When is a size not a size? When it pertains to women's clothing.
This is not a Zen koan, but a fact of life in today's retail world. Women, you may have noticed while shopping that at some point, you went from your regular size to the next size down, without actually losing any weight. This is called vanity sizing, and it has gained popularity among women's clothing manufacturers because women apparently prefer to buy clothing in small sizes, even if those sizes don't actually reflect reality.
Personally, I have no problem with this. In fact, my new plan is to proceed from a size 6 (formerly 8) to a size 4 while eating a creme brulee. But all vanity is not equal.
Women's clothing sizes vary depending on where you shop. A medium at one place could be a small at the store next door, while across the mall you'll manage to fit the extra small. (Lest men feel any "vanity size thy name is woman" superiority, parse this -- a fellow who wears a size large shirt anywhere else fits only the XXL size at Abercrombie & Fitch, according to a male staffer there. Apparently, men like to think they're bigger than they really are, go figure.)
Further, vanity sizing hasn't happened across the board. While most of the larger retailers are all for it, your higher-end boutiques in Los Angeles have long gone the opposite route. Not only do they refuse to vanity size, their designers go with European sizing -- Italian, French, English -- and on top of that, their sizes tend to run small. Let's call it humility sizing.
And many boutiques don't even carry larger sizes at all, even though the average American woman is now a size 14, according to a recent survey by the Textile/Clothing Technology Corp., a textile and apparel research firm based in Cary, N.C., where it's no sin to be amply proportioned.
Then there are sizes that capture the imagination. Size 0 has been around for years, but Abercrombie started sporting 00 in 1996. When asked what double zero means, exactly, a sales clerk replied that she had no idea. (Most staffers at the various stores wished to remain anonymous.) When further asked where does one go from there, the answer was "the kid's department."
Like Alice in Wonderland, shrinking and growing beyond her control, women's clothing inhabits a world with no absolutes. Lourdes Lozano, sales manager for a women's line called Brasil Sul, said that depending on where you shop, "you want an active-wear pant in a medium, you get either a tent or a thong." Lozano, who has worked in practically every area of women's clothing, added, "It's so frustrating. I'm in the business 25 years and I don't know what size I am."
