Debunking the myth of clothes sizes

NEW YORK - July 9, 2013 - PRLog -- Every industry does it, they create an ad campaign, write a catchy jingle and bombard you with it until the percieved need they wish to create in you becomes a reality.  Before you know it your children are singing the song on long car journeys like it's an old friend and you can't imagine how you ever lived without the wonder product.

If the story runs long enough, it moves to the higher plain of 'myth' and in time it if its a truly successful story it becomes the holy of holy's - 'a Generic term.' Such home runs in the marketing business are winners like; Kleenex, generically used for facial tissue, Jell-O, for gelatin and who doesn't call for a Band-Aid rather than an 'adhesive bandage'?  

These generic terms are no longer ideas a company is trying to shape in your mind they are now a river down which they can gently float....they are unquestioned realities, just the way it is. And for the most part this is not a problem, it's easy to ask for a Kleenex and know you're going to get a tissue - it's manufacturer is by and large irrelevant.

But there is another type of story, that has moved from idea to myth and into generic language use.  Unquestioned terms that don't serve the recipient of the product being delivered but are instead lazy rivers down which any old trader can paddle, peddling utter rubbish to us because we've come to believe in nothing else. A massive one of these, is the concept of 'clothes sizes'."

Speak to any shopping mall consumer and they will genereally readily dislose their size, yet almost without exception there is a caviat, a proviso.  "Oh I'm a size 32 but my legs are really long," or "Well I sometimes fit a 6, sometimes an 8, sometimes I'm in-between." Or, "I'm a size 10 on top and an 8 - ish - on the bottom - I've given up trying to get anything to fit both my waist and my hips."

A little investigation reveals that clothing sizes are actually a relatively new invention.  They are terms invented in the 1800's by industrialists so they could mass produce clothes and maximise profits. These mass produced products are commonly substandard and rely on stretch materials to cover the fact that they don't really fit the wearer, but hey, at least they can get it on!  Such compromise has become accepted and acceptable.

If you are in any doubt of this self evident fact look at the number of make-over shows on cable. "Sally's a 6 on top and an 8 on the bottom, with long legs and a short torso....so we've put her in a track suit' fantastic. Next!

The bottom line is that clothes sizes don't work and they never have, that is unless you're the manufacturer or retail chain owner".

Things are on the change, however.  The liberating potential of the internet has unleashed countless amazing tailors, designers and dressmakers (http://www.stanfordrow.com/items/Women/dresses) from across the US and the world selling online and willing to make clothes to fit.  Many of these are to be found on the new online clothing venue, StanfordRow.com, complete with online fitting room, where boutiques offer not only quality clothes but often original designs, each item made to measure or custom fit (http://www.stanfordrow.com).

Is the myth debunked?  Maybe not quite yet, but if the stream of boutiques opening up at Stanford Row keep growing and producing and getting the word out there, its days are quite possibly numbered. http://www.stanfordrow.com