By Sarah Clark

 

Trying to get the perfect outfit that fits snugly (but not too snugly) on your frame can be a real hassle, as any avid shopper knows and any occasional shopper will be disheartened to realise. One of the biggest reasons for this is that there is currently no standardised sizing chart for clothing in Australia. Manufacturers are free to size their clothing arbitrarily with little regard for what the tag actually reads, although they generally size down rather than up.

 

This phenomenon, known as vanity sizing, is why you might be a size eight in one store and a size fourteen in another. So let’s talk a little about why this is more of a problem than people might realise.

 

I’m currently looking at three sizing charts: one for Forever New, one for Target and one for Cotton On. At Cotton On, a size ten or a ‘small’ is supposed to have a bust measurement of 90cm, a waist measurement of 70cm and a hip measurement of 90cm. Meanwhile, over at Target the same measurements are supposedly 87cm, 68cm and 93cm respectively. Forever New’s chart reads 89-72-98…

 

Now that might not sound like a lot, but in sizing terms four centimetres is almost a full dress size difference. Furthermore, Target has two kinds of sizing, one for ‘plus’ and one for ‘regular’, so while both garments carry a size 16 label, there is a whopping 13 inch difference in bust size alone. So what’s the problem? Can’t women buy whatever size they want and shop wherever they feel most comfortable?

 

The problem is consistency - particularly in an age where we are increasingly buying online. Vanity sizing makes shopping online very difficult unless you can visit the company in person to check sizes before purchasing online. Many stores provide a sizing chart, but it’s pretty inconvenient checking each individual chart for every manufacturer and some aren’t easy to find.

 

Besides, vanity sizing buys into the idea that your clothing size matters and that we should feel bad for being anything over a size ten. Why can’t women’s clothes be sized more like men’s, in inches or centimetres? That way it would be an expression of your literal size, not a status symbol about being an eight or a small.

 

How ridiculous is it that an average-sized girl can happily fit into a ‘small’ in one store and then feel absolutely miserable because she’s an ‘extra large’ in the next? How inconsistent is it that a size ten doesn’t really mean anything, except in relation to that specific store’s size? Sometimes it doesn’t mean anything at all - I have been known to fit anything from a size eight to a size twelve (with the same measurements) in my own favourite store depending on the product’s cut.

 

If sizing was standardised, shopping would be easier, some of the sting would be taken out of clothing labels and people would be more aware of when their weight starts to impact their size - a positive for health awareness. The only real question is why the industry has avoided standardising sizes for this long.

 

What do you think about vanity sizing? Does it impact the way you shop or the clothes you buy? Let us know in the comments below!