Every woman in Australia has experienced that heady change room thrill when you slip on something in your usual size, only to find it’s far too big.
You ask for the next size down – sometimes even two sizes – and all of a sudden, your size 14 figure is zipped into a size 10 dress and you’re feeling fantastic as you skip to the register, credit card in hand.
Have you lost weight? Probably not. This is the world of vanity sizing, a practice adopted by hundreds of retailers to give people a buzz when they try on a garment, knowing that buzz often translates to a sale.
A size 12 in different stores can vary by up to 10cm, making shopping – especially online shopping – more difficult but an article on Refinery29 today says the practice has far wider-ranging consequences than mere annoyance.
“Vanity sizing is a psychological attack that can hurt your mind, confidence, and wallet,” the piece says. “Though seemingly inconsequential, vanity sizing affects all of us in a negative way. Even if an individual doesn’t notice the problematic practice, vanity sizing adds fuel to fire in terms of misinformation about weight.
“We aren’t going to change the fabric of our skinny-obsessed culture overnight, but instead piece by piece. We need to look at all the factors that contribute to our skewed perception of size, and neutralise them.
“A piece of fabric with a number on it does not define us, which is why we need to standardise sizes. Clothing sizes are a utility — a measurement of cloth, not the measure of who you are.”
