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Size Suspense

8/13/2016

4 Comments

 
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by David Hagenbuch, founder of Mindful Marketing & author of Honorable Influence

Variety may be the spice of life, but standardization makes life manageable.  Think of all the products we use daily that work only because many different manufacturers have made their products compatible: K-cups, DVDs, light bulbs, batteries, etc.  Then, there’s clothing.
 
Why do many of the products we wear each day vary so much in their sizing?  The numbering systems they utilize should produce pretty consistent results across different suppliers; however, it’s not uncommon to find a pair of men’s 34” waist pants in one brand that are much bigger than the same size of another label.
 
Although men face some sizing snafus, what they experience pales in comparison to what most women endure in trying to find clothes that fit.  Of course, women’s bodies come in many more shapes and sizes than men’s do, which makes it truly remarkable that designers claim to capture multiple anatomical variations in a single sizing digit, e.g., 8, 10, etc.  A video by Vox provides a great summary of how such sizing came to be.
 
As if the single-digit system weren’t ambiguous enough, enter vanity sizing.  It’s not surprising that many women want to wear smaller-sized clothes, given the emaciated models found in media and steady social pressure to be thin.  Apparel makers recognize this desire, and some have decided to cater to it by revamping their sizing systems so their clothes are cut bigger.  For instance, women who used to wear a size 6 can now fit into a 2, and those who had sported a 4 might don a double zero.  The idea behind vanity sizing is to play upon people’s preference to think they’re thinner than they actually are.
 
Many people have long suspected manufacturers of vanity sizing, perhaps based on their personal experience, but is there proof that the strategy actually exists?  Yes, the evidence is ample.  For instance, a reporter for Vox documented her purchase of jeans of the same size from three different retailers, Forever 21, Topshop, and Zara, and showed how vastly different the widths were among them.  Similarly, a writer for Esquire found that the actual waist measurements of men’s pants were sometimes as much as five inches bigger than their marked sizes.
 
If neither of those examples is convincing, checkout charts from the Washington Post which show how, over several decades, sizes have gotten smaller at the same time that people have become bigger.  In 1958, for example, a size 16 fit a woman with a 29 inch waist, but in 2011, the same size fits a woman with a 36 inch waist. 
 
So, there’s little question that many manufacturers have kept their sizes the same while making their clothes bigger in an effort to make consumers feel smaller, but couldn’t such vanity sizing be a good thing?  In an age of body shaming and eating disorders, why not let people think they’re thinner than they actually are?  In fact, a study in the Journal of Consumer Psychology found that vanity sizing was associated with positive mental imagery and improved self-esteem.

Unfortunately, any positive effects of vanity sizing are short-lived; instead, the strategy may be doing significant damage in other ways.  Vanity sizing only works for so long.  Eventually people realize that a size 4 is no longer as small as it once was, and they redefine what represents a thin size and what does not.
 
As suggested above, consumers also often experience frustration in dealing with significant size variations among manufacturers.  It’s a waste of time to unnecessarily try on different sizes in order to finally find one that fits.  The frustration can be even greater when shopping online, where realizing the right size might involve a series of shipments and returns.
 
Probably the biggest potential problem with vanity sizing, however, is the false sense of fitness it may give people.  In the United States, nearly 69% of adults are either overweight or obese; almost 36% fall into in the latter category.  With obesity comes increased risks for health problems such as high blood pressure, heart disease, high cholesterol, stroke, and some cancers.

Certainly people should consider their actual weight and their doctor’s diagnosis when determining their healthiness; however, it’s not unusual for people to use quick and convenient metrics like the fit of their clothing to decide whether or not they are overweight.  Deceptively sized apparel does a disservice to consumers and can have physically damaging outcomes.
 
Given the detrimental impacts of vanity sizing combined with little promise of creating stakeholder value for marketers or consumers, there’s little question that vanity sizing measures up as “Mindless Marketing.”
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4 Comments
Kenedy Kieffer
9/21/2016 12:20:24 am

I do think that numbers and sizing is a really interesting thing that was brought up in this post! I had thought of the sizing issue many times throughout my life and the meaning to me mentally of these numbers. I remember the first time that I got to be a "medium". I was annoyed and thought that I was getting bigger. My mom assured me that this was not the case and that the sizing was just off. As a 8th grader I let a size and a sized nation determine my happiness and worth. I experienced just how cultural this was when I was in Uganda last semester. All of my host familes and friends there called me fat. I was offended and questioning why they were just so upfront with the weight of all the americans in my group. Throughout the semester, I realized that they more you weigh there, the healthier you were. Due to the fact that many Ugandans dont know when they are going to eat again, the thicker you are, it shows that you are more wealthy and get more food on a daily basis. Learning in this article that sizes are getting smaller to me was very interesting. I had not heard this before and am interested to see if it goes down in future years as well.

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Autumn Bank
9/21/2016 05:08:53 pm

I found this blog post to be very informative and interesting. I think that sizing and image is a huge issue with society, especially female society. The clothing market puts a lot of pressure on people to look a certain way, which most of the time is unrealistic because of how the pictures and ads are edited and enhanced by programs such as Photoshop. Vanity sizing seems to be unfair in some ways because it makes people have a false representation of themselves by thinking they are smaller than they really are. I can see how some people may think of it in a positive way because it makes them feel good in the moment when they purchase the pair of pants in a "smaller size", but in the long run I think it could be damaging to the person's self esteem.

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Angela Stephano
9/21/2016 11:39:55 pm

As I began to read this article, I grew more and more shocked and surprised. It amazes me that companies can be so dishonest that they cannot even make a standard sizing chart. The more I thought about it though, the more I realized that I had no reason to be surprised considering that when people ask me my pant size I usually respond with a range of about three sizes. I always just assumed that this was normal because there was variation between stores but, hearing that stores do this intentionally upset me. Shopping becomes so much more complicated when you have to try on three or four of the same pair of pants just to find one that fits. As a person who does not like shopping to begin with, these sizing discrepancies discourage me from buying clothes. I often do not have all the time to spend trying on clothes so I decide to simply not buy anything at all. The blog said that “vanity sizing” is something that stores do in an attempt to make a shopper feel better about his or her size. This backfires though when that same person goes into another store and realizes that they are actually a size or two larger than they had originally thought. The blog also says that this is mindless marketing and I completely agree with that. It is unethical change sizing so that buyers are happy and the blog also talk about how obesity rates are already high in America and making Americans think that they are smaller than they are is not good for that reason as well. It makes the practice of “vanity sizing” unethical because it is ultimately harming people by deceiving them. I was always taught that it is better to be told a hard truth than a soft lie and I think that the marketers in this case need to remember that as well. It is important that they practice honest and upfront marketing because being dishonest is not only unethical but, it also upsets customers and can even make sales decrease. Now in reality I will probably keep buying my jeans from the same stores because I hate trying on clothes so much but, now that I am aware of this I will be paying more attention to the sizing of pants in different stores. I am very curious as to which of my favorite stores use vanity sizing and which do not so I will definitely be looking into this more in the near future.

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Molly M.
9/22/2016 11:03:59 am

When I was a frustrated little kid trying on purple corduroys in a changing room at Sears my mom sympathized with me by sharing stories about how my grandmother used to sew all her clothes for her because it was easier. My mom always struggled to find things that fit just right because she was so tiny, and I have always struggled to find pants that were long enough to go to the floor but narrow enough so they would stay on. I have often wished my grandmother was still alive so she could sew my clothes simply because the numbers on tags bothered me and nothing seems to fit exactly right. Not to mention, sometimes in one store I am a small, other stores a medium, and at some boutiques somewhere between a 2, 4, 6, or 8. This sizing discrepancy was also mentioned above when, “A reporter from Vox documented her purchase of jeans of the same size from three different retailers, Forever21, Topshop, and Zara, and showed how vastly different the widths were among them” (Hagenbuch). Vanity sizing come in all different levels, but I believe it can have detrimental effects on many people, especially young girls. I think growing up and indirectly being told to be smaller, or that tiny is more ideal, created a sense of shame. Yes, as the articles shares many American’s tend to be obese, but to counter this by changing clothing sizes will only have a short term effect. Instead people become more focused on a size, disliking themselves because of a number, and not on proper nutrition which could lead to a variety of eating disorders. Because changing sizing only has short-term, positive effects, and negative long-term ones, I believe this marketing strategy does not promote stakeholder values. It also does not promote societal values because these sizes are lies and can hurt people’s self esteem. In conclusion, this is mindless marketing.

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