Women's Clothing

To my women friends: Please email me your current bra size. Include your age and other normal measurements if you know them and feel so inclined.

Now, onto why. As most of you know, I have a personal war going with bra manufacturers. Hell, clothing manufacturers in general. I do not believe in the vanity sizing going on for one simple reason: I never know what size I wear unless I only shop at the same stores. And that frustrates and annoys me. Men's sizing is done by numbers that actually have meanings, like you know, measurements. So we had standard sizing, but then as we have gotten larger in all dimensions as Americans (I wish I only meant up!) we have tried to alleviate some of the psychological pain and trauma associated by making the sizes be smaller and smaller. I am not against women feeling good about themselves, hell no, it's just that the size of your clothing should not dictate how you feel about yourself...not to mention that it actually I think makes us look worse. Here's why.

A woman walks into a store. At the stores she normally shops at, let's say she wears an 8-10. Now at this store, they size a little differently. Say she's curvy but has a thin waist and they cut their clothing more straightly. So here she has to wear a 12-14...she gets angry and frustrated as she found a shirt she REALLY likes but won't wear the 12. So she buys the 10, thinking she'll squish into it and oh, maybe she's just having a fat day. She wears it but never feels good about how she looks and feels even more fat because of it and spirals from there. So not only does she end up not looking as good as she could since she is dressed in ill-fitting clothing, but she also feels like crap besides. This situation works for no one as she is now less likely to buy from that store again or even go in there, citing that their clothing 'just doesn't fit.'

Now, add too that women have just been getting larger and larger. I don't only mean outwards but also upwards. For example, my mom is 5'10" which isn't that tall these days but tall enough that she has continual sleeve and trouser leg problems and finding things that fit often takes precedence of EXACTLY what she wants because that just is impossible to find even if there were unlimited time and money...which just isn't the case for anyone. On the other end of the spectrum, I'm sort of shrimpy and finding pants that don't sag in my bottom or sleeves that begin to fit or bodice tops of shirts that aren't too long and just look sloppy is always annoying. Incidentally it's a bit easier for me because most places have genteel 'petite' sizing, and add to that my ability to sew most things with just a little modification I'm good to go. But still, the point is that people's bodies are custom-shaped, every time.

Now, specific angst re: bra manufacturers. So they have all these aforementioned problems with sizing but add another: no pair of breasts are the same. So there are a bazillionty natural variants of bra shapes and dynamics to support these most personal of figure aspects. But the darned sizing needs to be exact and moreover we need to have a full range of sizes offered to us. Now I understand the theories of retail stocks and inventories. I understand that just because I am a strange size doesn't mean they should carry all of their products in all sizes all the time. However, having a sample to try on and THEN sending someone to order via the internet does seem like a much more logical solution than sending your customers to the internet retail environment for an item which by its nature must be tried on.

Where does my collection of your sizing come in? Well you see, I'm on a mission. I've had enough of limited retail sizing so I want to do something about it. I don't know what the name for our little organization will be (taking suggestions, I'm horrible at naming things) but I do know that I want to show these retailers that the average American woman no longer has breasts of 34B exclusively. We have adorable pert 30A, some of us have friendly 32DD and some of us have fluffernutters of 40G. I don't care what you are, you deserve representation.