Aggregates

Evidence: High: 2 Medium: 9 Low: 7 No Data: 13

Theme Radar

polytely 2026-02-18 22:01 UTC link

Very cool visualization, worked great on firefox mobile too which isn't always the case with these types of things.

ChadNauseam 2026-02-18 22:07 UTC link

Makes me want to learn to sew to make my own clothes. I've wanted to for a while because seams on clothes always bothered me. (Not for taste or fashion, but just because I feel like the technology to make a seamless clothing product must exist.)

observationist 2026-02-18 22:13 UTC link

Why bother with a rational, descriptive, functional system when you can use vaguely aggressive and hostile terms that subtly impugn the buyer and allow incredibly deceptive and manipulative marketing?

And hey, they don't really need pockets, anyway, right?

edit: Really should have used the /s, I guess - women's clothing has some appalling aspects to it, one of which is notoriously tiny pockets, which is a source of frustration for many women. For some, it even comes as a shock when they find out men can do things like put phones in their pockets.

The emotional manipulation surrounding many women's products is a different beast entirely from what men experience, generally.

fishtoaster 2026-02-18 22:16 UTC link

This is a great use of data to make a compelling case that sizing sucks for women's clothing!

I do wish it attempted to answer the question at the end, though: "Sizes are all made up anyway — why can’t we make them better?"

Like, why doesn't the market solve for this? If the median woman can't buy clothing that fits in many brands, surely that's a huge marketing opportunity for any of the thousands of other clothing brands?

This is, to be clear, a sincere question - not a veiled argument against OP or anything! It seems like there are probably some structural or psychological or market forces stopping that from happening and I'd love to understand them. Same with the "womens clothes have no pockets" thing!

jedberg 2026-02-18 22:19 UTC link

Women's sizing is so dumb. They could just provide inches or cm like they do for the men, but for some reason (well for marketing reasons, as discussed extensively in the article), they use these random sizes and numbers that aren't consistent and change over time.

I think this is why stretchy materials are getting more and more popular. The women in my house use stretchy pants almost exclusively, because they are much more forgiving with body shape. As long as the waist fits, the rest will fit well enough.

Waterluvian 2026-02-18 22:23 UTC link

I might have missed this in the scroll format but is there any reason not to drop the qualitative size names and just use an actual dimension or two?

Rendello 2026-02-18 22:27 UTC link

Interesting visualizations, but I don't understand what the thesis is. To me, the conclusion says:

1. Luxury fashion thrives on exclusivity, which is exclusionary.

2. Clothing size standards do not match diverse body types.

3. There is no sizing standard, and companies size however they want.

miav 2026-02-18 22:39 UTC link

It is genuinely incredible how well-fitting clothing is only generally available to some one-third of women who fit well into the anticipated height-waist ratio. Petite options exist in some places, but god forbid you're tall - your choices will be limited to "too short" and "too short and also too wide" if you try to go for a size up.

magneticnorth 2026-02-18 22:44 UTC link

"The average woman’s waistline today is nearly 4 inches wider than it was in the mid-1990s."

I assume they mean circumference rather than diameter, but this is still a shocking increase in only 30 years. I knew the obesity epidemic was an ever-increasing problem, but this really puts it into perspective. I wonder if we'll ever fully understand the causes behind this rapid shift.

Galaco 2026-02-18 22:50 UTC link

At a previous employer this was a problem we identified (and larger retailer customers) had recognised, although for other reasons. We had developed a size recommendation system for them, that used real product measurements in every size and a method of obtaining your body measurements from fully clothed photos. We also offered a statistical average measurement set for those who couldn’t/wouldn’t take photos of themselves (privacy was important to us, and there was no need to undress).

We were able to give details about fit comfort across many measurements for each size, but this feature was basically unused. 99% of users used the statistical average body of themselves instead of themselves, which actually exacerbates the body type problem.

Another interesting thing about the industry and the grading process we learned; many retailers had no measurements for their own clothes except the reference size. This was much more common of higher end brands.

1 last thing; some global brands actually have the same size name on the same product represent a different size in different region (eg an SKU in size S in US may have different measurements to the same SKU in S in Asia)

choilive 2026-02-18 22:56 UTC link

If we can have mass produced fast fashion from runway to store in weeks...

Why not tailored clothing at scale? Have a set of portable body measurements that can be sent to any retailer - make an order and have it sent from factory to door in a week or two.

Or get a size that is close enough - bring it to your neighborhood tailor. Most alterations are simple and not very expensive.

Unfortunately sizing is just a leaky abstraction. You are trying to distill many variables into a single dimension. It will never be particularly great.

_alternator_ 2026-02-19 03:24 UTC link

I just want to say that this is one of the best pieces of data journalism that I have ever seen.

_main 2026-02-19 05:35 UTC link

If you shop online and use raw measurements, then it will both fit and be available.

The real concern I have is how the large majority of westerners are overweight or obese. That's a serious issue way beyond the practicality of buying clothes

speedgoose 2026-02-19 08:25 UTC link

If the author reads this, I think it would be great to use international units as an option, and perhaps by default.

I have no idea about imperial units so it’s a difficult read.

RobotToaster 2026-02-19 09:04 UTC link

There's a European standard designed to fix this, which just uses body measurements, although I've never seen it used. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_European_standard_for_si...

MezzoDelCammin 2026-02-19 10:25 UTC link

For everyone struggling with clothes sizing and having a hacker mindset, I can't recommend enough buying a sewing machine (~100EUR on a used market, ~150 new gets you a reasonable starter one you won't outgrow any time soon) and giving clothes alterations a try.

Finding a tailor that understands you / you agree with is an option too, if time is a hard limit (though I'm not sure it's altogrther that much quicker).

In my case, I started with tailors, but kept running into small misunderstandings. Also, my taste keeps evolving.

Start small with simple stuff, ideally old / second hand cheap clothes. Shirts, T-Shirts and bodice waistlines / "darts" are almost trivial once you can follow a straight line. First one will take a while, second will be much quicker, by third / fourth it's almost a routine and you can start iterating on your own preferences. They likely "will" evolve as you keep wearing the altered clothes.

Depending on how much help you can get in the beginning, with maybe a 2-3h intro on how to use a sewing machine done by a friend who has sewing as a hobby, I'm pretty sure most people should be able to get their first alterations done within 4-5h. By second or third attempt, this time should be down to around 1h per item, including some setup (pinning - trying - ironing). At that point the DIY option is probably quicker than going to a tailor.

belZaah 2026-02-19 10:50 UTC link

What ticks me off in this is the statement, that a certain body shape is “unattainable for most”. I’m pretty sure the author does not have the data to back this up. Difficult? Yes. Requiring commitment? Absolutely. Unattainable? No. I really don’t care what body shape anyone is comfortable with. But as someone, who has struggled hard all his life not to be obese, I find it irresponsible to outright declare something that’s absolutely doable by anyone as “unattainable”. Being able to attain it might be someone’s only hope and it’s just wrong to take it away.

jakub_g 2026-02-19 11:15 UTC link

Semi-related thing that suprises me as a man (this is in Europe):

I go to a clothing shop at the start of a new collection, and look at men's shirts for a given type:

- there's 10 XS, 10 M, 10 XXL versions

I go towards end of the season:

- there's like 1 M remaining, but 8 XS, 8 XXL.

Like if they were surprised and had no data that most population is M.

tantalor 2026-02-19 13:27 UTC link

I wish people would stop with the scrollytelling for data pieces like this. It does not help the case, and distracts more than anything.

abustamam 2026-02-19 13:46 UTC link

My wife is petite (4'11") and always struggled to find clothes that fit her. She dresses conservatively because we're Muslim but she doesn't really like wearing the long gowns that many Muslim women wear, so she wears jeans and long sleeved shirts.

Anuway, she always struggled to find clothes that fit her well because she's small. Her uncle had to tailor a lot of her clothes growing up. A while back she found a fashion-as-a-service called Short Story, which markets itself for petite women; it basically sends her clothes every X-months and she tries them on and send back the ones she doesn't like or fit, tells her stylist why she is sending them back, and pays for the ones she keeps. Every time she keeps something from them she donates something from her wardrobe (net zero is the goal). And she looks great in them! They're fashionable (to the degree that my dev opinion on fashion matters), modest, and most importantly they fit her well.

Disclosure: I interviewed with Short Story last year as a consulting role but it didn't pan out.