked? I don't. Unless they are trawling for sex at the moment, most men put their bodies away. Hell, many men don't care how they look, they just want clothes that fit and don't get them bitched at. (Gay men seem to be an exception to most of these rules, but such advertising is not limited to gay magazines.)
To me, that picture looks like it's selling the shirt to a woman who is going to put it on a man she wants to see in it, not selling to a man who's going to wear it himself.
Re: And then there's this
Date: 2020-02-29 11:33 pm (UTC)Which doesn't help much for me. One of the two categories into which way too much of the nonstandard stuff in the "men's" department seems to fall is "I am so manly that my manliness overwhelms the features of this garment that you presume are feminine." Fine if one wishes to proclaim their manliness, but useless for those of us who do not.
>> it's selling the shirt to a woman who is going to put it on a man she wants to see in it <<
Which aligns nicely with the trope that men like to count on women who can pick out their clothes for them.
Re: And then there's this
Date: 2020-03-01 12:03 am (UTC)Sadly so.
I confess that one of the few shades of pink I don't entirely despise is what I can rosepetal and might as well be called mobster, and another is the hot pink favored by gay men. Advertising masculinity, as you put it, from an odd angle.
On the bright side, there are more companies now that offer gender-neutral clothes, including some for adults. So that's convenient. I almost never see them in stores -- most are online -- but sometimes I get lucky.
>>Which aligns nicely with the trope that men like to count on women who can pick out their clothes for them.<<
Plenty of men do. If that works in their relationship, fine.
Re: And then there's this
Date: 2020-03-01 12:53 am (UTC)Puts me in mind of the cheeky answer one of my gay friends has for the perennial "which one of you is the woman" question with the subtext of who's penetrating whom: "Neither of us. Gay men love men."
>> Plenty of men do. If that works in their relationship, fine. <<
Indeed. I was more noting that the existence of the trope supports the likelihood of the campaign's success, though.
Re: And then there's this
Date: 2020-03-01 02:01 am (UTC)ZOT!
>>Indeed. I was more noting that the existence of the trope supports the likelihood of the campaign's success, though.<<
It probably does.
However, there's a business opportunity for someone to present men with this shopping experience:
"Here are my measurements, preferred colors, and work/casual requirements. I need a clothing capsule for fall/winter."
*ten minutes and a cup of coffee later*
"Here is your clothing capsule. That will be $250."
"Awesome!"
I imagine millions of men would appreciate that option. It's not that different from some current options -- there are few places selling capsules to women -- but I haven't seen anyone doing it for men. And I have observed that many men just don't want to bother with shopping. Aside from occasionally buying a statement T-shirt they see and love, most of them would rather have someone else present them with a functional set of clothes that don't suck, so they can spend their time doing something other than shopping.
Re: And then there's this
Date: 2020-03-01 05:24 am (UTC)I'm female, and that's usually how I feel about wearing clothes. Occasionally I want to dress up and look pretty, but even then I want comfy stuff I can move in. And I'll usually be covering up collarbones down, allowing fot bare arms in summer and bare ankles/lower calves with a skirt.
>>Unless they are trawling for sex at the moment, most men put their bodies away.<<
Combined with common female 'fashion' this makes a disturbing sort of Fridge Logic for why rude men seem to think women want to be constantly sexualized. [Grumble.]
On a related note, if anyone needs to cover neck/collarbones/shoulders or make a snug dress less 'revealing', experiment with scarves (the big Pashmina sized ones) and pins; you can do all sorts of things and look really classy.
>>To me, that picture looks like it's selling the shirt to a woman who is going to put it on a man she wants to see in it, not selling to a man who's going to wear it himself.<<
I buy someone clothes, I get what they want, not what they look sexy in (unless that is what they want, but then they should probably do their own shopping.)
Now I'm imagining the Pit Crew's fashon designer (whose name escapes me at the moment) getting a rewquest from a prospective male clint who wants to "be attractive to women" and gets a very loooong discussion from the celibate villaness, the lesbian, chick, the bi, chick, and well, everybody else about exactly how intricate a topic that actually is. Hey, even if he's being obnoxius, he asked first, instead of just assUme-ing.