Fashion brands are making their customers feel good about themselves by providing “vanity sizing” – a trend where brands mark a lower size on an item than it really is. New York daily news says:
Vanity Sizing [is] a brand’s way of appealing to a customer’s ego by slapping a size 2 label on a garment that’s much more like a 6 – and it’s gained incredible momentum in the past few months.
Banana Republic recently introduced a “00″; Old Navy now has XXS tops and bottoms, and the desire to become a nearly negative size is taking over the retail scene…
“Retailers don’t want size 16 women coming in their store and saying, ‘I need to lose some weight; I’ll buy this later.’ They want them to think they’re a 12 and buy it now,” says Tim Gunn, chairman of the fashion department at Parsons the New School for Design, and fashion authority on Bravo’s “Project Runway.” “The sizing is so much a part of a woman’s self-esteem.”
In her blog A Socialite’s Life, Lisa Timmons comments:
“Look, I know how big my ass is and I’m pretty much OK with it. My mirror isn’t broken and most of the time I’m just trying to figure out what fits and what doesn’t. Walking into a store and confusing me with numbers that are supposed to make me feel better about myself is just going to piss me off when I get home and realize the shit I bought doesn’t actually fit.”
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Yeah..I noticed over the past couple of years that a lot of brands suddenly got MUCH bigger…so bring on the 00s!
In any case, they’ve expanded their size offerings…and they’ve done so without offending the customer (what customer would be proud to visit a store after reading that it offered larger sizes?) Tim Gunn is a smart man.
July 17th, 2006 at 9:27 pm
I HATE this trend. This is really anoying when I go to buy a “small” shirt and it is HUGE! I can’t wear small shirts from most stores because they are all sized for “small” fat people.
July 24th, 2006 at 2:41 pm