h a l f b a k e r yWhat was the question again?
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A lot of people are not served well by the clothes sizes we have presently. It's a manufacturing shortcut, and presumably controlled by economics, but sizing of women's clothes goes 8,10,12, and so on. The obvious mistake is that they have missed out the odd numbers which could be so useful! However,
as a short person with unproportionatly long legs, I would like the stores which do 'petite' ranges to un-ghetto-ise their stock and make it so that short people can shop on the same level. Petite clothes should be resized with a system which allows for people like me who can wear a size 10 long trousers but need a size 12 petite top (otherwise it's just got to be anything baggy). There must be plenty of women with too large chests for their height, bra sizes have answered this problem fine, so I think the new system should be something like: Trousers: Size 10. Size 10-11 (long size 10). Size 9-10 (shortened size 10) Tops, blouses, sweaters: Size 12. Size 12-13 (big bust, normal length). Size 11-12 (small bust normal length). Size 11 (Small bust, short torso). Size 11-13 (Big bust, short torso). So the standard 10,12 etc sizes could be continued as normal, but these could suit the market of slightly different proportion people. And now I could buy my size 10-11 trousers and my 11-13 shirt and they would fit, without having to go into the Petite department and look out of place. And they never do the full range in petite, you always get frumpy stuff. I think this is because a lot less of the younger generation are short (something to do with dairy food in childhood). Perhaps retails chains would try to do more clothes in these different sizes, if it got popular. Well I can dream anyway.
IC3d's proprietary take on quasiconformal mapping
http://www.ic3d.com/measurements.htm
New! The Copy Cat fit, we will measure your jeans for free for a limited time only. [LoriZ, Jan 20 2002, last modified Oct 04 2004]
[link]
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I'm sure women's fashion-sizers are well-intentioned, but the feminine measuring system has always been beyond me (No off-color jokes intended). I've known women who were 5'5'', 115 lbs, who looked good in a size 4, and women who were 5'8", 130 lbs, who swore on a stack of bibles that they wore a size "0"...Really, I'm not making this up...I'd be happy, as a guy, if women would just use a standard of dress-size measurement that bore some relationship to what I'm capable of describing with my hands in the air to a "presumably " interested commisioned store clerk. If that's too difficult, could the numbers specified have some correlation to a widely accepted standard unit of measurement? (I'm comfortable enough with either inches or centimeters...semi-cubits, in a crunch)....I've already been through two divorces, and am not looking forward to the third. |
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[jurist]: Maybe it's my engineering background talking here, but I concur that the clothing industry has had its collective head up its collective butt for way too long. Those numbers don't mean a thing. Two different garments from the same manufacturer can't even agree what a '12' is, much less so what 'medium' and 'large' mean. |
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Let's face the facts here: Humans are not uni-dimensional. Furthermore, the measures in the various dimensions are only weakly correlated. Any tailor worth his or her salt can tell you that a well-fit garment usually requires 3 separate measurements. |
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So let's measure everything in cm. It's a convenient unit of measure, and there's no room to quibble about how big 100 cm is. Furthermore, let's measure with 3 dimensions: waist, hips, and leg length for pants; chest, sleeve length, and torso length for shirts. While we are at it, how about measuring shoe lengths and widths in cm as well? |
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Oh by the way, the concepts above are nothing new. The clothing industry just has too much momentum in its current direction to give in easily to intelligence. But maybe a few clothing designers could pave the way by sizing their own products intelligently, with others to follow later when the trend catches on. |
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[sappho]: None of this will force retailers to actually stock any of the rarer combinations of dimensions. |
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I guess I'm lucky. I've always been able to wear clothes off-the-rack. Even a nice expensive suit, purchased at a reputable retailer, fit me perfectly.
But the women's clothing sizes never made sense to me at all. Thankfully, I don't do drag. |
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First, have everyone get a hash number/checksum of their body that could be calculated for free by scanners in the store. Then compare it to the number of the clothes for a best fit... |
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Ah-hem. I suggested women's clothing sizes that used more than one dimension some time ago (see 'Logical US women's clothing sizes', upper right). Using a wireframe, a simplified sketch of a human showing which measurements the designer was assuming, would work better. Overloading the existing ambiguous number system makes it worse, like finding a 'size 2' and wondering if it's on the old 0-14 range, the new 0-32 range, or the even newer 1-3 range. |
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(Being able to scan for clothes near your size would also be nice. I don't think a hash does much good, as there isn't a perfect ordering of the physical clothes, which is part of the problem in the first place.) |
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I wear size L undershirts And
size Xl shirts. I am male. Once
I bought a size XL dress and it
fit me perfectly. That is cool.
My dress size equals my T-shirt
size! |
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As a clothier I do not use "standard sizes". Our sizing is for real people, not models. In fact we now mark all our clothing with "up to X inches" for chest/bust/hips/whatever. Much of our work is made to measure and is realistically priced and well sewn from good cloth (some of which we have custom woven). Oh, and it outlasts the cheap imported stuff (and some of the not-so-cheap stuff). I went to doing this because of frustration with the current "fashion (?)" industry in the US. |
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[clothier16c]: You should put your e-mail address on your halfbakery profile page. Ya' never know, there may be folks here who want to do business with you. |
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quasiconformal does not work if you are quasimodo shaped |
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