>>>
you might be surprised to learn that the most e-mailed article from monday's new york times didn't have anything to do with the
royal wedding
or unrest in the
middle east
but about the crazy system of women's
clothing sizes
. stephanie clifford reported the story called "one size fits nobody." leslie
jane seymour
had a ringside seat to the chaos as editor of more magazine.
>>
good morning.
>>
this is a crazy situation. you have struck a nerve in reporting it. you wrote it based on your own experience.
>>
that's right. i'm 5'0" and i go between a 0 and an 8, sometimes a 10. everybody has that moment in the fitting room where you are trying to zip something up and it doesn't come close. it's frustrating.
>>
what size are you?
>>
0, 2, 4, 6, 8.
>>
unbelievable. i could be a 0 to a 6. it depend ops where you go. depends on if you know the brand. the big problem is when you want to shop online. how do you know? i have friends who buy five at a time, send them all back.
>>
i buy at least three sizes when i shop online.
>>
sometimes they are even in the same store that they have different sizes.
>>
within the same brand you can't tell what you will wear.
>>
how much does it have to do with
vanity sizing
?
>>
men's sizing is standard because it's based off military uniforms from the
civil war
. when women started wearing ready to wear clothing there was no standard sizing. some of the catalogers were pushing for standards. the government came up with a good system that took into account hip size, waist size, but nobody wanted to use it because they started realizing if they made sizes seem smaller you feel more petite. if you could fit into a 4 rather than a 6 or 8.
>>
you might be more likely to buy it.
>>
right.
>>
however you reported something staggering saying there is a 194 billion dollar price tag in terms of returns last year alone. and a lot of that, you think, is returns because of the wrong size.
>>
exactly. 1 in 10 purchases are returned.
>>
that's completely crazy. i know from being an editor at a magazine, i have to tell you, when we go to shoot it's all about ego. we cut out the size. if the celebrity says she's an 8 and we know she's not we cut out the sizes because she won't put it on if it's a 10.
>>
so we're the problem.
>>
i think the retailers are the problem. women shouldn't feel bad trying on clothes. we just
need to know
what size it is.
>>
let's take an example here. these areal all supposed to be a size 6.
>>
look at the difference in how big they are.
>>
right.
>>
different torso, different waist sizes.
>>
look at this one. this looks huge on top. it will fit some people but not others.
>>
we have jeans as well. this is the worse thing to shop for.
>>
it is.
>>
this is actually a solution to the problem. these are jeans from levi's. each of the backs are a little bit timpdifferent for different shapes. these are for the fuller figured women and these are for the slimmer woman. it is a system based on shape rather than size. levi's tried to tackle the problem.
>>
there are now scanners to help figure that out.
>>
that's the cool part.
>>
it is cool.
>>
aren't the scanners revealing though? they measure you as you step inside?
>>
they do but it's a wand that surrounds you and takes the measurements. it's like an airport scan. you're fully clothed. they will say you best match to a 6 in
ann taylor
khaki but a 4 in
ann taylor
blouse.
>>
we just had a huge scanner scandal, right? all about the airport scandal but in fashion it's okay. we need it.
>>
to be continued. obviously we need a new chapter on this story.
>>
get it done at the airport, right? scan for your size and get on the plane, right?
>>
thank you so much for writing the piece. it's gotten us talking. maybe you'll start a revolution of changing sizes.
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