0 is the new 8

48 thoughts on 0 is the new 8

1. I’ve always liked the “downsizing” thing, because women have often defined themselves by their clothes sizes (“I’m a size 6”) and this makes it more or less meaningless. Sort of how grade inflation, if you believe it exists, makes high grades meaningless. But I think that a high grade should be something to be proud of, whereas a small size should just reflect your body type, no better or worse than someone else’s, so this trend is a step in the right direction. If any of that makes sense.

2. Well, 0 may be the new 8, but 14 is also the new 8.

   I am a very large woman, both in height and girth. Yet. I have pants I bought for all of $25 five years ago at Old Navy that are Misses’ 20. And while they don’t fit perfectly, they do fit. Yet in their women’s sizes, I’m a 24, or, if I’m lucky, a 22.

3. You know, they could size it by inches like they do with men’s clothing (at least pants and dress shirts)…but that would be too logical.

4. Part of it is that you’re “rewarded” for being short, I think. Instead of having the old petite/regular/tall sizing, short women are able to get into 0s and 2s when someone taller who has the same height/weight ratio is a 6 or 8. That’s my guess because everyone tells me I’m skinny but I still wear a supposedly-huge size 6 in jeans.

5. Part of it is that you’re “rewarded” for being short, I think. Instead of having the old petite/regular/tall sizing, short women are able to get into 0s and 2s when someone taller who has the same height/weight ratio is a 6 or 8. That’s my guess because everyone tells me I’m skinny but I still wear a supposedly-huge size 6 in jeans.

   Jesus, how true that is. I was in law school with a woman who was 5’10”, with legs that went on forever (the only way she could get pants that reached her heels was to buy men’s 36″ pants), and she thought she was too fat because she wore a size 8. At one point, she’d worn a size 0, which she considered her ideal size. Yet everyone at school who’d seen the photos from this time thought she’d just walked out of Bergen-Belsen.

6. I find that I am have a new and annoying problem when I try to buy pants. I’m on the short end of average height (about 5’5″). Whenever I try on pants in the “misses” section, they are almost invariably about 4 inches too long. Petite pants are about 2 inches too short. I don’t remember ever having this problem before, and my legs are the same length they’ve always been. Are they cutting pants longer now? What the hell?

7. Aaarrggh. “Rewarded” for being short? I’m 5 feet 0, and 95 pounds (one of the really tiny girls Jill mentions) and it’s basically impossible for me to find clothes that fit me in adult sizes. Old Navy and Gap have girls’ clothes that (sometimes) fit, but of course at 30 I have proportionally bigger hips than a 12 or 14 year old. Size 0 in women’s clothes is still too long. Old Navy 0 short fits, but I don’t think stores ever order more than 2 pairs of that size.

   It would be freaking awesome if there were proper standard sizes like in men’s pants. Though I guess some jeans are sized like that (but still always too long for me of course)

   Of course, it “feels” much better that clothes are too big instead of too small, and I am certainly socially rewarded for being teeny (well, not always. The constant infantilization and not being taken seriously isn’t so great.)

8. I’m not small or skinny – 5 ft. 7 and about 150 pounds – but I too have had it with today’s ridiculous sizes. I can wear anything from an 8 to a 12 in pants and a small to an extra-large in shirts — it all depends on the designer and the particular item of clothing. Clothes shopping is a nightmare — I friggin’ hate having to take three sizes of everything in the dressing room with me. The clothing manufacturers need to buy a clue and stop this ridiculous catering to women’s vanity and our society’s all-consuming obsession with thinness.

9. Actually, my most recent shopping nightmare involved finding out that vanity sizing is now a problem with BRAS! The one damn piece of clothing I owned where a number corresponded to an actual measurement! grrrrr.

10. How is this a problem the market can’t solve? I’ve never met a woman who didn’t bemoan inconsistency in sizes and odd cuts and all the other shopping-associated problems. Do we just settle for less because we have to wear something? Is there too much choice, so it’s impossible to actually find what you want? What exactly is the disconnect here between supply and demand?

11. Stores seem to like making pants super long. It’s the lazy way out of having to offer short, regular, and long sizes. If all the pants are too long for everyone, then everyone has to waste time hemming the damn things.

12. I have the same problem with pants being too long–I’m 5’5″, which you’d think would be average, but the only pants that aren’t way too long on me are Old Navy ankle-length pants (or the Gap’s short length, which seems to be the same thing, but Old Navy is cheaper).

13. I’ve learned to eyeball clothing to tell whether or not it will fit me. 75% of the time I’m right. I truly hate shopping and tryng things on, and mostly do my shopping online (go ebay!). Know your measurements, and have an idea of what these measurements look like in person. Sizing my ass.

14. And yes, they do make pants longer now, in part thanks to the high heel trend.

15. I really don’t think designers only make too long pants, because I have a really difficult time finding pants that are long enough for me. I”m 5’11” and I usually have to try on my size in the store in regular or tall (which are usually just barely long enough for me to wear with flats) and then special order the extra tall pants online or from the catalog. Which are generally more expensive than the regular sized pants, plus I have to pay shipping cost. And this doesn’t even start on the fact that, depending on where I shop and the style I want, I can wear any size from a 10 to a 16, so I can never just buy stuff without trying it on. Oh, and is it really too difficult for designers to understand that tall women do have hips? Even if we aren’t overweight, we aren’t all skinny toothpicks either.

16. In one of my (many) major changes in college I took a course in fashion design, where we learned the process of clothesmaking from design to pattern making to production. One interesting point was that instead of making patterns in each size, many manufacturers reduce costs by making the pattern for the standard size 8 and then reduce/enlarge the pattern from there to the other sizes. Each size up or down, a certain amount of error creeps into the pattern so as you get farther from the size 8 you have a lot of error. Which explains some of the reason that if you are a size 2 or a size 16, you have trouble finding things that “fit”. The better brands (more expensive) don’t do this as much, which helps with fit.

    I had great advice from a woman I knew years ago. She was very large and always dressed very fashionably. She got a lot of compliments on her wardrobe. One day we were observing a woman who was wearing clothes that were clearly too tight on her. My friend observed that this woman was too stubborn to buy clothes in the next size up, that she was stuck on identifying with Size 6, or whatever her size was. She told me, always wear what fits, regardless of size. If someone likes your outfit, they will always ask, “where did you get it?” and not “what size is it?”.

17. PurrpleGrrl, I totally see where you’re coming from. I’m 5’1″, 105 lb. Always been tiny, I have a high metabolism and I find it very annoying that I can’t gain weight easily. When I was in junior high, I was a size small in shirts and 3 in pants. Now, 15 years later, I’m an XS, or sometimes XXS, and size 0 and 00 in pants! My first thought when I realized this was that I must have shrunk, which made no sense. It’s very hard to find clothes that fit, and I always get embarrased when a size 0 is too big for me and I have to shop at the girls’ section, as if somehow I’m less of a woman because I’m tiny.

    On the other end of the spectrum, my best friend from college is 5’11”, not too skinny but not large either, and she always complaints that pants are too short for her, and the ones that do fit her in length are too wide at her waist.

18. A related rant: does anyone else have problems buying clothes because they’re “too muscular”? I’m in pretty good shape, but pants never fit properly through the thigh and calf since I fenced. Same thing with my upper arms.

19. still wear a supposedly-huge size 6 in jeans.

    I know you’re being sarcastic, Amanda, but jesus. A size 6 is teh miniscule. Is wearing a size 6 really the mark of a whale these days? Damn, I hate this country sometimes.

20. still wear a supposedly-huge size 6 in jeans.

    I know you’re being sarcastic, Amanda, but jesus. A size 6 is teh miniscule. Is wearing a size 6 really the mark of a whale these days? Damn, I hate this country sometimes.

21. still wear a supposedly-huge size 6 in jeans.

    I know you’re being sarcastic, Amanda, but jesus. A size 6 is teh miniscule. Is wearing a size 6 really the mark of a whale these days? Damn, I hate this country sometimes.

22. My weight has fluctuated wildly over the years. My pet peeve is not only ‘large’ not being very large or that numbered sizes are not to be trusted, but that styles and designs for larger women are just not what I liked to wear. I dressed pretty conservatively when i was fit and now I find the styles of ‘larger’ women’s clothes seem matronly. I am not a kindergarten teacher, don’t wear big jewelry and wouldn’t be caught dead in huge flowers, lacy frills, polyester or whatever else is hawked as ‘plus’ styles.

    i buy carpenter jeans in the men’s section, have a few pairs of dress pants and shirts that somewhat fit and that’s it. I just hate clothes shopping, it always seems a horribly degrading and demoralizing experience.

23. I really don’t think designers only make too long pants, because I have a really difficult time finding pants that are long enough for me. I”m 5′11″ and I usually have to try on my size in the store in regular or tall (which are usually just barely long enough for me to wear with flats) and then special order the extra tall pants online or from the catalog. Which are generally more expensive than the regular sized pants, plus I have to pay shipping cost. And this doesn’t even start on the fact that, depending on where I shop and the style I want, I can wear any size from a 10 to a 16, so I can never just buy stuff without trying it on. Oh, and is it really too difficult for designers to understand that tall women do have hips? Even if we aren’t overweight, we aren’t all skinny toothpicks either.

    Oh God, I know exactly what you mean. I’m also 5’11” and I got so fed up trying to find pants that fit I just buy men’s now. 32-34’s and I’m outta there. Dresses, unfortunately, are another matter. Ten to a sixteen is right. I always like telling people what size my wedding dress was (14) and seeing them try to connect such a “huge” size to a woman they consider perfectly normal looking.

24. Sorry for the double post, but I just noticed this comment:

    I know you’re being sarcastic, Amanda, but jesus. A size 6 is teh miniscule. Is wearing a size 6 really the mark of a whale these days? Damn, I hate this country sometimes.

    I had an argument with some twit who was trying to tell me a size 8 was hugely, grossly overweight. She WAS one of those women I could probably bench press (I work in theatre, I have the muscles!) but argh. It was so infuriating to hear.

25. You know, they could size it by inches like they do with men’s clothing (at least pants and dress shirts)…but that would be too logical.

    I’m not convinced that would entirely solve the problem. Every time I buy trousers I have to try on 2 or 3 sizes to find out what size inches they’ve used.

26. At least sizing by inches pretends to mean something other than some clothing manufacturer’s judgment of your body size relative to other people’s. I never realized how gross that actually is.

27. I think it depends on how short you are… I am 5 foot exactly and trying to find clothes that fit is damn near impossible. It was better when I wore an 8/10 but now that I am a lot bigger anything that fits my hips/butt gaps around my waist and is huge in the legs, and then trails on the ground. Even the ankle/short length stuff is usually too big. Old Navy is the closest I come to being able to fit into stuff,a nd even there it’s pretty touch and go. Even worse is trying to find maternity clothes as a short, overweight person. (I know a lot about this as I have spent a good majority of the last three years pregnant)- it is almost impossible to find anything that fits and doesn’t scream “look at my whal like figure”. Grrr… I hate clothing. I would love it if they would just switch over to a size chart like men have. I know I can walk into any store and buy my husband a 34×30 and it will fit, no problem. Not so much with me.

28. Oops… I just saw Andrew’s post. I don’t think Chris has ever had too much of a problem, I should ask him now. I know that if I’m out and I say work pants on sale, I always buy them for him because he goes through them like nothing else, and he’s never had a problem fitting into them.

29. Sorry for the multiple comments… that’s supposed to say “see” not say. I really do know how to spell, I promise.

30. I’ll side with Andrew on this – I’ve had an experience where two pairs of pants from the same manufacturer, same size, same style, but different colors fit differently. I now try on everything. But maybe I’m picky. I do know men who can buy by the measurements with no difficulty. I know no women who make the claim that they can buy by sizes with any confidence.

    As for vanity sizing – it works the opposite way for men. Though I am neither tall, terribly heavy, nor broad of shoulder, I wear an XL shirt (most of the time – there’s some size variation). I’m not an extra-large person, there’s no reason I should wear an extra-large shirt. But I guess it’s supposed to make me feel big and powerful. Whatever.

31. Women’s clothing sizes are a plot to drive me insane.

    I’m short, barely five feet tall. I have a large bust and I have hips. Nothing that goes over my hips fits in the waist. Nothing that fits in the waist and hips doesn’t drag on the ground. And if it doesn’ gap like the Grand Canyon about the bust it hangs around the rest of me like a circus tent.

    And now that I’m working out and lifting- now I have the added joy of things that are too tight i nthe arms or won’t go over my calves of steel. Argh.

    The best fitting clothes I have are the couple three custom sewn salwar kameez suits I bid for online. And even there one of the tailors contacted me to confirm I had taken my measurements correctly. But at least I know when I buy them I’m supporting small business and craftspeople in poverty stricken regions.

    Meanwhile Jeans that fit and a plain white cotton shirt that doesn’t display my bra are a pipe dream.

32. What the hell?! This is annoying. This means I have to keep going into a fucking fitting room—ooohhh how I hate these things!!

33. The best fitting clothes I have are the couple three custom sewn salwar kameez suits I bid for online. And even there one of the tailors contacted me to confirm I had taken my measurements correctly. But at least I know when I buy them I’m supporting small business and craftspeople in poverty stricken regions.

    Was this on eBay?

34. I’m another 5 foot nothin’, 95 pound woman. Petite Sophisticate closed a few months ago and I have been depressed every since.

35. Although I’m 5’4–just too tall to be petite, I’m also rather thin, and I’m a broke college student (one of the reasons I’m skinny). So at the first time in my life when I need to start getting out of the “teenage polyester” clothing, I can’t find it, or can’t afford it. The cheaper stores, like Target, carry HUGE sizing and I’ve fallen off their lower ends. I can wear H&M skirts… if they come with belts. The more expensive stores, well… broke student. And now it looks like even when I’ll be able to afford more expensive stuff, pricier labels are caving into vanity sizing… gah!

36. Stores seem to like making pants super long. It’s the lazy way out of having to offer short, regular, and long sizes. If all the pants are too long for everyone, then everyone has to waste time hemming the damn things.

    It’s easier to take off a few inches and hem it than to add a few inches that aren’t there. Almost always, pants are a few inches too short for me; the “Tall” pants generally start at four to eight sizes too big for me, and the ones that do fit me tend to be in stores where they’re twice and more the price of what’s generally available everywhere. I wish hemming were the most of my problems.

    Stores should actually carry a variety of sizes. Including enough tall/thin combos to occasionally make it to the clearance rack, please?

37. “It doesn’t raise my self-esteem to have a closet full of size 0 pants when I should be a 4 or a 6.”

    Not to be a jerk about this, but I don’t really give a damn about raising the self-esteem of anyone in the single-digit sizes. If a size 14 gets lowered to a size 8, that will undoubtedly raise some women’s self-esteem.

    When people complain that they can’t find clothes small enough to fit them, it’s like, welcome to the world of larger women. In many trendier storeis, it’s hard to find size 14 and it’s hard to find size 0, but more women are size 14 than 0. So if so many women are size 14, then the stores should respond appropriately and MAKE size 14 more available. And if few women are size 0, then stores should stock that size in considerably lesser numbers.

    I used to be very thin and I would complain about things like not finding small enough clothing. Now that I am the average size of adult women, that is to say, “plus size,” I realize how completely unhelpful it is to argue in favor of clothing being available in “smaller” sizes as if size 0-6 should be the “norm” in clothing stores for adult women.

38. One thing I’ve notice since working in retail is that sizes over 16 don’t even make it onto the shelf– at the store where I work, we stock only a few of each item above a 12, and for anything bigger than 16 you have to go to the website. Apparently the 18+ garments are just too tent-like and unsightly for the sales floor; never mind the women who don’t get to try on our clothes in their size.

39. The size-number thing has always drove me crazy. Sometimes I’ve been shopping with my mom and she won’t buy a garment that’s bigger than the size she thinks she wears because it’s a higher number, even if it fits. No one else can see the tag, hello!

    The funny thing is, when you go to european sizing, or sewing pattern sizing, those numbers go out the window! I wear an 18-20 in ready-to-wear clothes, but in sewing patterns I wear a 26 or 28. Same with size 6 women wearing a 10 in sewing patterns. I wish they’d just measure everything with inches like mens’ clothing.

40. Of course, this isn’t to be all “wah-wah, clothes are too big for me!”

    On a totally wah-wah note: vanity sizing is evil because those of us who actually are a 0 are getting squeezed out. And one can not shop in the Junior’s section forever. I don’t even look at Banana Republic anymore: it’s like being a little girl playing in mommy’s closet.

    And don’t get me started on H&M and their gigantic (but cute!!!) skirts.

41. What I can’t figure out is why sizing by actual dimensions–waist, hip, inseam, chest, etc.–hasn’t taken off now that more and more people shop online. You’d think that stores would sell more clothes via their websites if women could be reasonably sure they wouldn’t need to return something because it doesn’t fit.

42. I think they’re beginging to experiment with custom clothes online. I just bought a pair of khaki pants from “Target to a T”, which is Target’s online custom-sized service. I initially thought they didn’t fit, but then I realized that it’s just because I’ve never had a pair of pants that didn’t gape at the waist.

43. zuzu: Yeah, I found my tailors on Ebay. I punched in salwar kameez and then went through the listings. I was pretty picky, I wanted decent shipping prices, I wanted custom tailoring and I wanted to give my business to someone who was working to make a difference in the region.

    All in all it took me under an hour to decide whose auctions to watch. Then it was a matter of seeing items I wanted and winning the bid. It was more work than going to a bigbox store in a mall. On the other hand, the very dressy salwar suit I won got rave reviews at our community theater’s award night.

    But, my kingdom for a pair of jeans that fit. If I could find a cut and fit I like that didn’t involve hocking the car, I’d buy five pairs on the spot.

44. Also, a little googling reveals that Lands End does a ton of custom clothes, using the same software that Target to a T uses. They even have women’s oxford shirts that take into account bra size. I think they’re out of my price range, but it’s pretty tempting to give it a try.

45. When people complain that they can’t find clothes small enough to fit them, it’s like, welcome to the world of larger women. In many trendier storeis, it’s hard to find size 14 and it’s hard to find size 0, but more women are size 14 than 0. So if so many women are size 14, then the stores should respond appropriately and MAKE size 14 more available. And if few women are size 0, then stores should stock that size in considerably lesser numbers.

    My brother-in-law is a buyer for a chain of trendy retail stores. He says that they buy one 0, one 2, two 4s, two 6s, two 8s, one 10, one 12, one 14 (maybe on the fourteen, and that’s definitely as high as they go, period). as a size 12 myself, this seems terrible to me, but he says they always have more 12s leftover than anything else. According to him, 4, 6 and 8 are just the average sizes of american women. BUT, he also says that their fit model (whose job it is to stay exactly the same size all the time and go around trying on clothes for retailers) is a size 12 because SHE has got the average american body type. huh? this discrepancy doesn’t seem to faze him.

    And not only does the fashion industry refuse to have any kind of uniform system, they seem to not be able to acknowledge that women need to try on 2 or 3 sizes in one garment. i am constantly thwarted by dressing room limits- if i want to try on 4 things, i have to take 8-10 pieces of clothing into the dressing room.

    One final note- how is it possible that the gap at the waist is such a persistent problem for so many women? Memo to the fashion industry: WOMEN HAVE HIPS. deal with it.

46. You know, it’s also a regional variation thing. I’m another 5’11” 165-pound woman, and while I was a bit taller than average growing up in Colorado and school in Iowa, I had plenty of friends in the 5’7″ to 5’9″ range.

    Then I moved to the East Coast, and I feel like a *giant* all the time. Riding the metro, I’m usually taller than half the men, which blows my mind. I don’t have any friends that are even close to my height at work. I guess it makes sense, though, if you go back and look at the settlement patterns of different immigrants–so much of the midwest was populated by scandinavians and germans (thank god for H&M–it fits my body type perfectly) while the East has many typically-shorter groups who settled there. Part of me wonders how much sizing variation might correlate to where the brand headquarters is located–Target, in Ohio, is going to see a size 8 through 12 as “normal,” while perhaps stores located in New York or in Miami are going to see size 4-8 as “normal.”

    That’s what I tell myself whenever I start seeing red. The variation in women’s body types is so great that whatever doesn’t fit me is probably perfect for someone else. (Sometimes this works. Other times I feel huge, fat, and ungainly.)

47. Count me in as another 5’11” woman who HATES to shop for pants. If the pant legs are actually long enough (and I have to go to the special “long” sizes for those) the waist is tent-like. And I’m not a skinny woman, either. I have exactly one pair of pants and one pair of jeans that fit me right, several pairs of pants that I can kind of make it look like they fit, and a drawerful of pants that shrunk back up to high-water level (but now fit me in the waist). AHHH.

    My friends who are women of color have an even worse time shopping… whenever I’ve shopped with them I am reminded that jeans are usually designed for a European frame with no hips/ass. How is it that the clothing industry stays afloat when people of such wildly different bodies are all having a terrible time finding clothes that fit?

48. if there’s such a terrible obesity epidemic, and the average women’s size is 14, how come any size under 14 isn’t referred to as “minus size”? (I mean, does not the winner name the age?)

    some day I’ll come up with my own line of clothing with evocative sizing messages – pixie, nymph, maiden, muse, goddess, valkyrie, mountain, universe…at 5 feet tall and 192 lbs I’d be a mountain petite (lol)…

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