About the size of it
Feb. 4th, 2026 10:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
baroque_mongooseThere are many reasons why, for the most part, I make my own clothes. It really started because I have a non-standard figure. I'm tall but not in the usual proportion, having a very short back but long legs, so my waist is appreciably higher than it would be on most people my height. I have a pronounced sway back and a long rise at the back (the two are clearly connected); and these days I'm also top-heavy and what I like to describe as "comfortably plus-sized". (I'm around the top end of my healthy weight range, but not overweight. This is where I like to be, because I'm the sort of person who is inclined to lose weight under stress.) And, of course, these days there is also Sibyl, who is a consideration all on her own. She's not just a fitting issue but an access issue.
But it's not even just that. Even if you have a perfectly bog-standard, average figure, buying clothes is still a nightmare because the sizing is so inconsistent. If you are a man, you probably have no idea about this, because you know your chest size, your waist size, and your inside leg measurement, and you're used to being able to walk into a shop and pick out something with those measurements printed on the label. It may be an average high street shop or one of those Big And Tall places, but either way, those measurements are usually going to be there; it is possible that you may get casual polo shirts or T-shirts labelled something like "3XL", but for men that is still fairly consistent. Athos, who, as I have mentioned before, is a big bloke, knows he can just pick size [redacted] off the shelf and it'll fit him, whichever shop he's in.
It is nothing like so simple for women.
For a start, there are still quite a lot of manufacturers who think women all have the same leg length; when I reached the stage where I was allowed to buy my own clothes, it was pretty much all of them apart from Marks & Spencer, so if I wanted trousers I usually had to go to M&S and buy whatever they called the longer length at that time. (There were, however, one or two manufacturers who supplied trousers in a longer length as standard, presumably assuming that if you were a short woman you were capable of taking up the hems yourself; I recall Happit being one of them. I don't think they are still going, but that attitude does continue.) It is a little better these days, and most good department stores will have something like three lengths, but that still doesn't cover the whole range. Nothing like. For men, though, it's simply taken for granted. Nobody makes three trouser lengths and expects them to fit Average Bloke (175 cm), Porthos (190 cm), and d'Artagnan (160 cm). No, they make an entire range, so that everyone gets the correct length, including people who are taller than Porthos or shorter than d'Artagnan. So why can't they do that for women?
And then there's the whole business of trying to encapsulate an entire set of measurements as a single number, and not even consistently at that. Depending on whose measurement chart you look at, I am literally everything from a size 14 to a size 24, inclusive. That's going by the bust measurement, because if it fits there it at least won't be tight anywhere else (it will definitely be too big across the shoulders, which is going to be a bit of a pain, but there's no point in having it too well fitted at the waist because of my waist not being in the same place as anyone else's in any case, and I really don't want anything tight around the hip/stomach area due to Sibyl). If I were buying just the bottom half, I'd be either one or two sizes less than that, again depending on exactly how the sizes are defined. The whole S/M/L/XL... scale is just as bad as the numbers, unless you buy something which is sold as "unisex" but primarily designed and sized for men (think T-shirts). That, for some arcane reason, is a great deal more consistent.
I'm wearing a pair of size 4XL knickers right now. There's no way I'm that outsized. That product line is just sized extremely small. (They are made in China, which probably makes a difference.) The red polo neck, on the other hand, I think is a size 14... my point, I think, is made. (Oh, and the stoma belt is just L. Everything else I have on, other than the bra and the leggings, I made myself.)
Of course, sewing patterns also have weird sizes; even when they use numbers, those are often not the same as ready-to-wear dress size numbers (as a very rough guide, for the Big 4 patterns I'm generally about a 20 or a 22, whereas my average RTW dress size is more like 18). But for one thing you've got your size chart printed right there on the pattern envelope, rather than having to go looking for it, and for another thing you don't have to stick with that. Because I tend to prefer things a bit looser around the waist and hips, I will normally size to the bust, taking in the shoulders if necessary (if it's already a drop shoulder it doesn't matter, but if the shoulder seam is meant to sit neatly just where the shoulder drops naturally, it does). If I didn't have Sibyl, I'd size to the hips and let out the bust, which would mean I wouldn't have to adjust the shoulders. Patterns provide a basic template from which you can then do any amount of adjustment you need to get the exact fit you want, including lengthening, shortening, grading between sizes, adding or removing fullness from different areas, and all the rest of it; and by the time you've finished, you have something that can't possibly be summed up in a single random number. It's you-sized. There isn't a number for that.
A couple of years ago I had a 110 cm bust (it's a bit bigger than that now), and I saw a top I liked online. However, there wasn't a size chart, just the information that this top came in sizes 10-24 (or something like that). So I contacted the vendor and asked which size I needed to fit a 110 cm bust. The vendor replied that it came in sizes 10-24, which I already knew and which told me precisely nothing. I asked again.
The vendor was so slow to reply that in the end I said "don't bother, it'll be quicker to make my own." Which, honestly, it was, even stitching by hand. It was also cheaper (in terms of materials, at least), much better made... and, naturally, a perfect fit.
I still occasionally wonder how that vendor stayed in business.
But it's not even just that. Even if you have a perfectly bog-standard, average figure, buying clothes is still a nightmare because the sizing is so inconsistent. If you are a man, you probably have no idea about this, because you know your chest size, your waist size, and your inside leg measurement, and you're used to being able to walk into a shop and pick out something with those measurements printed on the label. It may be an average high street shop or one of those Big And Tall places, but either way, those measurements are usually going to be there; it is possible that you may get casual polo shirts or T-shirts labelled something like "3XL", but for men that is still fairly consistent. Athos, who, as I have mentioned before, is a big bloke, knows he can just pick size [redacted] off the shelf and it'll fit him, whichever shop he's in.
It is nothing like so simple for women.
For a start, there are still quite a lot of manufacturers who think women all have the same leg length; when I reached the stage where I was allowed to buy my own clothes, it was pretty much all of them apart from Marks & Spencer, so if I wanted trousers I usually had to go to M&S and buy whatever they called the longer length at that time. (There were, however, one or two manufacturers who supplied trousers in a longer length as standard, presumably assuming that if you were a short woman you were capable of taking up the hems yourself; I recall Happit being one of them. I don't think they are still going, but that attitude does continue.) It is a little better these days, and most good department stores will have something like three lengths, but that still doesn't cover the whole range. Nothing like. For men, though, it's simply taken for granted. Nobody makes three trouser lengths and expects them to fit Average Bloke (175 cm), Porthos (190 cm), and d'Artagnan (160 cm). No, they make an entire range, so that everyone gets the correct length, including people who are taller than Porthos or shorter than d'Artagnan. So why can't they do that for women?
And then there's the whole business of trying to encapsulate an entire set of measurements as a single number, and not even consistently at that. Depending on whose measurement chart you look at, I am literally everything from a size 14 to a size 24, inclusive. That's going by the bust measurement, because if it fits there it at least won't be tight anywhere else (it will definitely be too big across the shoulders, which is going to be a bit of a pain, but there's no point in having it too well fitted at the waist because of my waist not being in the same place as anyone else's in any case, and I really don't want anything tight around the hip/stomach area due to Sibyl). If I were buying just the bottom half, I'd be either one or two sizes less than that, again depending on exactly how the sizes are defined. The whole S/M/L/XL... scale is just as bad as the numbers, unless you buy something which is sold as "unisex" but primarily designed and sized for men (think T-shirts). That, for some arcane reason, is a great deal more consistent.
I'm wearing a pair of size 4XL knickers right now. There's no way I'm that outsized. That product line is just sized extremely small. (They are made in China, which probably makes a difference.) The red polo neck, on the other hand, I think is a size 14... my point, I think, is made. (Oh, and the stoma belt is just L. Everything else I have on, other than the bra and the leggings, I made myself.)
Of course, sewing patterns also have weird sizes; even when they use numbers, those are often not the same as ready-to-wear dress size numbers (as a very rough guide, for the Big 4 patterns I'm generally about a 20 or a 22, whereas my average RTW dress size is more like 18). But for one thing you've got your size chart printed right there on the pattern envelope, rather than having to go looking for it, and for another thing you don't have to stick with that. Because I tend to prefer things a bit looser around the waist and hips, I will normally size to the bust, taking in the shoulders if necessary (if it's already a drop shoulder it doesn't matter, but if the shoulder seam is meant to sit neatly just where the shoulder drops naturally, it does). If I didn't have Sibyl, I'd size to the hips and let out the bust, which would mean I wouldn't have to adjust the shoulders. Patterns provide a basic template from which you can then do any amount of adjustment you need to get the exact fit you want, including lengthening, shortening, grading between sizes, adding or removing fullness from different areas, and all the rest of it; and by the time you've finished, you have something that can't possibly be summed up in a single random number. It's you-sized. There isn't a number for that.
A couple of years ago I had a 110 cm bust (it's a bit bigger than that now), and I saw a top I liked online. However, there wasn't a size chart, just the information that this top came in sizes 10-24 (or something like that). So I contacted the vendor and asked which size I needed to fit a 110 cm bust. The vendor replied that it came in sizes 10-24, which I already knew and which told me precisely nothing. I asked again.
The vendor was so slow to reply that in the end I said "don't bother, it'll be quicker to make my own." Which, honestly, it was, even stitching by hand. It was also cheaper (in terms of materials, at least), much better made... and, naturally, a perfect fit.
I still occasionally wonder how that vendor stayed in business.
