The US women's clothing market - and, to some degree, many European systems - size all clothing with one number. Clearly, this doesn't allow for the tremendous variation in human proportions. Much customer time is lost trying things on; there is unnecessary wear on the unwanted garments; it is a dire disadvantage to online shopping.

Clothing should be marked with something like a sketch of a wireframe human - seven measurements are standard for sewing patterns - and measurements given for each. Men's shirts, with collar-and-sleeve measurements, approximate this already (note that chest & drop measurements have to be added even there, for outliers).
-- hello_c, Sep 06 2000

Land's End custom virtual mannequin http://wwwservices1...__sid=0968306799210
A decent stab at a similar idea [hello_c, Sep 06 2000, last modified Oct 04 2004]

This problem is independent of sizes; it's a matter of proportions.
-- hello_c, Sep 06 2000


I like this idea - tall women with slender figures wouldn't have to spend so much damn time wondering if the pants are going to be too short in the legs and/or too big in the waist. I hate that.
-- Caroline Rose, Sep 06 2000


With a 7 dimensional measurement space, the shop would need to hold considerably more stock to accomodate all shapes and sizes, and arranging the display racks would be tricky. With an online shop, the idea is readily achieveble. Send down your measurements, and virtual Naomi Campbell (whoever) is synthesised, dressed in the outfit of your choice. `She' struts her stuff, and if you want to buy, the sized design spec is shipped to a robot seamstress for execution and delivery.
-- Mickey the Fish, Sep 06 2000


The shop doesn't have to carry any more than it does now, or pay any more attention to fitting customers it doesn't want. With accurate measuring it will merely take much less time for a customer to know whether she wants to try the clothing on. This should reduce wear on the clothes, the customer, and the clerks.

Truly custom clothing requires many more measurements, and it would negate the point to have someone with *different* measurements model, virtually or not! The Land's End virtual-you (see link) is a much better approach. Double points to them for letting the user stay anonymous.
-- hello_c, Sep 07 2000


I did actually have in mind something like the Land's End approach when I annotated. I agree that a standard sized virtual model would be useless.

Thanks for the link. Is there a site for blokes (..I mean where the generated model will be male) ?
-- Mickey the Fish, Sep 07 2000


In my experience, most physical blokes' togs emporia label their clothes according to actual sizes - shirt collars & sleeve lengths, trouser waist & inseam, for instance. This has probably postponed the need for a virtual one (tho' the idea of letting a customer see privately if clothes would be becoming is a nice one anyway).
-- hello_c, Sep 07 2000


Cloting sizes are logical, in the computer science sense, rather than physical. That way a size 6 remains a size 6 all her life even as she gets wider. After all, there is no way a size 6 would ever buy a dress that is size 7. It is easier to choose another dress that is size 6.
Manufacturers understand this and increase the physical size of a logical "size 6" over time.
-- carlp, Oct 05 2000


One number is still insufficient, in either the computer science sense or any other... I don't know, for instance, if a store's '6' is my 6, or the 6 of someone who changed shape faster than I did, or the 6 of someone of the same circumference but a different height.
-- hello_c, Oct 05 2000


Can't I just down/upload the Virtual Naomi Cambell or better yet, Halle Berry instead? Good luck stocking stores-When it comes to leaving fitting rooms in decent condition for the next person, women are pigs.
-- thumbwax, Oct 06 2000


I am male. I have a 37-inch waist, therefore I wear size 38 pants. Why aren't women's clothing sizes inch-based like mens?
-- Juuitchan, Jan 04 2001


Yessss! Brilliant idea!

While we're at it, could we please standardize Small, Medium, and Large? Or at least force manufacturers to describe 'em better?
-- drue, Jan 08 2001


Women whose butts are too big can wear sweat pants--one size fits all.
-- Vance, Jan 30 2001


Vance: Too big for what?

And last time I checked, sweatpants came in multiple sizes just like everything else.
-- PotatoStew, Jan 30 2001


Anyone want to boycott Kohl's Department Stores with me? I am an average sized female, and in any respectable establishment, I wear a size 7/8 pants. At Kohls, however, I cannot dream of squeezing into even an 11/12! Blasthphomy
-- DreamGoddess, Jan 30 2001


It really depends on the store you buy from. There are a couple here (and elsewhere that I've been) where women's pants come in inch sizes, like men's pants. But the bonus? The pant length also comes in two sizes, regular and petite, a real boon for the short woman (like me)! But I'm afraid I don't know of anything for you if you're more willowy.
-- nano_mars, Mar 16 2001


Ah well - you acn always make like Bubbles Rothchild (not Michael Jackson's Bubbles) and get a smaller size label sewn into your clothes.
-- kael, Jul 09 2003


I just bought a pair of Sonoma jeans from Kohls. I am a size 10 sometimes 12 and I bought 2 pair of size 6! I am not a 6 buy just had to buy them! If only some real weight loss came with them!
-- jewels72, Dec 06 2003


I think its some hidden universal law of clothing physics that all department stores and countries have sizing that does not match.
-- Space-Pope, Dec 07 2003



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