
Are your pants lying to you?  An investigation - mcantor
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/mens-fashion/pants-size-chart-090710
======
btilly
I've wondered about this. I've worn a 34"-34" pant for the last 20 years, and
I know my waist has expanded over that time. It just didn't add up.

On fixing the meaning of the sizing, I'm reminded of someone I knew who took a
sewing class in highschool. They started with patterns from the 1950s, and
despite the teacher warning the students how different the sizings would be,
virtually nobody managed to make clothing that they could squeeze into.

Personally I think the best solution is to make it a matter of law that the
sizing be accurate. Everyone would hear that the sizing changed dramatically,
there would be a brief transition, and we'd soon get used to accurate sizes.
Drawing it out gradually would force people to keep on relearning their size,
and overall would be more disruptive.

~~~
AndrewHampton
I really hope something this trivial doesn't merit the time of Congress.
Unfortunately, I wouldn't be surprised if it did.

~~~
tomjen3
Trivial? It might seem so, but it does actually fall well within the area the
founders gave congress (surely this is both weights and measurements and
interstate commerce).

"Fixing" the standard size would be fraud, as they don't sell the actual
product that they claim to sell.

~~~
dantheman
Would you mandate your system or sizing? What if they just changed their form
of measurement? Or they said recommended size? Is this a problem you are
constantly facing? I don't have any difficulty buying pants - why do we need a
law?

~~~
tomjen3
All I would mandate would be that pants labeled 10 inches would be ten inches.

You want to sell Venti pants - go ahead.

------
Maciek416
This could present a significant barrier to reliable online shopping for
clothes. It'll be interesting to see in the coming years, as more of these
retailers offer online ordering (GAP is finally offering their catalog to us
Canadians, for example), whether fitting will be normalized somehow, or
whether each retailer will instead stick to a specific size translation table
as I've seen some places.

Either that or someone will have to build a website or tool that aggregates
the investigative work for us. I know I'd pay a small premium to eliminate the
guesswork.

(EDIT: I wish there was a way to OpenID-ify personal body measurements for
this purpose so every clothing site I visited could automatically select the
best-fitting clothes for me. GAP small/medium t-shirts are wildly different
from Threadless' small/medium American Apparel Ts)

~~~
LogicHoleFlaw
Wow. I had a long, detailed conversation last night with my roommate/potential
co-founder about doing EXACTLY this. The way sizing is handled in the clothing
industry is ridiculous for women especially, but for men as well according to
this article.

The basic technology product is software that, given information about your
body shape, can produce a listing of clothing that _will_ fit you. As far as
we can tell this does not yet exist. When the customer can trust that the
clothes will fit, then they can shop based on style, fashion, price, or any
other number of more interesting criteria rather than worrying about getting
the right size or cut.

If you pair this technology with a customer-centered online retail environment
then I think you can create a lot of value. Zappos has shown that you can make
buying articles of clothing online work, with their famous customer support
and return policies.

The concept of requiring a customer to consult a sizing translation table _per
label_ or even _per garment_ just to find clothes that fit well flabbergasts
me. But we haven't found any better solutions on offer.

This all fits in with Request For Startup 2: New Paths Through Product Space.
<http://ycombinator.com/rfs2.html> Nobody is selling clothing based on what
fits the individual shopper. We want to make an online storefront that only
offers clothing that will fit _you_.

There are a lot of negative knock-on effects from the current way clothes
shopping is done. People agonize over sizing and equate their waistband with
their self-worth. That's ridiculous. Every person will look best and be most
comfortable in clothing that matches their actual shape, regardless of what
number is on the label. Especially if that number is a lie!

Clothes shopping changed drastically starting in about the mid 1800s through
the 1920s with the advent of mass-produced garments. Before that each item was
made individually. After that, confusing labels, garments designed to fit the
"average" person to minimize the need for alterations, changing demographics,
and vanity sizing turned the whole system into an incredible morass. It wasn't
always this way, and it shouldn't have to be.

The article suggests that government regulation of sizing labels is the
solution to the problem of ill-fitting clothing. What the author does not
mention is that this was tried in the past! That system fell apart and you can
read about its failure from the NIST:
<http://museum.nist.gov/exhibits/apparel/index.htm>

I posit that smarter technology which can match the clothing to the person is
a superior solution.

There's a lot of pain involved in clothes shopping today. We want to fix that.

If any hackers here, especially women, have some thoughts to share on this
topic I dearly want to hear them, whether in a post here or in a private
email. My address is in my profile.

We are seriously considering applying to YCombinator with this proposal.

~~~
CWuestefeld
(sorry to duplicate my comment here, but it's relevant)

It's not just a matter of vanity, it's a matter of extremely loose tolerances
in manufacturing.

I've found that even within a single store, looking at the same model of
Levi's jeans, I need to try each individual pair. I always wear the same
thing: Levi's 505 34W 30L. But I find that individual specimens with this
exact tag can be as much as an inch different in every dimension: waist
diameter, inseam length, and even leg diameter at the hem.

This being the case, it's not possible to say that a given item is the right
fit, without actually trying it.

~~~
Splines
But if you have a clothing portal that knows your every dimension, part of the
service you can sell is that you measure every single item, ensuring a good
fit (regardless of the size tag). Whether you match them up to the customer on
shipping or to the database on receiving is up to you.

I have no idea if that would be scalable, but it would certainly help with
customer retention and goodwill.

~~~
pyre
You could always pitch it to a wealthier crowd to limit the amount of
customers...

------
blahedo
This is why it keeps getting harder for me to find a pair of pants that fits
me. I have a 28-1/2" waist (and I'm a guy), and most stores' _listed_ sizes
only go down to 30.

The good news is, since few people wear their pants at their waists anymore
(even "conservative" non-saggy styles usually put the waistband halfway
between true waist and hip), the size of a waistband _really should be_ a
couple inches larger than your actual waist measurement. Just not six inches.
(At least, not on most men. Women on average have much more differential
between their waist and hip measurement, but the popular fit is also all
different, so I'm going to sidestep that for now.)

~~~
anigbrowl
I have the same problem - unusually skinny, baggy clothes make it look worse.
Levis fortunately fit me, and European brands like H&M are fairly reliable.

Protip #1: try clothes in store, buy online via Gilt or one of those discount
shopping websites. When they have something you want, the discounts are often
amazing, though you have to make quick decisions because small sizes often
sell out fast. Most of these sites are very good on reporting the sizes
correctly or helping you convert US-EU.

Protip #2: you can't wear jeans and a nice-fitting black top your whole life
unless you're Steve Jobs. And designer menswear can get very pricey...but a
good tailor can make an something with an average fit look absolutely perfect.
Buy sizes that fit comfortably where you're largest (eg my neck wants a 38
shirt even though my shoulders and chest aren't) and then pay a few $ extra to
have the garment altered. This might add $30 or $40 to the price of a shirt,
but suddenly you'll have access to a world of things that don't exist in your
size, and it will actually be worth looking at what's on sale.

the discounts will easily pay for the alterations, and after a while you have
a bunch of stuff in your closet that fits well, whether casual or business.
Dressing actually becomes enjoyable instead of a chore.

~~~
mhb
_try clothes in store, buy online_

I'm sure you must mean buy online from an internet cafe with free WiFi without
buying anything from the cafe.

------
jdietrich
It's a headrush to think that vanity sizing may be leading men to
underestimate their waist size, potentially to the detriment of their health -
taken to a logical conclusion, vanity sizing may be killing people.

We live in a very strange world.

~~~
jdminhbg
I'm not sure I see the connection between vanity sizing and health. I don't
think men think to themselves "34 inches is healthy" -- they pretty much only
care how they measure in comparison to other men. You can call it 34 or 40, it
doesn't impact the question of "am I fatter than my competition?"

Put another way, I don't think men would be likely to go on diets if you
immediately renumbered pants sizes, as long as they were still in the same
place relative to other men.

------
J_McQuade
As somebody who has recently shed a large amount of weight - and has thus been
forced to undergo a wallet-shattering number of wardrobe-replacements - this
does not surprise me a bit. A drop of eight inches in waist over about 9
months means that, at any one point, you just never really know what size you
actually are, which leads to the useful habit of trying everything on before
you buy it - and boy, did I notice a difference in the sizing between various
brands and outlets!

A couple of months ago, for instance, I bought two pairs of trousers on one
day - one pair from a department store where I could use the changing rooms
provided to ascertain that I needed a 34", and one from a more "discount
warehouse" type place that was having a rather cracking sale. Having tried the
first pair on in the department store, I was chuffed - "Great, I'm in a 34!" -
and so automatically bought the same size in a pair of jeans from the second
place (with no changing rooms), because the price was right. They were _at
least_ two inches too big. I'd just bought two pairs of bottoms, in identical
sizes, that had clearly been designed with two totally different ideas of how
tape-measures actually work.

I learned my lesson and swore never to pay for anything I haven't tried.

I also bought a tape measure of my own - and learned how to bloody well use
it!

~~~
CWuestefeld
_I bought two pairs of trousers on one day - one pair from a department store
..., and one from a more "discount warehouse" type place_

I've found that even within a single store, looking at the same model of
Levi's jeans, I need to try each individual pair. I always wear the same
thing: Levi's 505 34W 30L. But I find that individual specimens with this
exact tag can be as much as an inch different in every dimension: waist
diameter, inseam length, and even leg diameter at the hem.

So this isn't _just_ vanity. It's also a question of horribly loose tolerances
in manufacturing.

~~~
kleevr
My mother, who has worked as a seamstress, says that when they cut the fabric
for the patterns, the pattern cut can vary as much as 2 inches depending on
whether the fabric was on the top or bottom of the stack being cut. (Though
I'm sure the error margin might be lower these days than they were before.)

------
elblanco
Some of this is also due to poor QC at the manufacturers. I went out pants
shopping just this past weekend and tried three of the same pants of exactly
the same size and all three fit drastically differently, from absurdly small-
couldn't-get-it-over-my-thighs to so ginormous they looked like clown pants
and had a hugely saggy crotch.

And it wasn't a cheapo store either. But I had to mindful that there was a
reason I was able to find decent work slacks for $20.

Pant sizes should really just be "guidelines" unless you are getting something
custom tailored.

------
ews
Quick side note since I am at work: In 2007 the Spanish Government ruled by
law the clothing sizes for women aged 12+, as an attempt to stop anorexia and
other eating disorders. They detected a trend among some high profile clothing
companies to artificially 'shrink' the sizes of dresses and jeans, imposing an
artificially skinny 'average body shape'

The Ministry sampled several thousand of women (
[http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article12...](http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article1265873.ece)
) as an effort to find some average body shape and standardize clothing sizes.

I don't know is that affected the spread of eating disorders in the country
somehow. I don't live in Spain any longer and this is nothing I usually talk
about with my friends from the other side of the Atlantic. I know that
Americans are usually opposed to government intervention, but I consider that
a central 'authority' has some value in setting standards in measuring units.
(A mile is a mile, in California, Colorado, Liberia or Burma)

~~~
blahedo
> _(A mile is a mile, in California, Colorado, Liberia or Burma)_

I see what you did there.

(nicely done)

------
handelaar
Conversely, when we visited the US in January I bought three pairs of jeans
whose inside leg measurements were understated by an average of 4 inches. My
30"-leg trews turned out to be no less than 34" long from the inner seam.

I can't for the life of me figure out why a US customer would want to pretend
they're _shorter_ than they really are.

(Mostly I'm annoyed because getting them fixed at home adds 50% to the price,
negating the entire reason for purchasing them in the first place. And yes,
two of the three were bought at Old Navy.)

~~~
jdminhbg
Given the general quality at Old Navy, I wonder if the vast over-sizing of the
waist and your observed under-sizing of the inseam are really just artifacts
of sloppy work. I've personally gotten pants from the them that were much
skinnier than the same size at other stores. I'm not sure how big a sample
size Esquire used, but maybe Old Navy just suck at QA.

~~~
electromagnetic
It's artifacts of sloppy work. I regularly hit the inseam problem, I have to
push for a 28" inseam, when in tailored pants I'm a 32". However I noticed
waist size can frequently vary by as much as 4" as well, but sometimes I get a
pair that fit perfect again. I did notice that costco's Kirkland pants are
regularly 2" narrower in the waist than Old Navy (for anyone who cares).

I think the problem is that pants are being labelled as a 36x36 when they're
actually more a 40" waste, causing the inseam to be made closer to a 40" too.

------
matrix
I was/am in the preliminary stages of researching and testing a product for
dealing clothing fit issues. In the course of this, I learned far more about
clothing sizing than any sane person should know. I can tell you that vanity
sizing is something of a myth - it's really size inflation.

What's happening is this:

Consumers have an expectation of being able to buy the same size forever, and
buy clothes accordingly. Size 34 waist 10 years ago? Just grab size 34 from
the rack. Of course, people gain weight and should go for a larger size. But
they don't - they still see themselves as a size 34 and keep buying it. And
complaining or moving on to the competitor when it doesn't fit. The problem is
even worse for women's clothing for reasons too lengthy to go into here.

The only reliable solution is a system similar to the European standard, EN
13402. With this system, the fit tolerance (range of body dimensions it is
designed for) for the item is listed on its hang tag. This gets away from
issues like styles that are designed to have very large amounts of ease, or
elastic fabrics.

For those that are thinking of building a product in this space, another thing
to keep in mind is that most customers just don't care that much about good
fit. Sad, but true.

------
nathanh
Pro pants wearer tip: hold a buttoned pair of pants by the waist and wrap the
waist around your neck. If the two ends meet (and you can still breathe), the
pants will fit your waist. PS: doing this will get you some weird looks.

~~~
mikecarlucci
That just blew my mind.

------
pfeyz
Apparently the men's measurement in US standard clothing size corresponds to
chest size in inches, so the waist measurement was intended to be smaller than
the listed size.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_standard_clothing_size#Men>

------
kreek
My wife is a fashion designer and she's told me that although every woman
wants to be a size six the average American woman is now a size 14. For all
the stick fashion houses get about skinny models you'd be hard pressed to find
clothes that even fit them at your local mall. Thanks to my high metabolism
(I'm the most unfit fit looking person ever) I have a 32" waist yet if I buy
32" pants I'm absolutely swimming in them. Shirts are even worse it's
impossible to get a 16" collar to someone my height (6'2"). I've thought many
time of starting-up a clothing company for 'skinny & tall' guys. As others
have mentioned the best bests are the European brands like H&M or Zara. The
only real American choices are Calvin Klein or teen focused brands like
Hollister.

~~~
jodrellblank
I'm already too tall for ordinary height clothes, too thin and often too short
for ordinary big&tall shops. If you start 'skinny and tall' shops please don't
make me too fat for those by catering for only 32" waists!

I've thought many a time of starting a clothing company for 'me'. 6 billion
people in the world, there must be a market of me-shaped people somewhere?

------
DanielStraight
That was enlightening. I guess it's something I should've known, but never
thought of.

I think what the author dismisses as an impossible solution, however, is
exactly the right solution: a government mandate.

~~~
wmf
Heck, we have truth in labeling for monitor and TV sizes, so why not pants?

~~~
flatline
The elasticity of the waistband could present problems in some cases, but I
can't think of any reason why it wouldn't still be do-able.

------
oiuygtfrtghyju
So abandon actual inches and just do small/medium/large.

But then just like Pizza went from SML -> L/XL/XXL without physically changing
then clothes will do the opposite.

S/M/L will become "Normal/Small/Thin" -> "Thin/looking good/petite" ->
"Petite/elfin/starving" .....

~~~
mahmud
Actually, I _do_ see a correlation between pizza size and pant-waist size.

------
bootload

              RED LEADER
              Keep up your visual scanning.  
              With all this jamming, they'll 
              be on top of you before your 
              scope can pick them up. [0]
    

As purchasers the sellers don't want you to know what size you are. It's in
their interests not to tell you. Forget what the labels are telling you. Wear
the same belt. If you're a belt-watcher like myself you'll see any changes in
weight like rings on a tree over time.

[0] Star Wars IV script _"leader telling squad to ignore the scopes & use your
eyes instead"_ ~ <http://corky.net/scripts/StarWars.html>

------
ww520
They should have used a makeup system like size A-F. Then they can re-
calibrate the actual size every couple years without people noticing. Indirect
pointers have given programmers grief; think the general public is any wiser?
Ha!

------
rlivsey
I've just measured all my pairs of 34" jeans and they are consistently 36". I
only buy Paul Smith these days because I've come to know that they will fit me
well without having to shop around.

Last time I was measured for a suit I came out at almost exactly 34", but then
the fitting for suit trousers is much more snug than those for jeans. I wear a
belt with my jeans whereas I'd expect trousers to hold themselves up.

So on that basis, I'm not too surprised that jeans made to fit a 34" waist are
an inch or two larger, but more than that seems a little crazy.

------
tel
That graph is seriously misleading! At first glance I was tempted to conclude
that Old Navy was selling pants _twice_ as big as advertised (instead of
merely 14%).

I'll forgive the gaudiness, but it's important to note the human tendency to
compare ratios of sizes and so to always include 0 in bar graphs.

~~~
lincolnq
Furthermore they're trying to use the "measuring tape" metaphor, but it
doesn't apply (the tape is not actually measuring the belt pictured, making
the graph hard to understand). The belt pictures are not useful in this case
(since it's not a ratio graph) and they're just distracting.

------
leif
_Heh, heh._ "FatMax"

------
igravious
Ahhh, inches.

How quaint!

Now there's a hacker's challenge. Finally get the US (and whoever) to get with
the 21st century. Yes I know this comment is sort of off-topic, well ... kinda
- the article is about measurement. But honestly this thought wanders through
my mind like a lonely guy at a single's bar whenever I spy "old-style" units.
I'm going to be provocative here, but I think all the excuses all bull
(they're more natural, yada yada yada) - basically the US (and whoever) think
they are Numero Uno and the rest of the world be damned.

