About twenty years ago I was in Hong Kong with my girlfriend shopping in a jeans store. The prices were far cheaper than in Finland, and we had shopped a lot. She found a pair that she liked and tried them on, but they were too tight, so she asked the assistant for a larger size. The woman looked at the tag on the jeans and then with a shocked look on her face turned to my girlfriend and said;
Bigger!?
My girlfriend had hips, but she was fit and in Finland, she was a small. However, at the local Hong Kong sizing, well, she was wider. Perhaps that points toward my recent post on tastes.
A few years later we were in Tokyo and I found a nice jacket, but unfortunately, my forearms couldn't fit through the bicep area of the largest size they had, which was an extra large. At the time, I wore a medium in European sizes.
Those were the days.
My wife is not only very short, she is also petite. This means that in Finnish sizes, she was an extra small. However, the extra smalls are now too large for her, as vanity sizing has shifted all the standards up. What was large is now a medium, medium a small, small an extra small, and extra small has disappeared completely. Finding clothes for my wife that fit, especially winter clothes, is incredibly hard. She usually has to buy children's clothes and well, they are styled for children.
I was reminded of these things today when I read in the local news about plus-sized people struggling to find winter clothes in Finland, despite the country obviously being quite wintery for 6-8 months of the year. However, there was this quote in the article and it just made me think.
What to people expect?
Body type in Finland has changed rapidly over the last two decades or so that I have been here, as people's habits around exercise and food have changed to be more about convenience and ease. As a result, the sizes have changed, which is why someone like my wife struggles even more than she did before, because most chain stores no longer cater for her size, because there isn't enough demand for petite sizes. When there isn't enough demand, it becomes too expensive to produce and stock. They don't care about losing a few customers, if they can save a lot more money. She also has a tiny foot, that is rarely catered for in women's shoes either, so anything nice has to be ordered from specialty stores in the UK.
While I get the frustration with not being able to find correct sizes, reading that quote should raise some other questions, especially when it comes to the chain stores with brick and mortar locations. H&M was mentioned in the article as having moved their entire plus-size range online, citing that most people were shopping there anyway, which is fair enough if you consider what they would have to stock in store to cater for the entire range of body types.
If it is true that the woman had to lose 50 kilograms (110lb) to fit into the largest size, I suspect that she was a pretty large woman, because today I went into a store and had a look at what they stocked, and I would have been able to fit myself into one leg of the pants they had - and I am not narrow. This means that a store would have to cater not only for her at 50 kilos up from the largest size they stock, but also people who are only 25 kilos up, and those who are 75 kilos up. And then in a couple different styles.
Where is the limit?
We often talk about the cost of fast fashion, but there is a cost for stocking a large number of sizes to cater for all too. Essentially, the production for a pair of pants could easily double or triple in the number of items in order to fit almost everyone, and might still leave people out. And then, the amount of material would increase dramatically also, given that a pair of jeans my wife wears would have about a quarter of the fabric or less in it than the very large sizes. And then, people expect all of the range to be available in all of the sizes, and kept in stock in store, available for walk-ins.
It seems very wasteful.
What would make far more sense for people who are not in the regular sizes (which should bloody well be standardised globally across all brands), is that they can scan themselves and have a 3-D mannequin avatar built that becomes their online persona. Then, all they have to do is use a built for purpose AI agent that trawls the internet looking for whatever they are looking for. And, producers would also be able to track sizes and demand and then cater specifically for these users. Or, what they find can be made to order in a drop-shipping manner. That way, everyone is happy, right?
I think that whatever the solution is, the expectation that stores should cater for all of the myriad different body types, just isn't realistic. It just doesn't scale now that there is a global population with a high degree of diversity in size and taste. Not all brands have to cater for large people, just like not all brands cater for small. Expecting them to just doesn't work either. It is like going into a Chinese restaurant and ordering a Big Mac - and then complaining when they say they don't make Big Macs.
Because while it "feels crazy" to have to lose 50 kilograms to fit into the largest sizes, it also feels crazy that this person has put on 50 kilos more than the largest size could hold. That means that she got all the signals, the red flags, and kept on getting larger.
Good on the woman for losing 50 kilos, as that is awesome and I hope she feels better for it. Though, I read about her and she did it using Ozempic. Still, I think more people should consider losing a bit too, rather than just looking to go up a size in clothing, because it is easier. There are many reasons that a person can get larger, but at some point, personal responsibility has to come into it knowing that there is a level where there are consequences to being very big, like not having clothing sizes available. Or more importantly, the negative health aspects.
What people should remember though is that the clothing companies are companies. Corporations that are in it for the profit, not for any moral or social cause. They produce and stock what they think is going to make them money, which means that any outlier products that are deemed unprofitable, will sooner rather than later be cut from the selection. It isn't just the clothing companies either - all companies are the same.
Being an outlier consumer, means paying a premium.
Blame economies of scale.
Taraz
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