For everyone struggling with clothes sizing and having a hacker mindset, I can't recommend enough buying a sewing machine (~100EUR on a used market, ~150 new gets you a reasonable starter one you won't outgrow any time soon) and giving clothes alterations a try.
Finding a tailor that understands you / you agree with is an option too, if time is a hard limit (though I'm not sure it's altogrther that much quicker).
In my case, I started with tailors, but kept running into small misunderstandings. Also, my taste keeps evolving.
Start small with simple stuff, ideally old / second hand cheap clothes. Shirts, T-Shirts and bodice waistlines / "darts" are almost trivial once you can follow a straight line. First one will take a while, second will be much quicker, by third / fourth it's almost a routine and you can start iterating on your own preferences. They likely "will" evolve as you keep wearing the altered clothes.
Depending on how much help you can get in the beginning, with maybe a 2-3h intro on how to use a sewing machine done by a friend who has sewing as a hobby, I'm pretty sure most people should be able to get their first alterations done within 4-5h. By second or third attempt, this time should be down to around 1h per item, including some setup (pinning - trying - ironing). At that point the DIY option is probably quicker than going to a tailor.
I also fixed clothing sizes for my family using a hacker mindset, but in a different way:
Did you know that most professional sewing charts are just DXF files?
And did you know that DXF is the most common file format for laser cutters?
;)
=> just let the machine cut out precisely the clothing shapes that you need
After a few tries, I also started to add small sideways cuts to the outlines as alignment markers. And then you just need to connect the pieces where you marked them while always leaving roughly 0.5 cm of gap to the laser cut line. I went with 0.5 because my sewing machine has a hardware alignment guide with that offset. And at that point, it takes a skilled tailor only mere minutes to finish a shirt, which means in exchange for their 1x hourly rate they will be willing to finish off 5x proto t-shirts for you.
Oh, I'm not claiming sewing machine is the "only" option :-)
There's plenty of hacking that can be done on the subject of sewing and I admit that laser cutter is a cool one.
I'm still pretty partial to that sewing machine route (or needle and thread, if handiwork is prefferable). Simply because it lets you quickly iterate and build the taste, preferences and heuristic of how to get there. Personally, I still can't read a pattern propetly. But I'm more than happy to put a few pins into a shirt and prototype in front of a mirror.
Also, it gives me a good estimate of what I'm OK doing myself and what I will outsource to an actual tailor because it's either beyond my level, or I simply don't have time to do it.
I keep coming cross these videos on youtube from Cornelius Quiring, and it's been making me think about trying it out. If anyone is looking for videos about drafting patterns for clothing, I think he's stuff seems pretty approachable!
Adult clothing no. But for kids clothing you kind of need it, because without the cutting function attaching rubber bands to neck, wrist, and belly seams is very difficult.
For some basic jerseys (think T-shirts) a basic zigzag is fine to begin with. That 100EUR sewing machine will have some fancier stretch stitch options that are slow, but "good enough" to look like an overlock (but can't do the cut of course).
If you have the space / money, overlock is definitely what I'd get as a second / third machine. It's much quicker / cleaner if you're working on jerseys or shirts.
But I still keep wearing the T-shirts I did when I was starting. On my list the first thing to do is to understand how to alter something to fit you. It can be done by hand (needle and thread), but to be reasonably efficient, the BOM would be "sewing machine, box of pins, scissors, piece of chalk / ruler and something to press / iron".
This is a great use of data to make a compelling case that sizing sucks for women's clothing!
I do wish it attempted to answer the question at the end, though: "Sizes are all made up anyway — why can’t we make them better?"
Like, why doesn't the market solve for this? If the median woman can't buy clothing that fits in many brands, surely that's a huge marketing opportunity for any of the thousands of other clothing brands?
This is, to be clear, a sincere question - not a veiled argument against OP or anything! It seems like there are probably some structural or psychological or market forces stopping that from happening and I'd love to understand them. Same with the "womens clothes have no pockets" thing!
>Like, why doesn't the market solve for this? If the median woman can't buy clothing that fits in many brands, surely that's a huge marketing opportunity for any of the thousands of other clothing brands?
Because
- in reality it's not much of a problem. Billions of women manage to buy and wear clothes just fine. Some might fit slightly better or worse, but unless you have very special body shape (and even extreme thick/overweight/tall/short are covered by niche brands) you can get in any clothes store and get plenty of clothes to wear
- some random brand making something that fits better doesn't mean any sizeable consumer percentage is going to buy it. First because see above, and also because a lot of clothes purchases are about brand and fashion and status signalling, not mere fit.
- if some women absolutely can't find something in their size from a specific brand, that makes the brand even more exclusive, like it being "for fit people only". Obviously brands for thicker and even obese people also exist, but they're seen as a brand of need, not a brand you'd be proud having to wear
> if some women absolutely can't find something in their size from a specific brand, that makes the brand even more exclusive, like it being "for fit people only"
The elephants in the room from the raw data is it is very clear some brands do not want average middle aged women wearing their products. Anthropology seems to be the most clear about this in that they have a literal gap between their standard and plus-sized ranges that excludes the adult median woman.
Now some brands might do that out of snobishness, but I expect there is a feedback loop here:
1) Young, attractive women want to make fashion choices that signal they are young, attractive women.
2) They buy from fashion lines that don't fit average adult women.
3) Average adult women detect that the fashionable choice is these brands and feel left out, because a fair number of them would also like to be young and attractive again. And a small but significant fraction feel really left out if some clothing brand calls them a size 20 waist / fat / shaped like a rectangle. Clothing brands detect this in their customer studies and respond appropriately.
4) People who just want clothes buy from H&M or wherever and don't write articles about how hard it is to fit clothes.
"Women" isn't really a homogeneous category when it comes to clothing, there is ongoing fierce competition between lots of different sub-groups of the female population to signal lots of different things. Men have it a bit easier because there is basically a 4-quadrant choice between upper & lower class, formal & casual with a lot of intricacy for people who care a lot about what brand of black leather shoe they own. Young girls are closer to men in that they aren't really trying to signal anything at that age, so clothing fits are a lot easier to manage.
Its only a problem for online shopping. In store you can simply grab multiple sizes and see which one fits best. Many online stores try to give multiple measurements of the clothes but even then it's extremely difficult to predict how it will look on you.
Online shoppers seem to solve this issue by just buying multiple items and returning the ones that don't fit. After which the retailer throws these returns in the bin.
> if some women absolutely can't find something in their size from a specific brand, that makes the brand even more exclusive, like it being "for fit people only".
This is how many brands originally blow up and grow famous. Especially in Asia.
You make clothing in sizes only extremely slim people can wear.
This is an extremely popular brand that specifically does this, and it's hardly the only one:
> you can get in any clothes store and get plenty of clothes to wear
"Getting into the clothes" is a low bar. I can get into this brown paper bag. Comfort is underrated.
> if some women absolutely can't find something in their size from a specific brand, that makes the brand even more exclusive, like it being "for fit people only".
Heh I think mens sizing signals the opposite: too skinny = insufficiently masculine.
Women in my life often voice their frustration with badly fitting bras or pants. In reality, it really is a problem, but it's a problem everyone just accepts.
In reality its a massive fucking problem. This is why so many women end up wearing men's clothing, which doesn't fit their shape at all, just because they're the only things they can find that they can actually fit into!
What special snowflake part of the world do you live in that any woman can walk into any clothes shop and find clothes that fit? Because I call bullshit on that.
> in reality it's not much of a problem. Billions of women manage to buy and wear clothes just fine
No. Billions of women don't have any other choice. Take your wife (or even better, mom) shopping for clothes. You'll learn a lot about "manage just fine". Often its a multi-hour slog through all stores trying to find just one item that doesn't look like shit, and fits somewhat well.
In the "THe VILLaIN aRC oF VANiTY SiZINg" section, vanity sizing is framed as marketing strategy which is successful because of the psychology around that - linking out to https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S10577... for more detail.
It certainly wouldn't be the first time the most profitable marketing strategy is unrelated to aligning with what's optimal for the consumer.
Translating the confusing science speak, basically:
Appearance self-esteem takes a hit when they don't fit in a size. They take it out on the clothes: "I hate their stuff, they suck." They buy more of other stuff to compensate for the hit, whether non-sized accessories (I am pretty) or book/tech (I am smart even if I don't fit).
People confident in their appearance are immune to the effect, and simply think it's sized wrong or runs small.
Of course education could help about this and other psychologically manipulative tactics by corps but such kind of education is heavily frowned upon for being seeing as anti-capitalist and (more propagandistic) as un-american, so there is zero of such kind of education.
Again, you should avoid buying clothes, but not because women don't like clothes. The problem is sizes. First of all, women's clothing sizes don't mean anything. Suppose you're looking at a dress, and the tag says it's a size 14. You could measure that dress with every known measuring instrument, checking for every known unit of measurement, and you would never find any dimension that was 14 anythings long. Not only that, but you would never find any dimension that corresponded to the same dimension on any other size-14 dress. Not only that, but chances are you would never find any woman in the entire world who would admit to being a size 14.
I'm pretty sure everyone who cares about getting a good fit (and isn't simply trying the clothes on in person) is looking at measurements, which you can usually find for any half-decent vendor (though it may take some poking around their site). The best have it per-garment (or per-cut), less-good but usually still alright is having a guide to the measurements they base their sizing off of.
Even guys can't really get away with just "Small, Medium, Large" if they want a decent fit that they can predict from just the label. Modifiers for the cut become necessary (regular, slim, relaxed, extra-slim, that kind of thing). And that's for clothes that are pretty forgiving on the fit, like knits...
Women's clothes are even trickier. It's basically impossible to boil them down to one or even two size metrics or labels unless you're relying on a shitload of stretch in every other part of the garment, which is something that usually only very bad garments do (think: Temu). Women's proportions are also far more variable. Shoulder-bust-waist-hip often sees some pretty wild differences, like two women will match on a couple of those measurements and be way far apart on the others. Then you've got height to worry about. Dudes can be similarly far outside the norm of distributions for the relations between their key measurements, but it's not as common—most of us have it relatively easy.
Looking at the actual measurements, though, I've found to be very reliable. I buy almost all my clothes on eBay and directly from brands on their websites, with great success, because I know both my own key measurements, and the dimensions of clothes that fit me well (I have some notes, doesn't take a lot of data points to have enough to be pretty accurate). I've also ordered for my wife with a similar strategy, works well there, though you're way more likely to run into cases of "OK there are zero sizes of this garment that will work for you, just gotta give up on this one" because of the issue above.
Ironically, one area that both genders can have trouble with is crotch seam length, though typically on opposite sides of the garment — but in women’s clothing it’s often worse than men’s due to the spectrum of “extra high rise” to “extra low rise” that’s added to the mix in women’s clothing. Aligning with the hourglass-mostly point of the article, the most common is High Rise, which corresponds to the higher ‘resting point’ on the torso cylinder for a waistband when women have gained fat deposits in the usual rearward hourglass places (as otherwise the waistband sits at a severely sloped angle from back to front). For rectangle or triangle folks, you will rarely find Low Rise or Extra Low Rise that have the appropriately-shortened crotch seam. For spoon folks, you have to shop at shops that cater to spoon shape, because most major retailers only cater to one specific shape and stretch simply isn’t enough to compensate for the rectangular to spoon difference (as Lululemon discovered a decade ago or so). That’s because two women with upper leg circumference 30 may have hip sizes varying from 20 to 60, depending on which body type they have and where their fat deposits are — and the two ends of that spectrum do not indicate anorexia/obesity, either. Body shape and fat levels vary that widely under normal healthy circumstances. I envy men’s jeans for their (relative, but not zero) simplicity.
All my life, for most kinds of clothes, like shirts or jackets, buying the standard sizes has never been a problem.
On the other hand, I have never found trousers in a standard size that I would find comfortable. I have always worn only either completely bespoke trousers or standard trousers that have been customized for me by a tailor.
Unfortunately, where I live tailors have disappeared. For now this has not been a problem, because I still have many bespoke trousers made a long time ago. I wonder what I will do when I will need new trousers.
This is not an absolute size related problem. Many years ago, I have been obese for some years. Then I have learned to control my weight (after many failures), and for the last 2 decades I have been a relatively slim male of average height.
Despite this, I was content with standard sizes neither when I was obese, nor now when I am slim.
I am wondering why a lot of professions that existed when I was a child have become non-profitable, because the existence of cheaper alternatives today still does not seem a sufficient explanation. I have grown in Eastern Europe and absolutely everybody (except those belonging to the hierarchy of the ruling party) would have been considered extremely poor by today's standards. Despite this, most people could afford bespoke clothes of very high quality compared to what is available today and the tailors who made them had decent revenues.
Oh that explains why my wife spends so much time obsessing over clothes: trying clothes, buying/returning, buying others, etc. I'm sure a few others can relate.
And she's got a very normal BMI: not underweight, just plain in the middle (5'5" / 124 lbs: something like that) and a very hour-glassy/feminine shape, so many clothes are "made" to her shape/size/weight. I can't imagine what it'd be if she had uncommon "dimensions".
>"Sizes are all made up anyway — why can’t we make them better?"
I will settle for making them consistent. Multiple times, I have ordered the same clothing in the same size from the same webpage in different colors, and some colors fit, and the others do not.
I am surprised that a women's clothing startup prioritizing pockets big enough for smartphones hasn't usurped the incumbents. I would have figured the convenience of being able to store a device that people have their heads down in 95% of the time would be sufficient to supersede more vanity related motivations.
So much this for consistency. I remember one particular bad occasion I went shopping for trousers in a store. I tried five, each had something wrong in relation with the size numbers.
First didn’t fit because it was too tight, so I tried one size larger. This one was even smaller than the previous one. So I tried an even bigger one which was only taller. Tried a bigger number now it was way too big. So for fun I tried one with a higher number which turned out to be smaller than the previous one.
When I asked the store assistant, they shrugged and said that was just reality and why you need to try every item individually. It has to do with how much “spare” cloth the seamstress takes when stitching the trousers together, if the original piece of cloth was even already cut to size properly.
These days I buy from the brand own size, the same item and it fits every time.
In my experience with womens clothing having pockets does not mean they are very practical for phones. Phones are heavy and they can drag pants or skirt/dress down if they are stretchier or don't have a tight waistband which is most of them. If the pocket goes too far down or is too loose or too big the phone ends up too far down and jiggles around which is quite annoying and uncomfortable. Or in items like jeans where the pocket is well designed the phone still sticks out of the top and yet when I bend my knee it jams into my hip in a weird way or I cant sit down with it in my pocket. I am 5'1 so I may just be hitting some size limitations but carrying around a phone in a purse or sticking it into the waistband of tighter pants can be more comfortable than trying to use pockets.
AFAIK, this is because clothes are generally made by cutting pieces out of massive stacks of fabric of heaps of layers, and the cutting process is never perfectly straight - the pieces at the bottom of the pile will be very different than those at the top.
For me the back pockets are usually good enough to hold the phone when I'm walking then i just put it wherever (bag, table, bike mount, etc) the rest of the time. I wouldn't keep it in my front pocket even if it did fit.
That's what sizing guides are theoretically for, if you add more sizing systems it gets even more confusing. I don't think the issue is as bad as the post portrays it though. Its true that sizes can be all over the place but like I am size small woman's and if I buy small most of the time it will fit or at least somewhat fit. I am not a standard model size either as I need things that are for more hourglass figure rather than straight but that just requires being selective about which styles to buy. A medium also usually fits if I need something looser. I double check the reviews if its online or try it on in person and as long as its not something that requires precise measurements its usually fine. For things like jeans I shop in person and try things on from a few sizes or just know approximate size I am or rely on reviews. Many items these days are stretchy and even when they don't fit perfectly they are wearable or you can return them, its not that complicated. I do only shop a few brands or from in person stores or I can often approximate sizing from how big something looks or by looking at review photos.
The pockets thing is similar, not having pockets is annoying but its not that big of a deal. I rather buy something cute without pockets than search for something with some. If it has them great, if it doesnt oh well I will just use my purse. Barely anything fits in pockets anyways and I have a feeling other women feel similarly which is why many of us buy things whether or not they have pockets.
Yes. This is specifically a driver for having brand-specific sizing: knowing what size I am in Wooland Jade does nothing whatsoever to help me assess a potentially cheaper option in Uniqlo Whatever. It's the same lock-in effect as cloud APIs, only implemented through attributes instead. Imagine the chaos in the guitar market if the "bass" in "bass guitar" had up to +/-25% variation between guitar manufacturers — it would be a total nightmare trying to cross-shop guitars away from your current one, and lots of people would just end up glued to a brand so they don't have to do the hard work of assessing 'is this within +/-5% of the bass that fits me now'.
Flipside: drastically changing a brand's sizing standards has repeatedly driven me away from long-time favourites.
This happened to me several times from the 1990s through the aughts. Literally between one shopping session and the next, the same style of clothes (tops, bottoms) which had fit perfectly no longer did, resulting both in a set of returns (of clothing) and non-returns (of myself, for future purchases) to those stores. As someone who generally dislikes the shopping experience, additional and insurmountable frictions such as these are absolutely fatal.
More recently (as I've just commented) it's the widespread adoption of stretch fabrics in non-athletic wear. I may want stretch in some of my workout clothes. I don't want it in my street clothing.
I think the market opportunity can be a standard and eventually get labels to include your standard in addition to their traditional labeling.
Figure out the variables (like shape, inseam, width, whatever else) for each article of clothing. Then freely distribute this and begin to catalog popular items. You can crowdsource some of this. The idea is people will look up the clothes as per your scale.
Then after you index a lot of clothes, you can search by exact measurements and then you can hit up clothing manufacturers to use their propriety code in their marketing or promote their brands on your site.
This works in theory, until you discover as the article did, that all manufacturers use one clothing shape — hourglass — and so if your measurements aren’t “bust == hips, waist := bust - 10” then your search engine finds few or no results.
There are fast fashion attempts at this like adding elastic material to every fabric so they can get away with having fewer sizes and cuts thus less unsold inventory and availability issues. But everything has a tradeoff. In this case the elastic material degrades MUCH faster than cotton so you have to throw away your jeans quite a bit earlier compared to a quality 100% cotton denim which can last you a decade. This is very unfortunate as most of the fabric in that piece of clothing is perfectly fine and this is pure waste.
I'd noticed the near-universal adoption of stretch fabrics recently, and greatly dislike it. I hadn't considered that this is an inventory optimisation method, though that absolutely makes sense.
Then just try it out and if does not look good don’t buy it.
I believe that’s how most of us try clothes out. It’s not only a matter of body shape, but also skin color, hair color, facial hair, face shape, hair cut…
You always need to try out the clothes before buying…
People buy heavy SUV when compact car would do, "dress for the job you want", "temporarily embarrassed millionaires", nationalistic fervor for your country getting more territory when even with the current one you don't know what to do, and so forth... Humans are an aspirational animal, and it is pretty easy to sell into that aspiration be it a ticket to Moon or a nice looking on the model jacket :)
To the commenter below:
Exactly. The societies where aspirations have been dampened or completely suppressed have been collectivistic and/or totalitaristic - USSR, North Korea, etc. - ie. where individual will is totally suppressed.
Your question implies the answer. It's probably not a problem that's worth solving. The industry found the most cost optimal way of sizing stuff that works for most people at the desired price and the rest is either served through misfits, alterations or boutiques. Clothing is not some niche forgotten industry where most obvious opportunities still exist.
I don't know about the womens side but on the male side, I recently discovered https://www.tailorstore.com/ and am trying them out for some t-shirts. I'm an odd shape and always struggle to get good fitting clothes so hoping this might be a solution.
Revealed preference vs stated preference answers the question of why women's clothing generally lacks pockets. Women prioritize aesthetics over utility when shopping. Clothing follows trends more than most things, though, which is why this is changing as younger generations prefer more casual and functional clothing.
same, I wonder why this is. Is it just that modelling / marketing is more effective with things as they presently are? It seems there is a market for better fitting clothes -- likely half (or more!) of clothes bought would make the end customer happier if the items just had a better fit. Why have financial incentives not achieved this?
I mean, I get that it sucks online, but in person? Who cares what the label says? I'm an adult. I can easily tell by looking at a garment how it's going to fit me.
That said, if we could just get the critical measure online that'd be fantastic. No need for sizes, I know how big inches and centimeters are.
And, as it turns out, my favorite retailers do in fact include measurements, but I'd rather have a few quality items than lots of garbage, which is also why I own a sewing machine because sometimes I really love a dress but the manufacturer doesn't accommodate my specific frame. I developed this practice when I was broke and shopping out of thrift stores. It allowed me to buy almost anything and tailor it to make it fit. Really broadens your fashion horizons.
With regard to why sizing is difficult, I'd guess it's just consumer laziness or cognitive dissonance. Although it's maybe a little bit of efficiency too. How many models should I produce (and how many lines do I have to run) to fit every woman just right instead of lying to all of them? For pants alone, if you really want it to actually fit, you're going to need ankle, calf, knee, thigh, inseam/outseam, glute, hip, and waist (and crotch to waistband if you're offering different rises). So if you've got even just 5 measurements (probably not enough as no way do all women fit tailored within 5 different calf sizes), you've got 5^9 different products (and therefore machine configurations) to cover just that space, because yes there are women with massive calfs and small thighs or same waist/hip or whatever combination you can imagine) and that's all just for literally one style. If you've got five different pants that's immediately 5^9.
Lots of (american) women are perfectly fine with their 36in underbust but would be shamed to admit they need a 46in hip with their 32in waist for all that ass. Much better to just lie and say I need an 8 which will not in any world ever make it over my butt.
Maybe we can compromise on a 'call it' measurement which is on average 2 less than the prevailing standard would suggest. If your countries' system would have you in a 8, you can 'call it a 6', and then we're all happy.
This is a classic HN reply. The market has solved for what women want: vanity sizing that doubles as (exclusive) social signaling. If you look at the sizing charts from the article, normie brands have a huge range of sizes. The couture / elite brands are all much smaller. It makes perfect sense when trying to build a better-than-normie fashion brand. Do you really think Louis Vuitton or Prada wants women with a size 18 dress size wearing their ready-to-wear clothes? Absolutely not. But they are welcome to (and do) buy bags, shoes, scarfs, and other accessories.
At a previous employer this was a problem we identified (and larger retailer customers) had recognised, although for other reasons. We had developed a size recommendation system for them, that used real product measurements in every size and a method of obtaining your body measurements from fully clothed photos. We also offered a statistical average measurement set for those who couldn’t/wouldn’t take photos of themselves (privacy was important to us, and there was no need to undress).
We were able to give details about fit comfort across many measurements for each size, but this feature was basically unused. 99% of users used the statistical average body of themselves instead of themselves, which actually exacerbates the body type problem.
Another interesting thing about the industry and the grading process we learned; many retailers had no measurements for their own clothes except the reference size. This was much more common of higher end brands.
1 last thing; some global brands actually have the same size name on the same product represent a different size in different region (eg an SKU in size S in US may have different measurements to the same SKU in S in Asia)
> 1 last thing; some global brands actually have the same size name on the same product represent a different size in different region (eg an SKU in size S in US may have different measurements to the same SKU in S in Asia)
I (Swiss) once ordered a T-shirt from a U.S. brand, size M because that fits me perfectly 95% of the time. It was way too big for me.
Lesson learned, the next time I liked a T-shirt form the same brand, I ordered the size S. It was way too tight, I couldn't even put it on. I checked the label, and it said: "European fit".
There's also a surprising lack of consistency item-to-item. More than once I have grabbed two of the same pants (same model, same size label, next to each other on the rack) and one would fit well while the other was way too large or way too small.
This is a QA issue, the factory makes sizes to a pattern. But to be fast, they don't cut it out that accurately or sew it that accurately. So you end up with big variance from size to size.
In order to get fast fashion made cheaply and quickly, corners are (left) uncut.
> many retailers had no measurements for their own clothes except the reference size.
When you say reference size, do you mean like a single size which is used in the industry for samples? I had a friend living in Montreal who was fashionable, she said it was like heaven being a size 8 in Montreal because she had access to a bunch of cheap, interesting, one-off samples. Wondering if this is the same concept.
Never been in the industry, but used to follow a blog of someone who did pattern design for a north-american casual-wear company, super interesting stuff! There's lots of nuance in size grading.
If you shop online and use raw measurements, then it will both fit and be available.
The real concern I have is how the large majority of westerners are overweight or obese. That's a serious issue way beyond the practicality of buying clothes
> If you shop online and use raw measurements, then it will both fit and be available.
I'm a man often shopping for bike wear in Europe. I'm neither overweight or obese. The article is right that sizing is a complete mess: with my 180cm and 74kg I'm usually mass market size M in tops and L in pants because I just have a big ass (again I'm not fat, I still have a big ass when I'm 70kg during the height of the summer season). But it's often an S in tops. Anyway, in the bike brands sizing, the tops are mostly M to L.
The bike pants? I have already sent back XXL's because I just couldn't put them on. But for some brands, I'm still L, for others it's XL. The measurements don't mean anything, they are completely off quite often. The only half-usable help is customer reviews where people note their measurements and the size that fit them. Also the sizing is not only inconsistent between brands, but also for different items of the same brand.
One thing I don't really understand is the brands perspective. If someone with my measurements is forced to wear XL (and for long pants the legs are often too long as a result), what is left? Will a guy 185 cm high weighting 90kg, which is not uncommon, be forced to wear an XXXL (if they make this size, which they usually don't)? Do they look at this and think it's good sizing nomenclature?
Bikewear in particular is a bit hilarious. I'm 5'9", 150lb, so a bit smaller than you, but I have significantly more muscle in my upper body than the typical serious cyclist build. In my experience, the more high-end the bike clothes, the more they expect you to be shaped like a TDF rider, which is to say literally zero upper body mass.
So I have almost the opposite problem from you, where an M is usually reasonable for me on the bottom, but _comically_ tight on top. Even an L is usually way too tight through the chest and biceps for me, but now not long enough in the arms.
I just live with it, because whatever, I don't mind the top being a little tight, but it is frustrating.
These clothing companies are based (if no longer producing) in different regional markets, so focussing on e.g. the average Italian cycling enthusiast, which will be quite different to the average Dutch, American etc.
I've found myself not even considering brands where I've found inconsistent sizing, but going back again and again to ones I can reliably pick a size and know it'll fit, no returns.
> The real concern I have is how the large majority of westerners are overweight or obese
This doesn't tell the whole story either. In Europe, for example, plenty of women are within the "healthy" BMI range, for example, but their muscle- and fat-distribution is such that various clothes made for normal weight do not fit.
For example, for some women, finding pants which are both large enough at the hips, and thin enough at the waist, is a nightmare. You can be well into the bottom range of healthy weight, like closer to underweight, and still have clothes for normal weights be WAY too tight, because of fat and muscle distribution and build.
> If you shop online and use raw measurements, then it will both fit and be available
The article itself gives numerous reasons why this is not true:
* Patterns are scaled up and down from a single original pattern. However actual bodies do not follow simple scaling. As a result, variation in body size will always result in clothes that fit poorly.
* There is not a universal set of body proportions. The article shows a categorization system with 9 buckets. I suspect women's body's simply have a wider range of shapes than men's leading some men (possibly including you?) to discount this.
* Some brands literally don't stock even the median adult women's size!
Women's sizing is so dumb. They could just provide inches or cm like they do for the men, but for some reason (well for marketing reasons, as discussed extensively in the article), they use these random sizes and numbers that aren't consistent and change over time.
I think this is why stretchy materials are getting more and more popular. The women in my house use stretchy pants almost exclusively, because they are much more forgiving with body shape. As long as the waist fits, the rest will fit well enough.
it's not always necessarily about people being fat but also about style, tighter t-shirts where more in fashion back in 70/80s, not it's more loose style
>Women's sizing is so dumb. They could just provide inches or cm like they do for the men, but for some reason (well for marketing reasons, as discussed extensively in the article), they use these random sizes and numbers that aren't consistent and change over time.
It was originally introduced to give countries with shorter people a chance to compete (as rowing depends a lot on height), but in practice it mainly resulted in promising candidates who didn't quite make the cut for heavyweight being forced into eating disorders.
Lightweight rowing has been cut from the olympics already, so to a lot of organisations it has lost its relevance. There are still world championships, but I bet it is only a matter of time before it'll disappear there as well.
0. All commercial premade adult women’s clothing is made exclusively for a small minority of women with hourglass body shapes.
The number one thesis takeaway for me, that I didn’t realize as a woman even after years of dealing with sizing drama, is that clothing manufacturers exclusively market to hourglass body shape alone — which some might recognize better as “pinup model” proportions. As a non-hourglass along with the vast majority of other U.S. women, it’s quite the shock to discover that megacorps are targeting a fraction of the market (hourglass) rather than the largest segment (rectangle).
I have difficulties believing that what you’re describing is actually the case. Free markets are extremely good at covering many market niches, but free market is exceptional when it comes to cover the majority of the market.
If that majority of rectangular-shaped women existed and wanted to buy rectangular-shaped clothes, we would see brands with that product everywhere.
So either they’re not majority or they are happy enough with the existing product designs so they won’t buy an alternative rectangular design.
My wife is petite (4'11") and always struggled to find clothes that fit her. She dresses conservatively because we're Muslim but she doesn't really like wearing the long gowns that many Muslim women wear, so she wears jeans and long sleeved shirts.
Anuway, she always struggled to find clothes that fit her well because she's small. Her uncle had to tailor a lot of her clothes growing up. A while back she found a fashion-as-a-service called Short Story, which markets itself for petite women; it basically sends her clothes every X-months and she tries them on and send back the ones she doesn't like or fit, tells her stylist why she is sending them back, and pays for the ones she keeps. Every time she keeps something from them she donates something from her wardrobe (net zero is the goal). And she looks great in them! They're fashionable (to the degree that my dev opinion on fashion matters), modest, and most importantly they fit her well.
Disclosure: I interviewed with Short Story last year as a consulting role but it didn't pan out.
If you've got the yen for travel, maybe visit an Asian country where she might be a "normal" size against the population.
I went to Vietnam and noticed the sizing difference for myself: suddenly I was oversized. I've also seen the opposite in other countries where sizes are much bigger and I'm on extra small sizings.
Vietnam is great for getting tailored clothing too - if you can avoid the worst of the tourist tailors.
Worth a try, if you can find a country that has a style she likes...
Before kids we traveled to Malaysia, Japan, Singapore. But since we are not really fashion-forward I don't think either of us cared to look at clothes there.
I did get a suit cheaply made and tailored in Malaysia back in college. One of the few pieces of clothing that still fits me perfectly now.
Readit News
Finding a tailor that understands you / you agree with is an option too, if time is a hard limit (though I'm not sure it's altogrther that much quicker).
In my case, I started with tailors, but kept running into small misunderstandings. Also, my taste keeps evolving.
Start small with simple stuff, ideally old / second hand cheap clothes. Shirts, T-Shirts and bodice waistlines / "darts" are almost trivial once you can follow a straight line. First one will take a while, second will be much quicker, by third / fourth it's almost a routine and you can start iterating on your own preferences. They likely "will" evolve as you keep wearing the altered clothes.
Depending on how much help you can get in the beginning, with maybe a 2-3h intro on how to use a sewing machine done by a friend who has sewing as a hobby, I'm pretty sure most people should be able to get their first alterations done within 4-5h. By second or third attempt, this time should be down to around 1h per item, including some setup (pinning - trying - ironing). At that point the DIY option is probably quicker than going to a tailor.
Did you know that most professional sewing charts are just DXF files?
And did you know that DXF is the most common file format for laser cutters?
;)
=> just let the machine cut out precisely the clothing shapes that you need
After a few tries, I also started to add small sideways cuts to the outlines as alignment markers. And then you just need to connect the pieces where you marked them while always leaving roughly 0.5 cm of gap to the laser cut line. I went with 0.5 because my sewing machine has a hardware alignment guide with that offset. And at that point, it takes a skilled tailor only mere minutes to finish a shirt, which means in exchange for their 1x hourly rate they will be willing to finish off 5x proto t-shirts for you.
There's plenty of hacking that can be done on the subject of sewing and I admit that laser cutter is a cool one.
I'm still pretty partial to that sewing machine route (or needle and thread, if handiwork is prefferable). Simply because it lets you quickly iterate and build the taste, preferences and heuristic of how to get there. Personally, I still can't read a pattern propetly. But I'm more than happy to put a few pins into a shirt and prototype in front of a mirror.
Also, it gives me a good estimate of what I'm OK doing myself and what I will outsource to an actual tailor because it's either beyond my level, or I simply don't have time to do it.
https://www.youtube.com/corneliusquiring
For some basic jerseys (think T-shirts) a basic zigzag is fine to begin with. That 100EUR sewing machine will have some fancier stretch stitch options that are slow, but "good enough" to look like an overlock (but can't do the cut of course).
If you have the space / money, overlock is definitely what I'd get as a second / third machine. It's much quicker / cleaner if you're working on jerseys or shirts.
But I still keep wearing the T-shirts I did when I was starting. On my list the first thing to do is to understand how to alter something to fit you. It can be done by hand (needle and thread), but to be reasonably efficient, the BOM would be "sewing machine, box of pins, scissors, piece of chalk / ruler and something to press / iron".
I do wish it attempted to answer the question at the end, though: "Sizes are all made up anyway — why can’t we make them better?"
Like, why doesn't the market solve for this? If the median woman can't buy clothing that fits in many brands, surely that's a huge marketing opportunity for any of the thousands of other clothing brands?
This is, to be clear, a sincere question - not a veiled argument against OP or anything! It seems like there are probably some structural or psychological or market forces stopping that from happening and I'd love to understand them. Same with the "womens clothes have no pockets" thing!
Because
- in reality it's not much of a problem. Billions of women manage to buy and wear clothes just fine. Some might fit slightly better or worse, but unless you have very special body shape (and even extreme thick/overweight/tall/short are covered by niche brands) you can get in any clothes store and get plenty of clothes to wear
- some random brand making something that fits better doesn't mean any sizeable consumer percentage is going to buy it. First because see above, and also because a lot of clothes purchases are about brand and fashion and status signalling, not mere fit.
- if some women absolutely can't find something in their size from a specific brand, that makes the brand even more exclusive, like it being "for fit people only". Obviously brands for thicker and even obese people also exist, but they're seen as a brand of need, not a brand you'd be proud having to wear
The elephants in the room from the raw data is it is very clear some brands do not want average middle aged women wearing their products. Anthropology seems to be the most clear about this in that they have a literal gap between their standard and plus-sized ranges that excludes the adult median woman.
Now some brands might do that out of snobishness, but I expect there is a feedback loop here:
1) Young, attractive women want to make fashion choices that signal they are young, attractive women.
2) They buy from fashion lines that don't fit average adult women.
3) Average adult women detect that the fashionable choice is these brands and feel left out, because a fair number of them would also like to be young and attractive again. And a small but significant fraction feel really left out if some clothing brand calls them a size 20 waist / fat / shaped like a rectangle. Clothing brands detect this in their customer studies and respond appropriately.
4) People who just want clothes buy from H&M or wherever and don't write articles about how hard it is to fit clothes.
"Women" isn't really a homogeneous category when it comes to clothing, there is ongoing fierce competition between lots of different sub-groups of the female population to signal lots of different things. Men have it a bit easier because there is basically a 4-quadrant choice between upper & lower class, formal & casual with a lot of intricacy for people who care a lot about what brand of black leather shoe they own. Young girls are closer to men in that they aren't really trying to signal anything at that age, so clothing fits are a lot easier to manage.
Online shoppers seem to solve this issue by just buying multiple items and returning the ones that don't fit. After which the retailer throws these returns in the bin.
This is how many brands originally blow up and grow famous. Especially in Asia.
You make clothing in sizes only extremely slim people can wear.
This is an extremely popular brand that specifically does this, and it's hardly the only one:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandy_Melville
"Getting into the clothes" is a low bar. I can get into this brown paper bag. Comfort is underrated.
> if some women absolutely can't find something in their size from a specific brand, that makes the brand even more exclusive, like it being "for fit people only".
Heh I think mens sizing signals the opposite: too skinny = insufficiently masculine.
What special snowflake part of the world do you live in that any woman can walk into any clothes shop and find clothes that fit? Because I call bullshit on that.
No. Billions of women don't have any other choice. Take your wife (or even better, mom) shopping for clothes. You'll learn a lot about "manage just fine". Often its a multi-hour slog through all stores trying to find just one item that doesn't look like shit, and fits somewhat well.
It certainly wouldn't be the first time the most profitable marketing strategy is unrelated to aligning with what's optimal for the consumer.
Appearance self-esteem takes a hit when they don't fit in a size. They take it out on the clothes: "I hate their stuff, they suck." They buy more of other stuff to compensate for the hit, whether non-sized accessories (I am pretty) or book/tech (I am smart even if I don't fit).
People confident in their appearance are immune to the effect, and simply think it's sized wrong or runs small.
Women don’t buy their real size because it makes them feel bad -> market pressures companies to address that by doing vanity sizing -> brands bad
I cannot comprehend that jump in the logic.
Gifts for Women
Again, you should avoid buying clothes, but not because women don't like clothes. The problem is sizes. First of all, women's clothing sizes don't mean anything. Suppose you're looking at a dress, and the tag says it's a size 14. You could measure that dress with every known measuring instrument, checking for every known unit of measurement, and you would never find any dimension that was 14 anythings long. Not only that, but you would never find any dimension that corresponded to the same dimension on any other size-14 dress. Not only that, but chances are you would never find any woman in the entire world who would admit to being a size 14.
Even guys can't really get away with just "Small, Medium, Large" if they want a decent fit that they can predict from just the label. Modifiers for the cut become necessary (regular, slim, relaxed, extra-slim, that kind of thing). And that's for clothes that are pretty forgiving on the fit, like knits...
Women's clothes are even trickier. It's basically impossible to boil them down to one or even two size metrics or labels unless you're relying on a shitload of stretch in every other part of the garment, which is something that usually only very bad garments do (think: Temu). Women's proportions are also far more variable. Shoulder-bust-waist-hip often sees some pretty wild differences, like two women will match on a couple of those measurements and be way far apart on the others. Then you've got height to worry about. Dudes can be similarly far outside the norm of distributions for the relations between their key measurements, but it's not as common—most of us have it relatively easy.
Looking at the actual measurements, though, I've found to be very reliable. I buy almost all my clothes on eBay and directly from brands on their websites, with great success, because I know both my own key measurements, and the dimensions of clothes that fit me well (I have some notes, doesn't take a lot of data points to have enough to be pretty accurate). I've also ordered for my wife with a similar strategy, works well there, though you're way more likely to run into cases of "OK there are zero sizes of this garment that will work for you, just gotta give up on this one" because of the issue above.
On the other hand, I have never found trousers in a standard size that I would find comfortable. I have always worn only either completely bespoke trousers or standard trousers that have been customized for me by a tailor.
Unfortunately, where I live tailors have disappeared. For now this has not been a problem, because I still have many bespoke trousers made a long time ago. I wonder what I will do when I will need new trousers.
This is not an absolute size related problem. Many years ago, I have been obese for some years. Then I have learned to control my weight (after many failures), and for the last 2 decades I have been a relatively slim male of average height.
Despite this, I was content with standard sizes neither when I was obese, nor now when I am slim.
I am wondering why a lot of professions that existed when I was a child have become non-profitable, because the existence of cheaper alternatives today still does not seem a sufficient explanation. I have grown in Eastern Europe and absolutely everybody (except those belonging to the hierarchy of the ruling party) would have been considered extremely poor by today's standards. Despite this, most people could afford bespoke clothes of very high quality compared to what is available today and the tailors who made them had decent revenues.
Oh that explains why my wife spends so much time obsessing over clothes: trying clothes, buying/returning, buying others, etc. I'm sure a few others can relate.
And she's got a very normal BMI: not underweight, just plain in the middle (5'5" / 124 lbs: something like that) and a very hour-glassy/feminine shape, so many clothes are "made" to her shape/size/weight. I can't imagine what it'd be if she had uncommon "dimensions".
I will settle for making them consistent. Multiple times, I have ordered the same clothing in the same size from the same webpage in different colors, and some colors fit, and the others do not.
I am surprised that a women's clothing startup prioritizing pockets big enough for smartphones hasn't usurped the incumbents. I would have figured the convenience of being able to store a device that people have their heads down in 95% of the time would be sufficient to supersede more vanity related motivations.
First didn’t fit because it was too tight, so I tried one size larger. This one was even smaller than the previous one. So I tried an even bigger one which was only taller. Tried a bigger number now it was way too big. So for fun I tried one with a higher number which turned out to be smaller than the previous one.
When I asked the store assistant, they shrugged and said that was just reality and why you need to try every item individually. It has to do with how much “spare” cloth the seamstress takes when stitching the trousers together, if the original piece of cloth was even already cut to size properly.
These days I buy from the brand own size, the same item and it fits every time.
https://xkcd.com/927/
The pockets thing is similar, not having pockets is annoying but its not that big of a deal. I rather buy something cute without pockets than search for something with some. If it has them great, if it doesnt oh well I will just use my purse. Barely anything fits in pockets anyways and I have a feeling other women feel similarly which is why many of us buy things whether or not they have pockets.
This happened to me several times from the 1990s through the aughts. Literally between one shopping session and the next, the same style of clothes (tops, bottoms) which had fit perfectly no longer did, resulting both in a set of returns (of clothing) and non-returns (of myself, for future purchases) to those stores. As someone who generally dislikes the shopping experience, additional and insurmountable frictions such as these are absolutely fatal.
More recently (as I've just commented) it's the widespread adoption of stretch fabrics in non-athletic wear. I may want stretch in some of my workout clothes. I don't want it in my street clothing.
Because “my style” prefers one over the other, I know when I buy from a certain brand so it’s going to fit on me better.
If if waistlines were standardized it wouldn’t really account for all the other measurements.
Figure out the variables (like shape, inseam, width, whatever else) for each article of clothing. Then freely distribute this and begin to catalog popular items. You can crowdsource some of this. The idea is people will look up the clothes as per your scale.
Then after you index a lot of clothes, you can search by exact measurements and then you can hit up clothing manufacturers to use their propriety code in their marketing or promote their brands on your site.
I believe that’s how most of us try clothes out. It’s not only a matter of body shape, but also skin color, hair color, facial hair, face shape, hair cut…
You always need to try out the clothes before buying…
To the commenter below:
Exactly. The societies where aspirations have been dampened or completely suppressed have been collectivistic and/or totalitaristic - USSR, North Korea, etc. - ie. where individual will is totally suppressed.
That said, if we could just get the critical measure online that'd be fantastic. No need for sizes, I know how big inches and centimeters are.
And, as it turns out, my favorite retailers do in fact include measurements, but I'd rather have a few quality items than lots of garbage, which is also why I own a sewing machine because sometimes I really love a dress but the manufacturer doesn't accommodate my specific frame. I developed this practice when I was broke and shopping out of thrift stores. It allowed me to buy almost anything and tailor it to make it fit. Really broadens your fashion horizons.
With regard to why sizing is difficult, I'd guess it's just consumer laziness or cognitive dissonance. Although it's maybe a little bit of efficiency too. How many models should I produce (and how many lines do I have to run) to fit every woman just right instead of lying to all of them? For pants alone, if you really want it to actually fit, you're going to need ankle, calf, knee, thigh, inseam/outseam, glute, hip, and waist (and crotch to waistband if you're offering different rises). So if you've got even just 5 measurements (probably not enough as no way do all women fit tailored within 5 different calf sizes), you've got 5^9 different products (and therefore machine configurations) to cover just that space, because yes there are women with massive calfs and small thighs or same waist/hip or whatever combination you can imagine) and that's all just for literally one style. If you've got five different pants that's immediately 5^9.
Lots of (american) women are perfectly fine with their 36in underbust but would be shamed to admit they need a 46in hip with their 32in waist for all that ass. Much better to just lie and say I need an 8 which will not in any world ever make it over my butt.
Maybe we can compromise on a 'call it' measurement which is on average 2 less than the prevailing standard would suggest. If your countries' system would have you in a 8, you can 'call it a 6', and then we're all happy.
We were able to give details about fit comfort across many measurements for each size, but this feature was basically unused. 99% of users used the statistical average body of themselves instead of themselves, which actually exacerbates the body type problem.
Another interesting thing about the industry and the grading process we learned; many retailers had no measurements for their own clothes except the reference size. This was much more common of higher end brands.
1 last thing; some global brands actually have the same size name on the same product represent a different size in different region (eg an SKU in size S in US may have different measurements to the same SKU in S in Asia)
I (Swiss) once ordered a T-shirt from a U.S. brand, size M because that fits me perfectly 95% of the time. It was way too big for me.
Lesson learned, the next time I liked a T-shirt form the same brand, I ordered the size S. It was way too tight, I couldn't even put it on. I checked the label, and it said: "European fit".
In order to get fast fashion made cheaply and quickly, corners are (left) uncut.
When you say reference size, do you mean like a single size which is used in the industry for samples? I had a friend living in Montreal who was fashionable, she said it was like heaven being a size 8 in Montreal because she had access to a bunch of cheap, interesting, one-off samples. Wondering if this is the same concept.
Never been in the industry, but used to follow a blog of someone who did pattern design for a north-american casual-wear company, super interesting stuff! There's lots of nuance in size grading.
The real concern I have is how the large majority of westerners are overweight or obese. That's a serious issue way beyond the practicality of buying clothes
I'm a man often shopping for bike wear in Europe. I'm neither overweight or obese. The article is right that sizing is a complete mess: with my 180cm and 74kg I'm usually mass market size M in tops and L in pants because I just have a big ass (again I'm not fat, I still have a big ass when I'm 70kg during the height of the summer season). But it's often an S in tops. Anyway, in the bike brands sizing, the tops are mostly M to L.
The bike pants? I have already sent back XXL's because I just couldn't put them on. But for some brands, I'm still L, for others it's XL. The measurements don't mean anything, they are completely off quite often. The only half-usable help is customer reviews where people note their measurements and the size that fit them. Also the sizing is not only inconsistent between brands, but also for different items of the same brand.
One thing I don't really understand is the brands perspective. If someone with my measurements is forced to wear XL (and for long pants the legs are often too long as a result), what is left? Will a guy 185 cm high weighting 90kg, which is not uncommon, be forced to wear an XXXL (if they make this size, which they usually don't)? Do they look at this and think it's good sizing nomenclature?
So I have almost the opposite problem from you, where an M is usually reasonable for me on the bottom, but _comically_ tight on top. Even an L is usually way too tight through the chest and biceps for me, but now not long enough in the arms.
I just live with it, because whatever, I don't mind the top being a little tight, but it is frustrating.
I've found myself not even considering brands where I've found inconsistent sizing, but going back again and again to ones I can reliably pick a size and know it'll fit, no returns.
This doesn't tell the whole story either. In Europe, for example, plenty of women are within the "healthy" BMI range, for example, but their muscle- and fat-distribution is such that various clothes made for normal weight do not fit.
For example, for some women, finding pants which are both large enough at the hips, and thin enough at the waist, is a nightmare. You can be well into the bottom range of healthy weight, like closer to underweight, and still have clothes for normal weights be WAY too tight, because of fat and muscle distribution and build.
The article itself gives numerous reasons why this is not true:
* Patterns are scaled up and down from a single original pattern. However actual bodies do not follow simple scaling. As a result, variation in body size will always result in clothes that fit poorly.
* There is not a universal set of body proportions. The article shows a categorization system with 9 buckets. I suspect women's body's simply have a wider range of shapes than men's leading some men (possibly including you?) to discount this.
* Some brands literally don't stock even the median adult women's size!
I think this is why stretchy materials are getting more and more popular. The women in my house use stretchy pants almost exclusively, because they are much more forgiving with body shape. As long as the waist fits, the rest will fit well enough.
Deleted Comment
Relevant: TIL that while male rowers are classified as "lightweight" or "heavyweight", larger female rowers are called "openweight" instead of "heavyweight". <https://np.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/32p2ka/til_th...>
It was originally introduced to give countries with shorter people a chance to compete (as rowing depends a lot on height), but in practice it mainly resulted in promising candidates who didn't quite make the cut for heavyweight being forced into eating disorders.
Lightweight rowing has been cut from the olympics already, so to a lot of organisations it has lost its relevance. There are still world championships, but I bet it is only a matter of time before it'll disappear there as well.
Dead Comment
1. Luxury fashion thrives on exclusivity, which is exclusionary.
2. Clothing size standards do not match diverse body types.
3. There is no sizing standard, and companies size however they want.
The number one thesis takeaway for me, that I didn’t realize as a woman even after years of dealing with sizing drama, is that clothing manufacturers exclusively market to hourglass body shape alone — which some might recognize better as “pinup model” proportions. As a non-hourglass along with the vast majority of other U.S. women, it’s quite the shock to discover that megacorps are targeting a fraction of the market (hourglass) rather than the largest segment (rectangle).
If that majority of rectangular-shaped women existed and wanted to buy rectangular-shaped clothes, we would see brands with that product everywhere.
So either they’re not majority or they are happy enough with the existing product designs so they won’t buy an alternative rectangular design.
Dead Comment
As a 152lb American male, I weigh 11% less than the average American woman.
I have no idea about imperial units so it’s a difficult read.
Anuway, she always struggled to find clothes that fit her well because she's small. Her uncle had to tailor a lot of her clothes growing up. A while back she found a fashion-as-a-service called Short Story, which markets itself for petite women; it basically sends her clothes every X-months and she tries them on and send back the ones she doesn't like or fit, tells her stylist why she is sending them back, and pays for the ones she keeps. Every time she keeps something from them she donates something from her wardrobe (net zero is the goal). And she looks great in them! They're fashionable (to the degree that my dev opinion on fashion matters), modest, and most importantly they fit her well.
Disclosure: I interviewed with Short Story last year as a consulting role but it didn't pan out.
I went to Vietnam and noticed the sizing difference for myself: suddenly I was oversized. I've also seen the opposite in other countries where sizes are much bigger and I'm on extra small sizings.
Vietnam is great for getting tailored clothing too - if you can avoid the worst of the tourist tailors.
Worth a try, if you can find a country that has a style she likes...
I did get a suit cheaply made and tailored in Malaysia back in college. One of the few pieces of clothing that still fits me perfectly now.