News | Thursday, 13th June 2013
Retail sizing affects women's self-esteem
Body image research findings
MOST women know that the number on a clothes tag doesn’t really correspond to a standard measurement - but new research shows that doesn’t stop them being worried when they don’t fit into their “usual size”.
A team of clothing technologists from Manchester Metropolitan University’s Hollings Faculty, working alongside psychologists from Staffordshire University, looked into the way that clothes fit affects body satisfaction and – conversely – how satisfaction with one’s body shape affects the perceived fit of clothes.
The team simulated a “dressing room” environment, by asking women to try on a range of garments while recording their comments.
They found that tightness of clothes resulted in decreased body confidence even in women who were generally body-confident.
Disheartening
In the paper, which was published in the journal Body Image, the researchers stated: “Interestingly, being critical of clothes sizing did not seem to protect participants against feeling unhappy if they could not fit into clothes of their usual size. Women who were critical of sizing variation and relatively body satisfied said that they felt disheartened if they could not fit into their usual size clothes.
“Although all the women understood logically the unimportance of sizing within a context where this varies from retailer to retailer, some still experienced a strong negative emotional reaction when they were unable to fit comfortably into clothes labelled their usual size.”
Simeon Gill, from the MMU clothing technology team, said: “Although non-standard sizing between retailers is necessary to fit a diverse population, it is important that greater recognition be given to the huge dimensional variation in both circumferences and lengths of the body.
"This is especially important when clothing, our closest environment, has the potential to affect our satisfaction with our own bodies and their natural proportions.”
Frustration
All the women who took part in the study said that they were aware of differences in size between different shops, and they all also said they were frustrated that retailers did not use a consistent sizing system.
While most of the women said that comfort was more important than the number on the label, five of the 20 women who took part said they would not buy an item of clothing if it was a bigger size than they usually took – even if that size was a better fit.
The study showed that women viewed the “slim hourglass” shape as the ideal, and chose their clothes to help them attain as close an approximation as possible to that ideal.
