On a recent trip to the US, I budgeted a large amount of time and money to shopping, as any normal woman with a fashion fetish would. After making the trip all the way across the Atlantic with an empty suitcase in tow, I was not planning to return with one ounce less than Qatar Airways would allow me to bring on board.
Hitting the stores in my first week there, I was pleased to find that judging by the clothes that were fitting me, I seemed to have dropped to a size four from my regular size six. Scooping up my purchases from the first store, I headed over to DKNY to continue reveling in my new measurements. Here, however, my emotions transcended pleasure to turn into shock. I was able squeeze into a size two dress, a feat I had never accomplished in my entire life. There had to be something wrong.
As I admired my “size two” figure in the mirror, I remembered a Consumer Behavior course that I had taken in business school. During one of the sessions, my professor had discussed with us a sizing phenomenon that was sweeping the US retail scene. What these retailers had discovered was that consumers tended to shop less when they were unhappy with their size and would instead hold off until they lost some weight in order purchase new clothing. As weight loss is often a long process, the increasing amount of obesity was drastically affecting the retailers’ sales so they decided to take matters into their own hands.
They decided to lose the weight for us.
So while my size two was an inspiration to shop, it was anything but real. Clothing brands have actually started to reduce the size numbers on their clothing in order to seduce us into believing we have the body we have been working so hard to achieve and thus deserve to pamper ourselves with new clothes. Size 8 becomes a size 6, size 6 a 4, size 2 a 0, and 0 became 00.
Points for ethics: 0/10. Points for effectiveness: 10/10. No woman can resist the urge to flaunt a smaller figure, even if it is an imaginary one.
Now as far as I can tell through my research both online and in store, this shocking development in the fashion world is currently limited to the US. Regardless, however, it makes me wonder what that says about us. Have we become so obsessed with our sizes that we disregard what actually looks good on us in order to pinch ourselves into our ideal size? Is this how muffin top was born?
The effect that the fashion industry and their double-zero models have had on us is nothing new, but the fact that we have become so fixated on size that we actually allow ourselves to be fooled into believing we are smaller than what we are is nothing short of alarming. Why is it that women often prefer to wear their ideal size and look terrible in it, when they can actually wear their real size and look almost as slim as they want to be? No one can convince me that the discomfort of too-tight jeans is worth the ability to gloat to your friends about your “new” size.
While I myself would love to believe that I am truly a size 2, I, along with women across the world, have to face the facts and stop beating ourselves up over a number that sits inside your clothes, hidden from everyone in the world but you. Buy your real size, ladies, and I promise it will look far better than any back-roll, muffin-top inducing size 2 dress ever will.
Looking on the bright side, I do have to say that there is one positive outcome of the retailers' new strategy and that is that it goes to prove that size really is just a number.
Hitting the stores in my first week there, I was pleased to find that judging by the clothes that were fitting me, I seemed to have dropped to a size four from my regular size six. Scooping up my purchases from the first store, I headed over to DKNY to continue reveling in my new measurements. Here, however, my emotions transcended pleasure to turn into shock. I was able squeeze into a size two dress, a feat I had never accomplished in my entire life. There had to be something wrong.
As I admired my “size two” figure in the mirror, I remembered a Consumer Behavior course that I had taken in business school. During one of the sessions, my professor had discussed with us a sizing phenomenon that was sweeping the US retail scene. What these retailers had discovered was that consumers tended to shop less when they were unhappy with their size and would instead hold off until they lost some weight in order purchase new clothing. As weight loss is often a long process, the increasing amount of obesity was drastically affecting the retailers’ sales so they decided to take matters into their own hands.
They decided to lose the weight for us.
So while my size two was an inspiration to shop, it was anything but real. Clothing brands have actually started to reduce the size numbers on their clothing in order to seduce us into believing we have the body we have been working so hard to achieve and thus deserve to pamper ourselves with new clothes. Size 8 becomes a size 6, size 6 a 4, size 2 a 0, and 0 became 00.
Points for ethics: 0/10. Points for effectiveness: 10/10. No woman can resist the urge to flaunt a smaller figure, even if it is an imaginary one.
Now as far as I can tell through my research both online and in store, this shocking development in the fashion world is currently limited to the US. Regardless, however, it makes me wonder what that says about us. Have we become so obsessed with our sizes that we disregard what actually looks good on us in order to pinch ourselves into our ideal size? Is this how muffin top was born?
The effect that the fashion industry and their double-zero models have had on us is nothing new, but the fact that we have become so fixated on size that we actually allow ourselves to be fooled into believing we are smaller than what we are is nothing short of alarming. Why is it that women often prefer to wear their ideal size and look terrible in it, when they can actually wear their real size and look almost as slim as they want to be? No one can convince me that the discomfort of too-tight jeans is worth the ability to gloat to your friends about your “new” size.
While I myself would love to believe that I am truly a size 2, I, along with women across the world, have to face the facts and stop beating ourselves up over a number that sits inside your clothes, hidden from everyone in the world but you. Buy your real size, ladies, and I promise it will look far better than any back-roll, muffin-top inducing size 2 dress ever will.
Looking on the bright side, I do have to say that there is one positive outcome of the retailers' new strategy and that is that it goes to prove that size really is just a number.
3 comments:
AMEN TO THAT!!!
I am so tired of people squeezing into a smaller size purely for the sake of saying you wear that size. The same goes for losing weight, instead of losing weight for the health benefits we are obsessed with losing weight to make that magical number on the scale smaller.
I think the worst part about this whole thing is even when you are perfectly aware of how ridiculous this whole sizing and weight issues are it, it is so difficult not to fall into the trap.
So I'm not really a "2-petite" ?? :P Darn.
Wearing your real size does actually make you look so much better. That goes for bra size too... but that's a different subject altogether.
Loved this post too maya, I look forward to reading your blog everyday! :)
Mahassen it's true that regardless of how logical we are as humans, it is difficult to look past the number on the scale to assess if you actually just look good or not
in the size you can actually wear.
Samah, I'm so happy that you're a regular reader--that makes me smile. And I don't know about you, but I'm definitely not a 2-petite! ;)
Maya xx
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