I worked in a department store's designer retail boutique years ago.

Truths:

• The same size typically runs larger if it costs more.
• The sizing system that was in place 40-50 years ago ran numerically smaller for clothing of the same size (today's 8 would have been a 6 or even a 4).
• "Women's" clothing styles are for adults. Juniors don't want to look like adults; they want to look youthful and trendy.

Reminds me of that one startup back in 2019 that thought they could solve the Bra Problem with an ✨algorithm✨ (tldr they failed) https://web.archive.org/web/20191223180103/http://bratheory.com/hiatus/

As a woman who sews her own clothes and thinks about sizing and fitting a lot, I found this super interesting (and validating)!

For any fellow sewists who want to dive deeper on fit and learn a cool way to adapt pant patterns to your body while maintaining the designers intent, I have loved Ruth Collins’ TDCO approach and Stacey’s communication of it.

My wife has to order at least two sizes of every piece of clothing that goes around her waist, even when it's a brand she's familiar with. And still there's a lot of cursing and returning.

SeraBeeves has a great comic about this.

omg proof 888888 that we live in a patriarchy

I can't even begin with this. As a perimenopausal woman who is gaining weight in new and weird places (sigh), I have given up and walked away from almost every brand. I'm eternally mending what little I have found, most terrible quality because the expectation is that if you're over size 10 you only have the money to shop from the low quality brands (e.g., the Gap brands, not great quality even at Banana Republic, have shunted everyone over 14 -- or 36 waist for males, my spouse tells me -- to Old Navy now). Funny thing, I am fortunate enough at my age to have decent money to spend on clothes, and I can't find any to buy.

But: on the other end of the spectrum, I also can't find clothes for my rail-thin teen (who is not particularly interested in wearing Prada, thank heavens). We go to Uniqlo, but while their female sizing is teeny (as noted in the article), it's not small enough, and their kids selection is very limited. J. Crew adult clothes are also way too big, even at their smallest, but Crewcuts is often too small. On the other hand, Aritzia clothes are tiny -- my kid, too small for a size 0 or 2 at most brands, is a size 4-6 Aritzia and then we have to have everything hemmed as there are no petites. And yeah, the costs for tailoring are often more than the costs of the clothes.

North American sizing is insane. It has been for a long time, at both ends of the spectrum. Who does it fit? And why do these brands thin that excluding 2/3 of the population, even the population that can afford their clothes, is a revenue strategy?

Great article. My wife loves to shop at thrift stores and the sizing is an adventure.