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Not limited to gender. I’m stronger built than the average man and have to live with too long XXL jeans with too less ass.
I’m tall and thin. A pullover size M fits perfectly, but i need the arms of a L pullover. I have a Pullover size M that is bigger than my other L pullovers. I bought a Pullover size M with nice arms, but the rest is velly free. And that are not cheap chinese clothes where ut’s notmal that an XL is a M. I just don’t understand.
It’s not a women’s problem it’s just a clothing problem in general.
I was extremely upset the other day to find out that I need an extra large in shirts at this one store. Apparently in Next if you are tall you must also be fat other body types are impossible.
And yes I have also seen the same cut in the same store but two different colours be different sizes for the same declared size.
Womens clothing tends to be worse as even more expensive clothes are sold by dress size or the generic small/medium large and only a limited number of items offer any build variations for an item. Next typically offer a petite and a tall range for some items, but not for all and they quite rare in high street retailers offering that.
Men you tend to find a waist, length, chest, neck measurement in cm/inches, which is far more useful. A lot, but not all, of trousers with actual measurement on them also offer different lengths, and in some cases different cuts (jeans are very good for this).
Nexts shirts, like a lot of high street fashion, have two broad ranges for men, casual and formal. The former is shit for sizing as its the small/medium rubbish that I wouldn’t touch with a barge pole, not least because the arms are always too fucking narrow for my arms. The latter most definitely comes in a range of body fits and actual measurements.
The best clothing is sold by the actual measurements of the garment so you can actually compare against stuff that actually fits you. I typically get stuff tailored from there as I buy larger to fit my chest/shoulders and its too long. Its not expensive (about £15 for a t shirt) if you are not buying endless fast fashion garbage and buy stuff to last instead.
The last time I went shopping for pants it took a fabric tape measure.
Even as a guy, every pair was six to ten inches larger than listed in the waist.
i am simply too impatient to buy tight or normal fitting clothing - i just buy loose M or L everything and eyeball if it should be M or L, bonus points for drawstrings but i do also own belts so anything will do.
besides, finding a well fitting pair of jeans is borderline impossible for me, because: 1. i’m a guy 2. i’m short 3. i have a big ass. those 3 combined seemingly make me a mythical creature, clothes designers don’t seem to even be capable of thinking to make jeans that’d fit me well.
jeans that fit my ass and are short enough? guess i don’t get to have pockets (because i’d need to buy in the women’s section)
guy design and big ass variant? baggy on the rest of my legs & now i need to cut them to walk
guy design & good lenghts for my legs? my ass doesn’t fit
:(
This isn’t just a problem with women’s jeans which have arbitrary size numbers. Even men’s jeans which are size by the actual waist and inseam measurement can be wrong. In addition to vanity sizing, cheaper jeans are also made from larger material cuts out of the patterns at the same time to save manufacturing cost sometimes twice as many as shown here:
Those at the top or bottom of the stack may end up a bit smaller or a bit larger than the pattern, but they all get marked with the same size.
Whether it was this manufacturing problem or vanity sizing, this is why I stopped buying Old Navy jeans. I could pick out 3 jeans all labeled with the same size and one would fit okay, one would be too small, and one too large. I have never had this problem with Eddie Bauer jeans.
Edit: I found picture showing the larger stacks (which can introduce the mismatched sizing) I was referring to:
Holy shit. This man jeans.
This is fascinating! thanks for the pics, it makes so much sense.
The only question is why they are making jeans with wax instead of denim
The ultimate jeans post
Even men’s jeans which are size by the actual waist and inseam measurement can be wrong.
They’re not generally sized by the actual waist measurement. I wear 33W and my pants all measure about 36" around the belt line. The “waist” measurement derives from many decades ago when men wore high-waisted pants where the waist was a few inches smaller than the circumference around the hips, where waistlines are today. Men were also generally a lot fitter back then, too!
Dickes’s work pants are always like this, horribly inconsistent. But they were cheap and they last forever so you just have to grab a pile of the same size, try them all on and buy the ones that fit. Good luck ordering online…
Is that then called a jeack?
Even for men’s clothes the sizing seems to only really be consistent within the same item, maybe brand. Even though they’re supposed to be measurements you still have to try everything on.
We haven’t even talked about kids clothing yet…ohhh boyyy does that one suck
Being the kid sucks worse
You’re dragged around the store as a living mannequin, while simultaneously being bored out of your mind
I was in a clothing store last week that only started at L for mens clothing. Theres also a shoe store closeby that only sells mens shoes for 40 (EU) and above.
Like wtf, there are plenty of men that are smaller than 180cm and that have small feet. At least give me some options. These are the same stores that complain that everybody orders their shit online nowadays.
Maybe those are specifically for big people, it’s really hard for them to find suitable sizes in regular stores.
No, it was a normal store from a german name brand. They had one jacket in S and one shirt in M. Even the employee said that its just a shitty order policy by their bosses.
A shitty order policy or just knowing their regular customers?
The employee told me that there are tons of other men having the same problem at that store. Just because 80% of your customers wear L or larger doesn’t mean you shouldnt stock any inventory for the 20% that wear S or M.
Oh, they are just minmaxing you out. I’m not in retail, but my manager always tells me to only go for the easy 80%
Yeah! Last time I go into a store called “Destination XL.”
(I’m joking, I saw the rest of your comments about this.)
Really? I’ve been buying the same size of trousers since I stopped growing. And I only went up one size for some upper body garments because I put on quite a bit of muscle.
I was buying pants the other day and I was a 34 in one brand and a 36 in another.
I bought 4 polo shirts from the same brand, 2 black, 2 white. All of them in small. Black fits perfectly but white seems like its 2 sizes too big. Worst part is that small is their smallest size… But I’m trying to fix it with a reverse diet.
Men’s pants too. And at the same store, by the EXACT SAME maker.
I have 34’s, 36’s and 38’s in different colours and materials. They all fit comfortably, and if i get different sizes in those particular styles, they’re either too big or too small.
Make it make sense, please.
I’ve literally purchased 2 identical pairs and they’ve still been different sizes
One relevant fact about men’s pants is that the W (waist) size dates from the 1930s and 1940s when men wore high-waisted pants. The actual waist measurement was always about 3" smaller than the circumference around the hips; as the waistline of men’s pants migrated downwards to where it is today, manufacturers kept the nominal W measurement of how big the waistline would have been if it had still been higher. I generally wear pants with a 33W but the actual circumference around the belt line is always around 36". It’s not vanity sizing so much as anachronistic sizing.
There was a comedian a few decades ago who had a routine about how the aging process in men means your pants start migrating up towards your neck, but in reality it was just old men continuing to wear the kind of pants they had gotten used to as young men. It’s a common phenomenon - I work with a bunch of women in their late 50s and early 60s and they all still have feathered haircuts like women did in the late 1970s and 1980s.
That’s just poor quality control.
Yes, that’s exactly what it is.
Which brand has good quality control?
Not Levi’s lol.
I just got some women’s Levi’s and holy crap it was hard to find the size. I’m about 38-31-41 in inches and 5’9" often jeans fit in a “29” sometimes 28, or 30.
I ordered the 29. Hips fit but waist measurement was 25", what the actual fuck? Who has a 24" waist and 41" hips? Is that even possible?
I ended up with a 31 but they really are too loose everywhere. So comfortable and were cheap so I kept them but WTF, Levi’s?
They’re not a fashion brand, but I’ve had good quality long lasting jeans from Eddie Bauer.
You gained weight after the first purchase, and then converted the fat to muscle in the second purchase
Schrodinger’s body composition: fat or muscle depending on what pair of pants you wear.
I know this is a problem, as I see my wife deal with it frequently.
But understand that men’s sizes aren’t consistent either. I have a 32" waist…maybe. Some jeans and shorts fit me perfectly, some are way too tight, and some are way too loose. Even within the same brand and product. The jeans I have on today are pretty good for fit. A different pair of jeans I was wearing a few days ago required regular adjustments to keep from falling down. My weight hasn’t varied THAT much.
The situation for men isn’t as bad as women’s sizes, though. I’d love to know how they think they can compress all of the different measurements a woman’s body can have into a single number. At least they haven’t tried that with men - for example, pants are waist and inseam length, so you can usually get what you need, or at least pretty close (notwithstanding the above issue). If they condensed that into one number, I have no idea how that would work.
Yeah as a trans woman it was bittersweet when my hips stopped fitting in men’s jeans. They’re sturdier with bigger pockets and way more (but not really) consistently sized.
The problem in men’s sizes is tolerances in fabric cutting as they stack more and more sheets per cut. Women’s clothes do that while also playing calvinball.
All this means rhat as a long legged skinny girl with thick thighs, biker’s calves, and an ass I’d only trade while pant shopping, pant shopping is a long pain in the ass.
Big and Tall brands don’t give waistband sizes often anymore in my experience. They just add xs to ls now
There’s a slightly better balance with consistency for men’s clothes because styles and patterns don’t need to change as frequently.
That being said, it varies by brand and varies more when the brand is lower quality. Old Navy clothes might as well be sized “No way,” “I dunno,” “maybe, well, no,” and “Woah, way too big.” But something higher end like BR will be consistent with themselves on things like jeans that rarely change. All the people in some sweatshop in Bangladesh have the patterns down doing the same thing for years.
I’m a size M guy, everything from head to toe is M. If M doesn’t fit, I will try S, but most of the time that is too small, so I just skip that fit or brand. Sometimes the size difference is so ridiculous it might as well be two different shirts. One time I tried a polo in M and it looked like an oversized 90s hip‑hop shirt on me so I tried the S and it was so tight it looked like swimwear lol.
I really want a law that requires clothes sizes to use actual, verifiable measurements.
yeah hope they’ll get right on that, add it to the list. we’ve already got one on the list: pass a law saying you cant shrink portion sizes on your labels until you can say “zero calories” in each of 1000 servings of oil
Its not hard to have a waist circumference then short/mid/long. I think that’s how overalls are sized - in practice its try them on & allow for shrinkage after a couple of washes.
i know the author is only familiar with their own experiences and i don’t expect them to know the other side but this is definitely not exclusive to women’s clothes. every brand just uses their own sizes for everything from hats to pants to shoes.
Some woman shop for/wear “men’s” clothes, either because they shop for the men in their life, or for themselves because the standards are more sensible (even if not perfect) compared to women’s sizing. In other situations, we wear “men’s” cut clothes because it’s the default - like when a workplace gives everyone a free T-shirt. 9 times out of 10, it’s probably a cut designed for men - even if the workplace has a majority of women (as was the case when I worked in a nursing home.)
At least for pants, a lot of men’s pants sizes usually go off a band + length measurement, which is a ratio that women’s clothes don’t offer at all. T-shirts can be bad either way, but I once grabbed two (“women’s”) shirts off the same rack in a store and both fit me perfectly - one was Small, the other was Extra Large. I’ve never seen that bad of a difference when trying on “men’s” clothes, and that’s part of why I prefer to buy from the men’s section. It’s more sensible.
So yeah, vanity sizing hurts everyone. But unless you do shop for both men’s and women’s clothes, it’s hard to appreciate just how awful vanity sizing is for women in particular.
Shoes are there worst. I need EE width. Some brands, the"Wide Fit" works. Others, “Extra Wide”. And that doesn’t even address how extremely difficult it is to even find wide shoes in-store nowadays.
I just want to see more women’s clothes with pockets.
Big pockets! Bigger than a chapstick
Sew your own
There’s a ton of tutorials on YT, and a basic sewing machine is like $80
(Not to say that women’s pants shouldn’t have decent pockets, just that you’re not forced to deal with them)
While true, it’s hardly fair that I, as a man, don’t need to learn to sew, buy a sewing machine , spend time getting materials or actually doing the sewing in order to have good pockets. My pants just come with good pockets.
Yes, but men’s clothes come with the other issues, too. I just started sewing my own pants because I couldn’t find a pair that was in the right spot between good fit and style, affordability, quality and not being made under exploitive labour conditions.
and not being made under exploitive labour conditions.
It’s that last one that’ll get you.
While that’s certainly true, I don’t think that doesn’t apply to women’s clothing as well nor does it change that women’s clothing not having pockets is kinda bullshit, even though you can technically add your own after the fact.
It would be more of a “yes, but…” Situation if women’s clothing that didn’t have pockets always fit perfectly and hit all the criteria you mentioned. They have that problem and they don’t get pockets.That’s what I wrote though, sorry if that’s not clear enough.
That takes time, the rare spare time not everyone has and not everyone wants to spend on making a bought product useful.
I’m time, space, and cash poor. I just want clothes I can wear.
I don’t understand why women say this, then buy clothes without pockets (or without useful pockets).
Because often the options are non existant
That’s funny, I’m over here wishing for men’s clothes with less pockets
How dare you make such a dangerous wish.
There are plenty of men’s pants with just the front and rear pockets!
I got two work shirts at the same time. Both size 44, same manufacturer, theoretically identical shirts.
Almost a full letter grade size difference, one is basically a L and the other was almost an XL.
How do they fuck up 2 supposedly identical shirts? Fucked if I know.
How do they fuck up 2 supposedly identical shirts? Fucked if I know.
Well, clothes are still sewn by low-paid workers in sweatshops, not industrial robots, so I guess some variation is to be expected.
It’s so frustrating. I’ve most often experienced this with two of the same item in different colors or fabrics, but not always. Once I was trying on a particular jacket at Uniqlo and the size medium was super tiny but the size small fit just right. Did they mix up the size tags sewn into the jackets, or what?
Where were they manufactured?
This is one of many reasons I don’t buy textbook economics of capitalism.
For example, if they’d just put lots of pockets in women’s clothing decades ago as standard, they’d have sold SOOOO much.
This idea that capitalism and the free hand of the market will gravitate towards bulk of demand is bullshit.
I use to work retail selling (mostly) women clothes. At one point we had the same model of sundress with and without pockets. Every one of them that was watching or trying the one without got like super hyped and excited when we told them we had it with pockets. The pocketless one still sold better. And it wasn’t even a tight fitting dress, it was slack and baggy.
Capitalism’s goal is profits. Not helping the customer, selling more, or anything else. We’re in late-stage capitalism, so it is ‘Profits Uber Alles’.
I read a thing (not sure if it’s true) that the reason there’s no pockets in women’s clothing is that women have more diverse body shapes than men. Pockets are designed not to interrupt the lines of the garment where possible - it’s more straightforward to place men’s pockets because they’re going to be in a more predictable place when worn Vs women where it ends up making the clothes fit poorly.
where it ends up making the clothes fit poorly
a.k.a makes the clothes fit anything but skin-tight because the pockets need space so the clothes have to be wider-cut
That seems like an oversimplification, outside looking in for me, but there’s no way a single dimension could ever adequately describe an item of clothing - my sister and wife have similar sized waists, but something tight round the posterior on my wife would be baggy on my sister.
Random memory unlocked: Back in high school, I had to borrow my girlfriend’s jeans for some reason I don’t remember. (We happened to wear the same size.) I do remember having SO MUCH room in the pockets, because I had narrower hips.
Unfortunately, I’m pretty sure that this is one instance that validates the textbook approach. In addition to the comment here, I had read several on the red site several years ago, one I remember from a buyer for a chain of outdoor gear stores, and another from the owner of a boutique clothing store. Both said that they tried to get women’s clothing with real pockets, but eventually gave up because it just doesn’t sell.
This topic came up in a group of my sailor friends on a boat last week, and ironically, all of the women’s garments had good pockets, so they couldn’t provide an example. But then, they were all wearing utilitarian clothing, rather than stylish. One friend had just bought new pants from REI; I’ve noticed for decades that if you want real pockets, shop at REI.
For what it’s worth, stylish, form-fitting men’s clothing also has tiny, or no pockets.
“outside straight sizes” wat? they have gay sizes too?
Shopping for trousers as a fat kid before elastic waistbands became mainstream on “regular” clothes was an extended humiliation. “The waist is too tight! the legs are too long!” No, I’m just fucking deformed because I’m fat.
Straight sizes (xs - xxxl) vs Plus sizes (0x - 5x)
Designers create garments for one size (typically Large), and then scale it down and up for the other sizes, but above a certain threshold that doesn’t proportion correctly, so plus sizes are scaled from 2x.
The term “straight” here was originally opposed to curved.
Thank you
I used to be a “husky” kid. Now I have the opposite problem - so difficult to find 34x34 in thrift shops/marketplace. Seems everyone my height has more waistline than inseam.
I’d smarm it up with “what’s wrong with a belt/bracers” but having lost weight (then regained it) the amount of folding over that can happen for trousers that are for people much bigger than you can be quite uncomfortable
No one’s mentioned bras and how they are significantly worse? Lets make arbitrary cup and band sizes, but then add in how each bra has a different shape and projection even in the same brand. Are you full on top, full on bottom, average, shallow? What about root width and height? Well you won’t know if any bra will fit until you try, even changing cup and band sizes won’t make a bra not made for your shape fit properly. Each brand does their own different sizing even in each bra, each global country has their own sizing system, and it is madness.
Lemmy needs a community for A Bra That Fits. It’s hard to express just how bad the bra-sizing problem is in the US. It goes far and beyond vanity sizing. I don’t even bother with US sizes anymore. Not only do the sizes mean next-to-nothing, but most stores only carry up to about ~ 44 DDD. Which means that many people who require different sizes end up wearing what’s available - even if it doesn’t fit right. When I measure myself and plug it into a bra sizing calculator, I end up with something even specialty lingerie shops don’t carry. But that’s not a problem for Victoria’s Secret or whatever - they’ll attempt to push whatever they have in stock, even if its sizing makes no sense, because their end goal is to make a sale - not to actually help you.
I suspect the powers of capitalism (aided by the internet/shopping online) have convinced most stores not to carry sizes that aren’t mainstream. Yes, this even applies to boutique shops that supposedly cater to larger sizes. They don’t want to keep stock that isn’t likely to move, which means tons of people like me end up getting completely shafted. I could spend hours researching places, making calls, traveling across the state to find these places, find the one or two bras in the entire building that actually fit me, just to end up with a material that makes me itch or has an ugly style that only a grandma would wear. (Sexy lingerie? For massive titties? LOL good luck finding that.) I’ve wasted days doing this, and it’s only gotten worse since Covid (when many stores moved inventory out of physical buildings and made them exclusively available online. Which defeats the point of actually going to their stores at all.) My only real option is to bra shop online, using British sizes, and fucking pray that everything will work out all right.
On top of that, bras are expensive. Prices vary with sales and all, but I’d say about $50 is average for one. Add in the scarcity aspect and the varying quality levels (that I can’t afford to be picky about), and I’m lucky to own 2-3 bras that fit at any given time. I have to hand-wash and thoroughly dry my bra most nights so I can wear it again the next day without risking a yeast infection. It absolutely sucks and there isn’t a damn thing I can do about it.
I agree! I was wanting a woman-oriented instance that could host things like ABTF. If I went with piefed it would help with voting being available to subscribers, but I would also like a way to have it hidden from /all. I would like to get it up and running but we’ll see.
Even when I tried Victoria’s Secret, they never had pretty/sexy colors/styles in my “size” (they sized me incorrectly, too small at 34DDD). Even the calculator got me wrong and told me 34FF/F (too big). I ended up being 36E in Panache in certain styles. They are expensive, but I’ve been ordering it online at places that accepts returns to try on, then buy cheaper on places like ebay. I was also a 34G in Chantelle. Have you tried Polish bras? I think they are much more expensive but people on that sub were always bringing up Ewa Michalak. I haven’t tried it since I’ve found some consistency in Panache.
I hate hand-washing btw, I usually throw them in a washing machine with a lingerie bag and air dry them but recently tried hand-washing and fuck that noise. I’m going to try to stick with hand-washing to extend the lifespan but ugh. I also managed to scrub off one of my bras’ label info on accident q.q It was so exhausting. I can’t imagine having to do that every day, so sorry.
The whole “cup size” thing is so weird. Even the name “cup” makes it sound like it’s based on volume, but it’s not. It’s the difference between a measuring tape wrapped at boob height vs a measuring tape wrapped just below the boobs. This means that a 36A and a 28E might have the same volume of breast tissue but wildly different “cup sizes”. It really seems like the whole thing would be a lot easier to manage if there were just a “breast volume” measurement and a “band length” measurement.
