By the numbers

Clothing sizes are awful, we all know that. They’re random and inconsistent but it’s hard to escape the messages (sometimes subliminal sometimes overt) that some are good and some are bad. This compounds the problem in multiple ways. It makes people focus on clothing size instead of health, and also leads clothing manufacturers to play games with sizing in hopes that people will spend more if they can buy the size they like—not gonna lie, I have succumbed to this one—but it just makes everything more inconsistent and frustrating. 

I can’t remember if I blogged already about an experience years ago looking for a swimsuit. 

I just wanted a plain one-piece, ideally “tall” sized (I’m not tall, but I have a long torso). It was the wrong season and everything on the rack was hideous or expensive or both. Finally I found a plain black maillot that looked about right. Size 12 though! Well at least it would probably be long enough. I took it to the change room and was shocked at how small it seemed. Had I gained a bunch of weight and not noticed? I struggled to get the damn thing on, refusing to be conquered by a size 12. I finally did it, looked at my squashed and hunched self in the mirror for about 5 seconds, and took it off.

Then I looked at the tag again and saw it was from the children’s department. 

All that unnecessary torture because I was hung up on a number. 

It happened again earlier in the pandemic. I ordered a skirt online, from a fancy designer, but deeply discounted because it was a sample sale. I checked the measurements on their size chart about a million times, because I wouldn’t be able to return it, and finally bit the bullet and got the size 6. I was disappointed when it arrived that the seams were serged, because it’s a cheap construction method and you can't do alterations easily. Then I tried it on. Or tried to. It would not. No stretch in the fabric, and even though it was a more forgiving A-line cut, way too tight through the hips. And no way tolet out the seams, due to that cheap construction. My fun pick-me-up treat during pandemic times just made me feel worse. Periodically over the pandemic I’d try again, wearing control-top nylons, or when I was “feeling thin,” and I got close, but never quite there.

Then one day I noticed that there was a second tag. The brand tag at the waistband didn't have any info beyond the designer’s name. But in a side seam, closer to the hem, was another tag, with fibre content, washing instructions, and size—zero! It never fit because they sent me the wrong size, and I chose to blame myself for being fat.

I admit I couldn’t resist trying it on this week after being sick and not eating. It fits! It fits as long as I’m too sick to go anywhere.