Inside the fight to take back the fitting room

By Eliana Dockterman

I have always hated fitting rooms. It'due south not just that I hate the mirrors meant to pull a fast one on me into thinking I'm skinnier or the curtains that never close all the way and so strangers can glimpse me trying to squirm into likewise-tight jeans. What I really hate is why I have to go to fitting rooms in the first place: to see if I've distilled my unique body shape down to one magic number, knowing full well that I probably won't be right, and it definitely won't be magic. I detest that I'm embarrassed to enquire a salesperson for help, every bit if information technology'south somehow my fault that I'yard not curt or alpine or curvy or skinny enough to match an industry standard. I detest that it feels like nil fits.

And I'm not solitary. "What'due south your size?" has always been a loaded question, but information technology has become virtually impossible to answer in recent years. The ascension of and so-chosen vanity sizing has rendered well-nigh labels meaningless. As Americans have grown physically larger, brands take shifted their metrics to brand shoppers experience skinnier—so much and so that a women'south size 12 in 1958 is at present a size 6. Those numbers are fifty-fifty more confusing given that a pair of size-6 jeans can vary in the waistband by every bit much equally 6 in., according to i guess. They're as well discriminatory: 67% of American women wear a size 14 or to a higher place, and most stores don't acquit those numbers, however capricious they may be.

"Insanity sizing," every bit some have dubbed this tendency, is frustrating enough for shoppers who endeavor on clothes in stores. But now that $240 billion worth of clothes is purchased online each twelvemonth, it has become a source of epic wastefulness. Customers return an estimated twoscore% of what they buy online, more often than not because of sizing issues. That's a hassle for shoppers and a costly nightmare for retailers, who now spend billions covering "gratuitous" returns.

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Clearly, modern mode has a fit problem. And while it does affect men, whose shirts and jeans rarely bear honest measurements, it'south a much more sweeping issue for women—not simply because nosotros have more than wearable options just besides because nosotros are more closely scrutinized for what we wear. When we get married or interview for a task or play professional sports or run for President of the United States, we run across a whole set up of standards and expectations. Nosotros can be shamed for an outfit that'due south too slutty, too dowdy, too pricy—have your choice. That's the brunt women bear into the plumbing equipment room. And when nosotros can't find dress that fit, let alone clothes we like, it can be infuriating.

The fence over sizing is an emotional ane, peculiarly right now, when so many shoppers are rejecting labels of all kinds, from sexual orientation to gender to, yes, size. For decades, major retailers have generally catered to one (white, slim) consumer fifty-fifty as America has gotten more diverse. Now shoppers are pushing back. They're turning away from stores like Victoria's Secret that market a single fashion to be sexy. They're demanding that mass-market place bondage like Forever 21 comport a wider range of sizes in-store. Even celebrities, like Beyoncé and Melissa McCarthy, are calling out high-fashion designers for ignoring the millions of women with curvier figures.

Merely underlying it all is the same maddening question: At a time when consumers are more than vocal than always most what they want and need, and retailers are losing money by sticking with the status quo, and tech companies have streamlined every other role of the shopping process, why is it yet then hard to observe clothes that fit? And what, if anything, can be done almost it?

I'm inside an role closet in San Francisco holding 2 different dresses, both fabricated by the aforementioned brand, both labeled size "small." They've been handed to me past Ruth Hartman, the chief merchandising officer of Le Tote, a startup that measures clothing from major brands in club to recommend the right fit, rather than just the right size, to customers. When I endeavor on the dresses, it's immediately articulate why such a company exists: The first one is tight plenty that I struggle to breathe. The second balloons around me.

Hartman nods knowingly. "It's common," she says. "I always attempt on four pairs of a size-viii jean in the same brand because they all fit differently." The predicament is so absurd, it sounds similar a joke. (In fact, it is i on NBC'south upcoming comedy The Good Identify, fix in a heaven-similar locale where in that location's a boutique called Everything Fits.)

This madness is partly our ain fault. Studies take shown that shoppers prefer to buy habiliment labeled with small sizes because it boosts our confidence. So equally the weight of the average American woman rose, from 140 lb. in 1960 to 168.v lb. in 2014, brands adjusted their metrics to assistance more of us clasp into more than-desirable sizes (and become us to buy more clothes). Over time this created an arms race, and retailers went to extremes trying to one-upwardly one another. By the late 2000s, standard sizes had become so forgiving that designers introduced new ones (0, 00) to make upwards the deviation. This was a workable issue—albeit an annoying one—so long equally women shopped in physical stores with help from clerks who knew which sizes ran large and small.

Then came the Internet. People started buying more clothes online, trying them on at home, realizing that nothing fit, and sending them back. And retailers got stuck with the bills—for two-way shipping, inspection and repair. At present vanity sizing, which was once a reliable sales gimmick, sucks up billions of dollars in profits each yr.

And so why don't retailers but stop doing it? In theory, many (or even most) of them could agree to one standardized prepare of measurements, as mattress companies do, so customers would know exactly what they're getting when they lodge a "size 12" dress. This tactic, known equally universal sizing, is increasingly beingness discussed on manner blogs and at industry gatherings as a common-sense solution to America's crisis. But in that location's a very good reason information technology won't work. And to sympathize why, it helps to understand how sizing came to be in the first place.

I'm at a boutique in Rome, surrounded by retro-chic clothes that would look correct at home in Betty Draper's closet—assuming patterns, colorful capes, loftier-waisted skirts. It feels oddly appropriate, given that I'm here to be measured for a custom dress, something about American women haven't done since the 1950s.

The designer is Tina Sondergaard, a Danish woman who opened her first store in Rome in 1988. Since then, she says, she has outfitted everyone from hotshot executives to Italian rock stars to a German princess who "collection past on her Vespa, left it in the middle of the street, walked into my shop and said, 'I need that wearing apparel.'" By comparison, an American journalist is probably non that exciting. Merely if Sondergaard is thinking that, it never shows.

As she takes my measurements, I'm struck past how many choices I have. Do I want to testify off my arms or hide them? Do I want to emphasize my waist? My legs? "Back in time, this is what people used to do," Sondergaard tells me, explaining how sizing worked for most of human history. If women were wealthy, they had their clothes fabricated. If they weren't, they made their own. Either way, garments adhered to the contours of their bodies better than annihilation off the rack e'er could.

In America, those cultural norms started to shift during the Nifty Low, when barely anyone could beget to buy nutrient, let lonely material. At the same time, industrial techniques were improving, making information technology cheaper for companies to mass-produce dress. By the end of World War II, those factors—alongside the rise of advertising and mail-order catalogs—had sparked a consumer revolution, both at home and abroad. Made to measure was out. Off the rack was in.

And sizes arrived. In the early on 1940s, the New Deal–born Works Projects Administration commissioned a study of the female body in the hopes of creating a standard labeling organisation. (Until so, sizes had been based exclusively on bust measurements.) The report took 59 distinct measurements of 15,000 women—everything from shoulder width to thigh girth. Simply the most consequential discovery by researchers Ruth O'Brien and William Shelton was psychological: women didn't want to share their measurements with shopping clerks. For a system to piece of work, they concluded, the authorities would take to create an "arbitrary" metric, like shoe size, instead of "anthropometrical measurement[due south]."

So it did. In 1958, the National Plant of Standards and Engineering science put along a set of fifty-fifty numbers viii through 38 to represent overall size and a set of letters (T, R, Southward) and symbols (+, —) to represent height and girth, respectively, based on O'Brien and Shelton'south research. Brands were advised to make their clothes accordingly. In other words: America had research-backed, regime-approved universal sizing—decades ago.

But by 1983, that standard had fallen by the wayside. And experts debate it would fail now likewise, for the aforementioned reason: at that place is no "standard" U.Southward. torso type. Universal sizing works in China, for example, because "being plus-sized is so unusual, they don't even have a term for it," says Lynn Boorady, a professor at Buffalo State University who specializes in sizing. Just America is home to women of many shapes and sizes. Enforcing a unmarried set up of metrics might arrive easier for some of them to shop—like the thinner, white women on whom O'Brien and Shelton based all of their measurements. Simply "we're going to get out out more people than we include," Boorady says.

And then once more, the majority of American women are beingness left out right now.

I'm in a fitting room at Brandy Melville in New York City, a few steps from a sign promising that "ane size fits well-nigh." At this store, there are no sizes—simply racks of sweatshirts, ingather-tops and brusque-shorts whose aesthetic could be described equally Coachella-meets-pajamas. Many of Brandy Melville'south teen and tween fans love this approach, in office considering they can all try on the same dress.

For me, it's a mixed experience. I'chiliad 5 ft. ix in. and, though we've already established sizing is meaningless, the apparel in my closet are mostly sizes 4 or 6. Simply when I try on the stretchy shorts and skirts, the fit is so tight it feels like I'one thousand wearing underwear. Immediately I empathize why critics say this store fuels trunk-image issues.

Brandy Melville denies it's exclusionary. "Anyone can come in the shop and observe something," its visual director, Sairlight Saller, told Us Today in 2014 (the retailer declined to comment for this article). "At other places, certain people tin can't find things at all." The first statement is patently false: no 1 store can fit every human body. But the second is spot-on. Some of Brandy Melville's looser tops did fit me, and they could fit women who are much curvier than I am. Almost retailers largely disregard the latter demographic.

This is a confounding business policy. The majority of American women habiliment a size xiv or above, which is considered "plus size" or "curvy" in the mode industry. And they're spending more than ever. In the 12-month period ending in February 2016, sales of plus-size apparel hitting $20.4 billion, a 17% increase over that aforementioned menses ending in February 2013, according to the marketplace-inquiry firm NPD Group.

And yet, the plus-size market place is treated as an after-thought. Nearly all advert campaigns characteristic thin models. Near designers refuse to brand plus-sized vesture. Some retailers have even launched plus-size brands simply to impale them several years afterwards, equally Limited parent L Brands did with Eloquii (which was sold and relaunched by private investors after an outcry from consumers).

For shoppers, the message is inescapable: if you lot're over a certain size, you don't belong. "It's like nosotros've been taught we all should accept third optics, and if you don't have a third eye, what'southward wrong with y'all?" says McCarthy, the Emmy-winning actress who has been "every shape and size under the rainbow" and is currently a size 14. "If yous tell people that long enough, in 30 years everyone's going to go, 'You see that 1? She's only got 2 eyes.'" In stores, she adds, the plus-size sections are ofttimes relegated to obscure areas, like the corner or on a different floor, if they exist at all. "If I accept a friend who is a size 6, we can't go shopping together. They literally segregate us. Information technology feels like y'all're going to detention when you lot go up to the 3rd floor."

McCarthy isn't the only shopper speaking out. Earlier this year, blogger Corissa Enneking, who calls herself a "happy fatty," wrote a viral open letter to Forever 21 after encountering a plus-size department she describes every bit shoved into a corner "with yellow lights, no mirrors, and nothing accessories." "Your reckless disregard of fat people's feelings is shameful," she connected. (At the time, Forever 21 said this wasn't an "accurate representation" of its brand.) Even Beyoncé, now considered an icon in the mode world, has been vocal about how hard it is for women with curves to observe clothes. Designers "didn't actually desire to dress four black, country, curvy girls," she has said of her early years with the grouping Destiny'due south Child. "My mother was rejected from every exhibit in New York."

Wear companies say that it'southward hard for them to make and stock larger sizes because it requires more fabric, more patterns and more than coin. That's all technically true, says Fiona Dieffenbacher, who heads the style-design program at the Parsons School of Design. "But if you have the volume of a big brand, it'southward a no brainer. You're going to get the sales." The more complicated issue, argues SUNY Buffalo State'south Boorady, is that most designers nonetheless equate "fashionable" with "skinny." "They don't desire to think of their garments being worn by plus-size women," she says.

Slowly, those biases are breaking down. Victoria's Secret, for example, is attempting to rebrand itself to emphasize comfort and authenticity ("No padding is sexy," a recent ad declares) after ane of its competitors, Aerie, generated considerable fizz—and sales—by using models with rolls, cellulite and tattoos. Nike is using a plus-size model to sell sports bras. H&Yard is expanding its plus-size collection. And designers are starting to embrace a broader array of body shapes. (Consider Christian Siriano's collection with Lane Bryant and McCarthy'southward line, Seven7, which offer extensive plus-size options.) This is how mode is supposed to work, says Sondergaard, the Danish dressmaker. "Many designers say, This is the dress, let's try to fit people into this. Merely it's the opposite: Y'all wait at people, and say, Allow's try to fit a wearing apparel for this body."

Even every bit sizing becomes more inclusive, withal, confusion persists: "size 20" is simply as meaningless every bit "size 6." And for now, at least, the solution isn't pattern. Information technology's data.

I'm in my apartment in New York, about to open a box that I'thousand told represents the future of retail. Information technology'southward come up courtesy of Le Tote, the startup I visited in San Francisco. Hither's how the service works: I spend a few minutes awkwardly taking my own measurements with a measuring tape. Then I transport that information to Le Tote, which runs my bodily size—not the arbitrary numerical i—through its massive database of wear measurements. Days later, I become a box of outfits picked specifically for my trunk.

The algorithm backside it all is called Chloe, and it'southward more encyclopedic than whatsoever man salesclerk. In improver to tracking my shape, Chloe can track my likes and dislikes. If I get a pair of boyfriend jeans that hang too loose, for example, I can tell Chloe I don't similar that style, even though information technology technically fits. Next time Chloe volition know to size down.

Online retailers are salivating over engineering like this, which may well enable them to win more customers. True Fit, a Boston-based startup with its ain database of measurements, works with more than 10,000 brands, including Nordstrom, Adidas and Kate Spade. Its algorithm asks shoppers to enter the size and make of their best-fitting shoe, shirt, dress, etc.; and so it recommends products accordingly.

These services aren't perfect. Le Tote, for instance, doesn't yet offering petite and plus-size options, nor practice many of the brands that work with True Fit. And it's hard to predict personal style. Every bit Truthful Fit co-founder Romney Evans puts information technology, "Yous can accept someone who technically fits into a horizontally striped one-piece but hates Beetlejuice." To its credit, though, Chloe found clothes that worked well for my body. When I opened the Le Tote box, almost everything fit.

And then, are we close to solving the sizing crisis? Yes and no. Startups like Truthful Fit and Le Tote are certainly taking steps in the correct management, cutting through the chaos of Internet shopping to offer clear, actionable intel. Ditto brands like Aerie and designers like McCarthy, who are proving that it'southward good business to push the boundaries of traditional sizing.

There are many other entities trying to start a retail revolution. Among them: Torso Labs, which creates three-D fit models of the man body; Amazon, which recently patented a True Fit-like algorithm; Gwynnie Bee, which offers a clothing subscription service for plus-size women; and Fame & Partners, which allows shoppers to design their own dresses. It's too early on to tell which ones will succeed.

But even if all of them flourish and sizing becomes radically inclusive and transparent, there's no guarantee that we—the shoppers—volition similar what nosotros see in the mirror. Vanity sizing works because, deep down, we're all a little vain. And no matter how many strides it makes, the style industry tin can't alter its raison d'être: to make u.s. feel like better versions of ourselves, ane outfit at a time. Sometimes, that requires charade. Oftentimes, information technology drives u.s.a. crazy. That's why I hate plumbing fixtures rooms—until I observe something I love. •

Graphic sources: Lynn Boorady, SUNY Buffalo State; ASTM International; Getty Images; People magazine; NPR
Photos: Twiggy, Kaling: Getty Images; Collins: AP; Winfrey: Dave Allocca—DMI/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images

Correction: The original version of this story mischaracterized the number of partners/collaborators of the startup Truthful Fit. As of August, the company works with more than x,000 brands.