My goal in becoming a designer is to inspire young women to be strong and authentic. My audience is made up of young hopefuls- girls and boys- who dream of making the world a more beautiful place. I want to reach out to creatives and dreamers and tell them that it is ok not to follow a scientific path or an academic path. Our goals as designers is valid.

People typically interact with my social media posts towards the late afternoon or at night. A lot of my followers are college students. Scrolling through social media at night is a great way to unwind after a long day of work and school.

Recently I was challenged through one of my classes to question typical sizing notions. I didn’t think much about this assignment and made my way to my local mall to compare clothing sizes between items and brands.

As a girl, I am all to familiar with the nightmare that sizing creates. I find myself typically fitting into a size 8, but at any given time I can find my self wearing anything from a 4 to a 12. That is almost a FIVE size difference.

Womens’ clothes don’t seem to follow any sort of standardized sizing method like mens’ do. This makes sense given that women are typically more complicated in shape. There are more curves, more variables- BUT this is not an excuse for brands to slap on any number and send the garment out to the stores.

Being above average in height, I never know what I’m going to find. On this occasion I tried on a variety of dresses, skirts, shirts, and pants. I was SHOCKED to find that even within the same brand the sizing is drastically different. I found myself bringing the same dress to my dressing room in three different sizes. I tried my hardest to find a pattern. If I successfully fit into a size 6 for one brand I then tried on another size 6 in a similar garment from that same brand…. and it was too small.

I also find length very frustrating. I always try on pants titled “long,” “tall,” or “extra length,” and it is surprising to see what some brands consider tall. Some pants have an extra few inches. Some have an extra foot. Some are so short that I think they would still be short on an averaged size human.

My take away from this experience was that the fashion industry needs to get together and decide exactly what standard we are basing everything off of. I know that that is never going to happen. I know that some brands size down so their customers can buy the smaller size if they’d like. I’ve even seen some stores drop the number system all together (it wasn’t successful- I was very confused,) and one Size Fits All is not realistic.

Along with that, some women prefer their clothes to be loose, and others prefer for them to be tight. It all comes down to preference and body type, and that seems to be a hard formula for the industry to crack.

It was an eye opening experience, but finding that one perfect garment that fits like a glove is all worth it in the end. It might take some math and some extra time and magic, but the sizing numbers can be useful as a guide rather than a label.