I only found out last week that Americans use a different clothing size system to Brits: so size zero isn’t actually possible over here, it’s more like 4, I think. Shoes are similarly problematic – I was confused enough when I stopped being a size 13, and had to start at the low numbers again, at the age of 7, but now I have to navigate European sizes too… It’s not good for efficiency in my shopping habits!
Do people really label each other in terms of clothing size? Do ‘plus size‘ or ‘petite’ exhist in our everyday speech? I’m a typical bloke in many ways, particularly when it comes to clothes. Are we supposed to look at people in the street and think to ourselves “My, what a petite figure she has in this bikini: she must be a size 8 and no mistake!”, or can I be justified in my usual observations which generally don’t get further than “Wow – she has amazing blue hair!?”. And before you ask, yes, I am a typical bloke when it comes to trying to undo bras. Why don’t they make them with magnets, or Velcro or just a big bow perhaps? They should use them instead of handcuffs on male prisoners – you’d have no problems at all!
But I digress: women shouldn’t be labeled by size. It’s too limiting, it assumes proportionality, and it’s no good for their self confidence when a clothing designer decides to make their sizes just slightly smaller than the average, so you have to go up a size to fit in. “No, you’ve not put on weight…” “Yes, your bum looks great, just the right size…” I reckon personal shoppers are the right way to go – we’re supposed to live in a service society anyway. So get rid of size charts, let’s have people in shops who take a quick measurement, and then direct you to just the right sizes, without any of those big cardboard signs hanging from the ceiling with the words “Huge overweight massive people’s clothes here, one at a time please – the floor is weak”, for anyone over a size 10.
