Size Lies

Written by Nicola Hyland

Want to drop a dress size without ditching the Tim-Tams? AskBronny says it’s easy! Now anyone can be a size zero! We give you the real scoop on the great size lies.

A woman walks into a shop. "I want to buy a pair of jeans," she says, "I’m a size 12." She arms herself with three pairs of size twelve jeans and heads to the dressing room. The first pair swims on her. The second barely makes it past her ankles. The third is just right – well, apart from the ludicrously long length of the legs.

Sound familiar? It will come as no shock to anyone that there are substantial discrepancies in woman’s fashion sizing; particularly evident if you have gained a little more body 'lining' and yet have miraculously gone down a dress size. Like those ubiquitous slim-line mirrors, "vanity sizing" is just another way retailers manipulate shoppers by appealing to their sensitive egos.

The language of fashion sizing
Any worshipper of fashion will know how difficult it is to find the right size abroad. Many Aussies travelling in the States marvel at how they can fit an outfit three sizes smaller then at home, even after downing a gargantuan Texan rib burger normally guaranteed to bring on heart failure. Sorry, ladies. You’ve been had.

Fashion sizing standardisation occurred following the growth of mass-production industries during the industrial revolution. The increased popularity of ready-to-wear clothing and the widespread manufacturing of uniforms in the early 20th Century led to the development of a set sizing system. After gathering statistics calculating the various bodily dimensions of a cross-section of the population, a European standard was developed: EN 13402. Two standard systems operate in the United States: The American Society of Testing and Chemicals and US Standard Clothing size. The independence of these bodies and the ho-hum compliance to their guidelines has led to the incongruity of sizing between the UK, Europe, the United States and Asia.

Dress sizes are taken from three measurements – the bust (from across the shoulder blades, the fullest part of the breast and under the armpits), the waist, and the dimensions around the fullest part of the hip.

Here is a table of the basic conversion of international standard woman’s dress sizesAustralia/New Zealand:

Aus/NZ	2	4	6	8	10	12	14	16	18	20	22
USA	0	2	4	6	8	10	12	14	16	18	20
UK	2	4	6	8	10	12	14	16	18	20	22
France	30	32	34	36	38	40	42	44	46	48	50
Italy	34	36	38	40	42	44	46	48	50	52	54
Japan	3	5	7	9	11	13	15	17	19	21	23

Now forget it. Particularly in the United States - where abiding to standard clothing sizing is purely voluntary - you may find three vastly irregular sized outfits that each profess to be the same size. In Australia, most manufacturers generally abide by the standardised measurement system, recently enhanced by using three-dimensional scanned composites. However, with the influence of overseas designers and markets crowding the local industry, many chain outlets bow to the pressures of flattering egos by 'downsizing'. Even though New Zealand is supposed to follow the same size guidelines, I miraculously dropped a dress size when I arrived in Melbourne two years ago.

You’re so vain…
Vanity Sizing is a marketing tool designed to hide the truth from women facing the increasing pressure to be see-through thin. Marilyn Monroe used to be a voluptuous size 14-16. Now she could be a size 6. It seems women are far more likely to buy something that makes them seem smaller then they are used to. It is not that all shoppers are plain stupid – most know what is going on – but to many it is simply heart-warming to pretend they are slimming towards their goal size. It is like the size of our clothing dictates happiness. Nobody would buy something that had "Fat" on the label. But who are we really kidding? The fact is, it is not like anyone else can actually see the tiny 2 on the inside label. That is, unless you regularly drop your trousers in public…

The Super-sized Average
Many US retailers have defended the continued size modification on the fact that the "average" woman is now considerably larger then the average size our grandmothers were 50 years ago. The "average" woman in the United States is around 5.4 feet tall (1.64 metres) and 155 pounds (70 kilograms) - about 10 kilograms heavier then the average woman in 1957. The 'average' woman of today would have been a US size 16 in the 1950s, but is more likely to be a US10 or 12 today. As Large becomes Medium, the more petite woman finds herself hurled towards No-woman’s land: zero territory.

The Sub-zeros
Many of us first heard of the seemingly mythical size zero around the time Ally McBeal was at a popular peak. Whether or not it was official production policy, it seemed that the actresses on that show filled about 80 per cent less screen space then your regular starlet. Keeping in mind that the camera adds ten pounds (4.5 kilograms), Ally and her petite posse still appeared to have the dimensions of tiny well-dressed ironing boards. When I discovered that they were all battling it out to fit into size 0, I was a little shocked. Size zero? Shouldn’t size zero actually be the standard measurement of an invisible person?

Oh contraire. There were actual real life woman out there with 25 inch (63½cm) waistlines.
But wait, there’s more. Now it seems that size zero is just NOT SMALL ENOUGH. The new zero is SUB ZERO. The sub-zero woman has a waist size of 23 ½ inches (59½ cm) and hip size of 35 inches (89cm). Legend has it that a famous footballer’s wife of minute proportions now wears negative sizes and allegedly has a waistline smaller then the circumference of an average soccer ball. Just imagine trying to cuddle that…

Rich equals thin
Ever heard the saying: "You can never be too rich or too thin"? Apparently the rich can be 'thin' without having the fat sucked out of their bottoms (and pumped into their lips). Generally the more you pay for an outfit, the smaller it will be on the label. Expensive clothing is often cut "more generously" than your average cheap-clothes-are-us bargain buy. The quandary is this: do you really want to pay more just to be superficially thinner?

Super model sizing
The vanity sizing fracas probably has a lot to do with the reduced size of the average supermodel. Ever since Twiggy sashayed onto the catwalk in the 1960s, the debate over skinny models has raged across the globe. With the 2006 banning of "too thin" models in Madrid, the idea that fashion should never be modelled by realistic-sized woman has faced even more criticism. Just two decades ago, the typical runway model was less then 10% smaller then the 'average' person.

Today the average is almost 25% smaller.
We all know that runway fashion is designed for woman with one-dimensional measurements. Now let’s think about why models were introduced in the first place – because we wanted to see what clothes looked like off the hangers. Not worn by women who look like hangers.

Beating the Size Lies
Outlets that have several designers may confuse shoppers with the inconsistency of sizes –the rule is ALWAYS TRY ON FIRST. At least then you can look at yourself under the flattering lights in the super-slim-line mirrors in your new under-size jeans. Also remember that Vintage clothing is typically much smaller sizes, so be careful when choosing a second-hand bargain.

A great way to see where you fit in a standardised model is checking out the measurement guides in a sewing pattern. Patterns such as Vogue have had the same standard measurements for years. Making your own clothing ensures that the size you make should fit you like a dream – has anyone really ever brought something ready-made that fits as perfectly? Size should be dictated by a combination of physical measurements, including a calculation of the BMI (Body Mass index). Not by a random number dictated by style lunatics.

I am a seasoned label remover. This basically started when I was younger and was always really irritated by interior neck labels. Now it keeps me on track; the only other person who knows the size I buy is the person taking my money.

So next time when someone asks you what size you wear, Ask Bronny recommends you reply "Oh, Me-sized."

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