Clothing sizes: not just hellish for me

I've written about my frustration with clothing sizes before, and also about the psychological impact those numbers can have on me. I know women's sizes are messed up and an article from Best Health magazine reinforces this knowledge.

It's really interesting, actually but the most important piece of information is that

"Women’s sizes aren’t standardized in North America. “Voluntary standards were created in the 40s and 50s, but manufacturers don’t follow them,” says Lucia Dell’Agnese, associate chair of the School of Fashion at Ryerson University in Toronto. “So depending on the company, the ‘ideal’ 34-28-34 woman could be a size 4, 6, or 12.”"

 It also horrifies me that, for some, the 'ideal' waist is 28" and that is synonymous with a size 12. No wonder women all over have such trouble shopping for clothes!

I also know that this is nothing new, that clothing sizes have been wonky for a long time and, as the article mentions, that some manufacturers size their clothing based on their target market. And I also understand why clothing sizes can't be standardized because women's shapes differ as well.

But men have it easy with sizing in actual inches rather than arbitrary even numbers. I understand that women can be vain when it comes to sizes (like me cutting size tags out of my clothes so the Beau doesn't see them when he does laundry) but why can't the switch be made for women's clothing? Why are we forced to labour over the desire to be a size 2 or size 4 or whatever number is deemed 'perfect' at any given time?

Since I know that will never happen, I guess it's up to me to overcome my fixation with the number on the tag and go with what fits, regardless of size.

One day I'll overcome that. One day...