Whilst no-one is averse to a little flattery, you still know that the shop assistants’ opinions are a not-so-cleverly disguised sales pitch. But what about when it’s the clothes themselves that are lying to you? The Times launched a study to find out just how reliable UK clothing sizing was- and found some pretty outrageous lies across the high street. Whilst this increase in ‘vanity sizing‘ is no great surprise, it is interesting to see just how far companies have been stretching the truth, across both womens and mens trousers.
According to the report French Connection understated the waist size of their jeans the most, with a 5.5 inch discrepancy in men’s sizes and up to 4 inches in womens, whilst Zara, Topshop, H&M and Gap were all also caught telling porky-pies. Although playing to vanity by convincing customers they are thinner may seem like a clever sales ploy, in an era of brand transparency surely lying can only harm your reputation.
Revealed: the jeans that tell a sizeable lie- The Times
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The British Standards Institute has drafted a solution. Under BS-EN13402, the labels will have a pictogram with actual measurements in centimeters. This was drafted initially to deal with the multitude of clothing size scales throughout the world. Two aspects of the label were decided on from the beginning. A pictogram was decided on to deal with the multitude of languages. It was also decided that the measurements would be in centimeters, used by 95% of the world’s population, pretty much excluding the USA for now. Although the USA has only 5% of the world’s population, it controls nearly half the world’s economy. This alone can slow the progress of an international standard.
March 16th, 2009 at 7:09 am