You Call That a Size?
Remember the old Sear Christmas Wish Book? I use to spend hours looking through that book and not only at holiday time. Well obviously I’ve had to find substitutes (I have lots!), and one of the ones I look through a lot are store supply/display catalogues. Oh come on, you already know I’m weird!
Anyway, I was going through the newest one and came to the mannequin section. Most are full-size, to scale (remember that - to scale) with the head included. Men, womens, and children’s for store clothing displays.
I scanned two images to share with you - I found them particularly interesting for a number of reasons I’ll explain in a bit.
Now, think about going into your favorite store and seeing an outfit on a display mannequin: you love it! You track down your size and hurry into the fitting room. Five minutes later you’re looking at yourself in the mirror and wondering what you’re doing wrong. This outfit doesn’t look anything like it did on the mannequin!
And my friends, the odds are it never, ever will look like it did on the mannequin. Here are the images I scanned.
Be sure you read the ‘stats’ beneath each image - I took it directly from their descriptions. Oh there were also an equal amount of size 4 models, but I couldn’t even force myself to scan those too. Just curious here, but how many of your friends are 5′-11″ with those measurements? Yeah, I came up with about the same amount: little more then 0, but less then 1.
Then there’s the Plus-Size model; someone want to let me know when a size 12-14 - a 14 by-the-way is the Average size of a woman living in the US - was moved into a plus-size category? Don’t forget she too is 5′-11″ tall. Oh and did you get a good look at her ’shape’? What part of plus-size are you seeing? I’m seeing someone very thin, with no stomach or hips, thin arms, legs and big boobs that will never sag.
And we wonder why clothes don’t look the same on us! NOT.
Want to know what a size 14 really looks like? Well here you go: 5′-5″, 51 years old, and a size 14.
And here’s another view - I keep saying Rubens would have just loved me!
Personally, I like curves… these ‘fantasy driven‘ manufacturers can have their mannequins, I think I’ll just keep on sewing clothes that flatter me; did I mention I really like curves?
February 11th, 2008 at 7:27 pm
Oh, yeah! I can relate. I buy my clothes from catalogs for plus sizes. But I favor one that actually shows the clothes on fat people. There are others that purport to being for plus-sized people but the models are all regular sizes (or maybe they’re like your mannequins). My goal is to be a size 14! But as for the 5′11″ height. We have 2 women in our family who are 6′ tall (and one kid who probably will be) and a whole bunch of 5′10″ ones, too. At 5′7.5″ I was one of the short ones.