Vanity Sizing

You've heard of vanity sizing right? It's the trend sweeping clothing stores to put smaller sizes on bigger clothes. The idea is that if you fit into a smaller size, you'll feel better about yourself and will buy more clothes. They are essentially making profit off playing into our emotions and our desire to be thin. Well, they caught me... hook, line, and sinker.

I finally got a tape measure this weekend and took my body measurements. As you know, I didn't take my measurements when I started dieting. But, I did pull out an old sheet of measurements from a consultation with my trainer from way back in February 2008. The results are pretty incredible. When I started this diet I was four pounds heavier than I was at that consultation so I figure the numbers must be pretty close. So, since then, I have lost 5 inches off my waist, 5 inches off my bust, and 7 inches off my hips!!!! I consider those pretty amazing accomplishments.

Why is any of this important? Because I am trying to learn my new body and figure out what size and styles compliment it best. I was actually very surprised by my new measurements (33-27-37) and what it meant for my body type. I've always considered myself an hourglass figure... defined waist, hips and bust about the same size. Turns out, I'm now a pear shape. Who knew?! Also, it turns out that I was WAY wrong on my bra size. Pre-diet I was in a 36C. Now, according to my measurements, I should be in a 34A!! I mean, I knew they'd gotten a lot smaller but I never thought I'd be an A. It really doesn't matter, I was just very shocked.

So where does the vanity sizing issue come in? I've been getting kind of frustrated because I don't really know what size I wear. I've steadily been buying new clothes as the weight comes off and have been celebrating every new size down along the way. But, just as I'm celebrating the new smaller size at one store, I have to go back up a size or two at the next store. Then I feel foolish for bragging about first size. I thought the measurements would help me pinpoint my actual size but all it's left me is more frustrated.

Apparently, it's not me... it's them. The clothing designers and the companies that play on my desire to wear a smaller size. For instance, this weekend I went to one of my favorite stores for work clothes, NY & Company. I think I know now why I love them so much. As of yesterday at NY & Co. I wore a size 4. Shocking right?! It was to me. And very suspicious too. So I went on their website to look at their size chart. Turns out, I fall right into the size 4 size guidelines. But I don't think I look like what a size 4 person looks like so I checked out a couple more websites to see if my speculations about vanity sizing were correct. Low and behold, I was right. According to American Eagle's size charts I'm a 6, chickdowntown.com- an 8, and bluefly.com- an 8/10. Different sizes for the same measurements.

Now, it doesn't really matter what size I end up in; I'll buy whatever fits. But, it would be nice to not have to look up size charts for every store I walk into so I know what size will fit me. And I know that no matter what size it said on the labels of all those pairs of NY & Co work pants, I needed pants that fit me at that moment. But it kind of pisses me off that I was so gullible to believe their sizes were correct.

The moral of this story is- ignore the label. Because who knows who is deciding what number to put on it. Figure out what your body type is and buy what fits.