How womens' fashion sizing works in America

I design clothing, and I also work in the industry as what you'd call a "fit model". A lot of people, both men and women, probably wonder why it takes a girl so long to shop for clothes. Well, let me give you a peek into the complicated world of fashion.

First off, a designer comes up with a garment design and chooses a tall and abnormally thin woman to model it on the runway. Most of the time this happens right here in NYC. After it's received it's ahhs, oohs and trendy reviews, the designer goes back into the work room and hires people like me, "fit models", to work behind the scenes. A fit model is a woman with a more average body type. The same garment is resized and tailored to fit her body now. From this fitting, the designer bases all the sizes that will be sold in department stores. For instance, I'm what they call a petite size 4. I go in, and the dress is tailored to fit me. I test it by reaching up and moving around to see if any seams bust. I tell the tailor if I feel any rough patches on my skin, or I'm getting irritated from rubbing anywhere. After everything's perfect, that becomes the size 4 in the "petite" line. If they want to make the next size up, they'll add half an inch to all the seams. To go up another size, they add another half inch, and so on. This gets complicated when another designer comes along and uses a different model with a different body type to start the sizing for his competitive line. Therefore, a size four in one guy's design isn't the same as a size 4 in another guy's line. There is no standard.

What makes this even more obscure is the fact that America now has "Vanity sizing". This is when designers take a size 4 and call it a size 2 so they won't hurt anyone's feelings, basically. The idea is that if a woman feels less fat, she'll buy more clothes.

So the point here is that it isn't easy for any American woman to find something that fits her. Just keep that in mind the next time your girlfriend or sister is taking too long in the mall. Seriously.. finding a good fit is like finding the holy grail these days.