Attention: Clothing size is the biggest hoax going when it comes to fashion. Yeah, I said it. Last week one of my readers, Karla, asked me about my current size and my ultimate size goal. I responded with the simple answer that I'm not aiming for a particular size. But it was such a great question I thought I should elaborate.
When you're shopping at your favorite store or boutique, the first thing you do after you've spotted the perfect dress or the most adorable shirt is you peek inside and see what size it is. I think 95% of shoppers exhibit that behavior. (The other 5% have body shapes that tend to align with the exact form the designers used and therefore have no need to care about sizes or try things on.) But what happens when you go to the store next door or the one down the street? Are you the same size in every store? The answer is most likely no. That's because most stores and designers have their own size forms they are creating their clothes for. Notice I said size forms and not actual people. I touched on this point briefly back in May 2007. (Pause for reaction because that's over two years of consistent blogging!) Okay, back to the point. Clothing sizes mean very little when it comes to shopping. You may be a 8 in one store and a 10 in another. So why should we put so much emphasis on the number sewn into a garment? Some people judge everything by the size of their clothes. Should you really be gaining your esteem and self worth from a number that someone, somewhere in another world determined should go on the dress you happen to be wearing?
I'll use myself as an example. My dress size has been a 2 for a few years now. Sounds wonderful, right? Well knowing that I wore a size 2 dress made me argue boisterously with my sister when she attempting to tell me that I had over 30% body fat. Almost three years later, I realized she was right (darn it!) and the exchange reminded me that my clothing size was pretty much irrelevant when it comes to my health.
So these days, I don't have a ultimate clothing size in mind. I think about overall health and focus on numbers that tell a more accurate story like body fat composition and total number of inches around my waist. Knowing those numbers may not help you when you're shopping for new clothes. But they'll definitely let you know whether your healthy or not.
Nosh, I think this is a true thing to keep in mind when shoping so one doesn't get discouraged. Also the genre of the stores as well, I sadly had to stop going to Forever 21 and Wet Seal as much because truly none of those girls have hit puberty yet ;-) Even as a size 6-8, my humps on top and bottom don't work there. I know some stylists actually encourage people to buy what fits and cut out the tag with the size, because you shouldn't obsess about that. I think I'll move on over to BFC, I already have my goal waist size, and this does help in buying jeans that come in a waist x length manner;-)
Posted by: Mo | October 07, 2009 at 02:25 PM
Thanks for the shout out!! :)]
Posted by: Karla Patten | October 07, 2009 at 06:46 PM
When is the next post comming on this topic.
Regards
Derek
Posted by: Raleigh Painting | November 08, 2009 at 11:14 PM