May 24, 2006

If you try on 20 pairs of classic black pants and none of them fits, how do you feel about yourself?

• Miserable?

• Hopeless?

• Exasperated?

• All of the above?

Do you think that there is something wrong with your body? Well, there isn't anything wrong with your body. Your body is perfect exactly the way is is, right here and right now. There is, however, something very wrong with all the pants you have tried on.

The Tyranny of the Mass Marketplace

If the only way you know to get your clothing is to shop, you are going to waste a great deal of time and you are going to feel badly about yourself. This is because the mass clothing market seeks to sell the greatest number of garments to the greatest number of people in order to make the greatest profits. Most of us consumers are very cut off from the sources of all the things that we buy, and that includes our clothing. It helps to understand how clothing is produced for the mass marketplace.

Why Doesn't Mass Marketed Clothing Fit?

Clothing manufacturers use standardized sets of measurements to make garments in various sizes. These sets of measurements generally have nothing to do with the measurements of actual people. They are merely extrapolations by regular increments from one small size. In real life, human bodies come in all shapes and sizes, and we don't get larger by regular two inch increments at bust, waist, and hips as we gain weight.

Some manufacturers may use customized sets of measurements that they think correspond to their targeted customer market, and some better designers may use live fit models, who are women whose measurements correspond to the smallest size in those customized sets of numbers.

In general, however, for most apparel sold in this country, designers start to manufacture a design by making a sketch, and then using AutoCAD pattern making software to draft the pattern pieces used to cut out the pieces of the garment. These pieces are then graded by computer, or increased by regular and precisely prescribed increments (which may not correspond to anyone's actual body size and shape) for the larger sizes in a line. Note that standardized sizing and the grading process are meant to fit a very regular, young figure with high, average sized bust, well defined waist, and fairly flat abdomen. In other words, they fit a dress form, not a real body.

Dress forms will stand still for hours without whining and they will not sue you if you jab them with pins, but they do not look like real people. They do not have any of the figure variations that are common to all women, such as a small or large bust, a prominent abdomen or fanny, narrow or broad shoulders, swayback, Dowager's hump, bowed legs, knock knees, short or long waist, and so on. (There are about 85 nameable figure variations, and I have about 40 of them!) The resulting file is then emailed overseas to a factory so that the clothes are manufactured with cheap labor. These garments are then shipped back here and sold to unsuspecting consumers without ever having been fitted on a human body. That is why they fit no one.

Fortunately, there are options to the mass marketplace. Before mass produced clothing was the norm, all clothing was hand made, one garment at a time, for one individual wearer. There were no standardized sizes, and size was never an issue. No one had to try on twenty pairs of pants, because all pants were made to fit individual consumers.

This option is still available today.

Next Post: You Have a Choice!

For more information on the option of custom clothing, visit http://barbaradeckertcouture.com

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