We’re old. We don’t set the trends or standards anymore. If we want to keep participating, we have to adapt to their style they aren’t going to adopt our older standards.

Nah. I’m over 12

But under 25, otherwise ‘wdym’ would be part of your native tongue. At this point the kids are probably saying something more like ‘low wizzer’ or whatever dark magic is used to make up Zoomer slang.

(‘wdym’ - ‘What Do You Mean?’)

Language - wait for it - changes.

Tailors are pretty affordable. Anyone can take clothes into a tailor and get them tailored to their body shape. Idk if bras are able to be adjusted though.

Length and width ought not be yoked like that, an XL shouldn’t be longer, just wider. You need Short, Medium, and Tall and Extra Tall for that dimension.

I was a tall and skinny kid and the heartbreak of never having pants long enough, because the small ones were all also very short, still I feel it!

As an adult, the first time I saw a ladies size Small Tall in the shop I almost cried.

Women’s bra sizes also suck, because the volume of the cups is tied to the diameter of the half circle the underwire describes, but small boobs aren’t small in width, they just sit closer. Champagne glass, but small bras assume shot glass instead, basically. They need three measurements.

How do they fuck up 2 supposedly identical shirts? Fucked if I know.

Well, clothes are still sewn by low-paid workers in sweatshops, not industrial robots, so I guess some variation is to be expected.

It’s so frustrating. I’ve most often experienced this with two of the same item in different colors or fabrics, but not always. Once I was trying on a particular jacket at Uniqlo and the size medium was super tiny but the size small fit just right. Did they mix up the size tags sewn into the jackets, or what?

I use to work retail selling (mostly) women clothes. At one point we had the same model of sundress with and without pockets. Every one of them that was watching or trying the one without got like super hyped and excited when we told them we had it with pockets. The pocketless one still sold better. And it wasn’t even a tight fitting dress, it was slack and baggy.

Capitalism’s goal is profits. Not helping the customer, selling more, or anything else. We’re in late-stage capitalism, so it is ‘Profits Uber Alles’.

Unfortunately, I’m pretty sure that this is one instance that validates the textbook approach. In addition to the comment here, I had read several on the red site several years ago, one I remember from a buyer for a chain of outdoor gear stores, and another from the owner of a boutique clothing store. Both said that they tried to get women’s clothing with real pockets, but eventually gave up because it just doesn’t sell.

This topic came up in a group of my sailor friends on a boat last week, and ironically, all of the women’s garments had good pockets, so they couldn’t provide an example. But then, they were all wearing utilitarian clothing, rather than stylish. One friend had just bought new pants from REI; I’ve noticed for decades that if you want real pockets, shop at REI.

For what it’s worth, stylish, form-fitting men’s clothing also has tiny, or no pockets.

I read a thing (not sure if it’s true) that the reason there’s no pockets in women’s clothing is that women have more diverse body shapes than men. Pockets are designed not to interrupt the lines of the garment where possible - it’s more straightforward to place men’s pockets because they’re going to be in a more predictable place when worn Vs women where it ends up making the clothes fit poorly.

Shoes are there worst. I need EE width. Some brands, the"Wide Fit" works. Others, “Extra Wide”. And that doesn’t even address how extremely difficult it is to even find wide shoes in-store nowadays.

Some woman shop for/wear “men’s” clothes, either because they shop for the men in their life, or for themselves because the standards are more sensible (even if not perfect) compared to women’s sizing. In other situations, we wear “men’s” cut clothes because it’s the default - like when a workplace gives everyone a free T-shirt. 9 times out of 10, it’s probably a cut designed for men - even if the workplace has a majority of women (as was the case when I worked in a nursing home.)

At least for pants, a lot of men’s pants sizes usually go off a band + length measurement, which is a ratio that women’s clothes don’t offer at all. T-shirts can be bad either way, but I once grabbed two (“women’s”) shirts off the same rack in a store and both fit me perfectly - one was Small, the other was Extra Large. I’ve never seen that bad of a difference when trying on “men’s” clothes, and that’s part of why I prefer to buy from the men’s section. It’s more sensible.

So yeah, vanity sizing hurts everyone. But unless you do shop for both men’s and women’s clothes, it’s hard to appreciate just how awful vanity sizing is for women in particular.

What makes you think it’s so mechanised? Material is often cut on bandsaw in stacks inches thick, they’re sewn on machine, sure, but manually controlled by a human. Different designers, different factories, different QA levels.

Just ordering on Amazon the same product in the same size with the same material, but you want a different color. Turns out the size is all fucked up, it’s not even the same material. But it’s a different color.

Tbh, online shopping clothes has never been a good idea. I don’t know how it became so popular when it is so much extra effort to find clothes that actually fit without gathering a huge collection of pieces that don’t.

I’ve literally purchased 2 identical pairs and they’ve still been different sizes

One relevant fact about men’s pants is that the W (waist) size dates from the 1930s and 1940s when men wore high-waisted pants. The actual waist measurement was always about 3" smaller than the circumference around the hips; as the waistline of men’s pants migrated downwards to where it is today, manufacturers kept the nominal W measurement of how big the waistline would have been if it had still been higher. I generally wear pants with a 33W but the actual circumference around the belt line is always around 36". It’s not vanity sizing so much as anachronistic sizing.

There was a comedian a few decades ago who had a routine about how the aging process in men means your pants start migrating up towards your neck, but in reality it was just old men continuing to wear the kind of pants they had gotten used to as young men. It’s a common phenomenon - I work with a bunch of women in their late 50s and early 60s and they all still have feathered haircuts like women did in the late 1970s and 1980s.

That’s just poor quality control.

Lemmy needs a community for A Bra That Fits. It’s hard to express just how bad the bra-sizing problem is in the US. It goes far and beyond vanity sizing. I don’t even bother with US sizes anymore. Not only do the sizes mean next-to-nothing, but most stores only carry up to about ~ 44 DDD. Which means that many people who require different sizes end up wearing what’s available - even if it doesn’t fit right. When I measure myself and plug it into a bra sizing calculator, I end up with something even specialty lingerie shops don’t carry. But that’s not a problem for Victoria’s Secret or whatever - they’ll attempt to push whatever they have in stock, even if its sizing makes no sense, because their end goal is to make a sale - not to actually help you.

I suspect the powers of capitalism (aided by the internet/shopping online) have convinced most stores not to carry sizes that aren’t mainstream. Yes, this even applies to boutique shops that supposedly cater to larger sizes. They don’t want to keep stock that isn’t likely to move, which means tons of people like me end up getting completely shafted. I could spend hours researching places, making calls, traveling across the state to find these places, find the one or two bras in the entire building that actually fit me, just to end up with a material that makes me itch or has an ugly style that only a grandma would wear. (Sexy lingerie? For massive titties? LOL good luck finding that.) My only real option is to bra shop online, using British sizes, and fucking pray that everything will work out all right.

On top of that, bras are expensive. Prices vary with sales and all, but I’d say about $50 is average for one. Add in the scarcity aspect and the varying quality levels (that I can’t afford to be picky about), and I’m lucky to own 2-3 bras that fit at any given time. I have to hand-wash and thoroughly dry my bra most nights so I can wear it again the next day without risking a yeast infection. It absolutely sucks and there isn’t a damn thing I can do about it.

The whole “cup size” thing is so weird. Even the name “cup” makes it sound like it’s based on volume, but it’s not. It’s the difference between a measuring tape wrapped at boob height vs a measuring tape wrapped just below the boobs. This means that a 36A and a 28E might have the same volume of breast tissue but wildly different “cup sizes”. It really seems like the whole thing would be a lot easier to manage if there were just a “breast volume” measurement and a “band length” measurement.

Yeah this is my life, I’m 38-40 waist depending if I’ve been looking after myself.

Basically that size doesn’t exist on the high street, and it’s never in stock online. I literally have to buy summer clothes in winter and vice versa because that’s the only time I stand a chance of getting it in my size. I’ve wanted to buy a new pair of shorts from Levi’s all summer and despite checking every week, I’ve not seen any in stock once.

And that’s all before it arrives and then all the shit you mentioned can happen.