April 26th, 2010 by Rachel | Tags: Anthropology, Clothing, Corporation, Material Culture, Shopping | 2 Comments »
I’m creating a scenario. I was in the fitting room of a clothing store called Beautiful (FYI – I made up the name.) For this store, I normally wear size two in shirts and size four in pants. I put on a shirt in size two. Wow! Did I lose any weight? This shirt is a bit big on me. I went out of the fitting room to get the same shirt in size 0. As soon as I got back to the fitting room, I tried on the shirt, and it fit me perfectly.
When I went home, I got on a scale to weighed myself to see if I’d lost any pounds. Nope! I was in the exact same weight as I always have been. I went to my closet to get another shirt from Beautiful to compare the size between this shirt in size two and my new shirt in size zero. They appeared to be in the exact same size! How can this happen?
There was a very interesting article on Huffington Post regarding clothing companies resizing their clothes from smaller to bigger so that the customers can feel better about their weight. It’s interesting how corporations are helping the customers feel better about their weight by creating a small, simple change in the labels of the clothes.
Simply changing the size on the label can give people the wrong message. It will tell people that it is OK to balloon themselves, as long as the clothing companies continue this trend.
2 Comments
Paotie
April 27, 2010 at 11:35 am
Rachel ..
Interesting. What about the opposite end of the spectrum: anorexia?
Perhaps the change in the labels, it may be thought, can help reduce incidences of anorexia? Popular culture seems to uphold the image of skinny as being sexy or fantabulously glamourous, and anorexia has been argued to be a by-product of popular culture based on movies, TV ads, magazines, and so on.
Perhaps the change may modify the perception of what “skinny” is defined and help lower incidences of anorexia?
Then again, we’ve got an “epidemic” of overweight people in the U.S., so I dunno.
Just a thought.
:o)
Rachel
May 6, 2010 at 11:19 am
Paotie…
Very good thinking! I could certainly see that changing the number on the labels could also help combat anorexia. Thank for your sharing the opposite of the spectrum idea.