Women know that clothing sizes don't make any sense at all. Even if you are young and average, you have to try a garment on to know what size to purchase, because manufacturers set their own size standards. But it goes much further. You may have read that the average American woman is a size 14, but that doesn't tell the whole story. The median 15-year-old wears a women's size 10, while the median woman in her 20s wears a size 14, or large, and the median woman in her 30s wears a 16, or extra large. When you consider all women over age 20, the median size is 18. Yet many clothing brands only carry sizes up to 16. And that's before you figure in vanity sizing, height, or body shape. Most women are not shaped like an hourglass.
Once upon a time, stores offered alterations, or you could find a local tailor. And many women could alter or even make their own clothing. Now, women outside the target customer range order clothing online, and the returns due to sizing are crowding our landfills. Read a deep dive (including interactive graphs) into the craziness of women's clothing sizes at The Pudding. -via Metafilter
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