Open Letter, Number Thirty Million Or So

[mrissa]

Dear Hosiery Company:

Please examine your sizing chart. You will notice that "small" goes up to 5'5". This is well and good: women shorter than I am should be able to buy tights. You will also notice that "medium" goes down to 135#. This is also well and good: women heavier than I am should also be able to buy tights. Here's my theory, though: I should be able to buy tights.

Could you not manufacture tights in additional combinations of height and weight? Or could you not build that much more stretch into your smalls so that they will go up not-proportionally-that-long 5'6" woman legs, rather than being the ever-popular low-rise tights and causing me to worry that they will slip over the widest part of my hips and make a break for it at any moment? One's tights ought never to make a break for it. This is a rule of life. Nor ought they to be baggy upon their removal from the package. The ever popular wrinkled-elephant ankle is not "in" for this season.

I just thought you should know. I don't really expect that you'll do anything about it.

Yours Wearing SmartWool Socks,
M'ris

Comments

[flewellyn.livejournal.com]

Why is women's clothing so hard to figure out the sizes of? Men's clothing is pretty easy, overall. Why do they make it so hard for women?

Oi.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Women have more complex shapes than men, you may have noticed?

*And* much of their clothing is expected to conform to those shapes more exactly than men's clothing is.

[flewellyn.livejournal.com]

True, this is. Still, they could at least come up with a sane numbering scheme.

I understand that the size numbers have been changed several times.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

The size numbers are constantly being changed. The size numbers vary from store to store.

But men's clothing does this, too. There are men's stores where a 34" waist allows for 36" of waist, and there are probably men's stores where a 36" waist only allows for 34" of waist. They just lie about different things.

[flewellyn.livejournal.com]

Hmm...I suppose I should just try stuff on, then?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I think the latter is much more of a factor than the former. I mean, yes, there is the whole curve thing, but men don't all have the same proportions of waist and thigh and ass, either. It's not as extreme, but if clothes were expected to fit more exactly, it could make a much bigger difference in ease of clothes shopping.

Also, men who don't wear wetsuits do not have single garments that are supposed to fit them fairly exactly from shoulders to hips or knees or ankles. Not all women do, either, but dresses are a major fashion option for us, and most swimsuits are sold as a unit whether they're one piece or two.