I was checking out a friend's blog and she had posted about "vanity sizing" in women's clothing, and I have some stuff to report on this clothing phenomenon. First of all, this mis-sizing issue seems to, for the most part, affect only pants (I don't shop for dresses much so I don't know about them) and not shirts. This is odd to me because people have to (or in most cases should) cover their complete torso somehow, so it seems like you'd notice the shift if you wore a 10 in jeans and an XXL in shirts. I have also found that most pants are so low cut that they cause what I'm titling "mommy crack" which is similar to "plumbers crack" in that when you bend or squat down to pick up Jr. your too low rise jeans show your backside. It seems that when buying jeans, you have the choice of a 2 inch zipper or a 12 inch zipper which is present in "mom jeans" (think about that "Saturday Night Live" skit) that are so high waisted (and frequently without back pockets) that they touch your bra and make your butt look like it's mishapen, flat, and incredibly long and droopy. While nobody wants to show their crack, they also do not want a butt that looks like a bassett hound.
I find it irritating that I have to buy jeans that have a "waist" sized for my hips. I also hate it when I find a pair of jeans that fit great in the length ,hips, and butt, and then have a huge gap in the waist band that is like a skylight for my underwear. I'm not sure who "designers" are making pants for, but it's not for normal women who have given birth at least once and or have curves greater than the speed bump at Sonic. I find it disturbing and hard to believe that I wear a smaller size in pants now than I did in college given the fact that I weigh about 15 pounds more and have had 3 kids. Maybe I should have kept that cool pair of pants I begged my then boyfriend for at Christmas one year. Speaking of being young, I hate the fact that they make "plus size jrs" pants. Really? If your bottom is big enough to need a 16 plus in pants, maybe you should accept the fact that you are probaly old enough to shop in "womens". Now I realize that there are some young girls out there who are heavy, and that they make these sizes in part so that they don't get their self esteem crushed when they shop for pants, but I think it's also so that older girls can boast about being able to shop in the "little girl's/ jr" section of the store. I'm not boasting, but I am admitting that I have shopped in the girls section of Old Navy because that is sadly one of the only places that I can find pants that fit without having the 2 or 12 inch zipper. The zipper on those pants is at least a solid 4 inches, the rise is to the lower waist, and they have an adjustable waist so that I was able to get pants that fit in the non adjustable parts and adjust the rest without looking stupid or wearing a belt.
So enough about women's pants, let's talk about guys pants for a second. Most people assume that the vanity sizing only applies to women's clothing, but that's not true. Henry and I actually saw a show that was talking about this topic and it reported that men's pants that were labeled 36 actually varied by manufacturer by up to 6 inches. SIX inches people. That was an extreme difference, but they said that most were varied by at least 2-4 inches. I think that's an outrage, especially since men's clothing is supposedly sized and labeled by the actual number of inches around the waistband. They confronted one of the "over-sized" manufacturers about the size difference and they replied that the size difference was there because the style of the jeans required them to be worn around the hips and not the waist. It's bad enough that women have that ridiculous sizing thing that no one understands, but now men have to know if the size is for around their hips or waist? I think that's ridiculous and probably leads to alot of returns because we all know men don't try on pants when they buy them. Crap who am I kidding? Men wouldn't return the pants, they would just wear them anyway and accept the fact that they drooped in the butt. At least maybe some of the men would wear a belt so that their crack didn't show. *shaking my head*
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