How can you wear an XS shirt in one fabric, brand or style — but an XL in another?

Guests

Alison Hoenes, fit expert and pattern maker for women’s slow fashion brands. Her company is Alison Hoenes Design.

Bridgette Raes, personal stylist. Founder and president at Bridgette Raes Style Group.

Also Featured

Beth Kenny, On Point listener in Denver, Colorado.

Caroline Locke, On Point listener in Broomfield, Colorado.

The version of our broadcast available at the top of this page and via podcast apps is a condensed version of the full show. You can listen to the full, unedited broadcast here:

Part I 

MEGHNA CHAKRABARTI: Caroline Locke is going through her closet in Broomfield, Colorado.

CAROLINE LOCKE: Okay, so these are just pants. We have small. 32. We have a medium. A 10. These are a 6.

CHAKRABARTI: As you can hear, Caroline wears a range of sizes from different brands, places like Gap, Madewell, and Lululemon. She says she’s not really into fashion or shopping the trends. Caroline just wants to find clothes that fit.

LOCKE: All right, moving on to dresses and shirts. We have medium. This is a European large, which is a U.S. medium. An XS, a L, a M, an XS. This is a men’s XL sweatshirt.

Then we got M, a dress which is size 6.

My measurements at Lululemon are, the actual size would be like a 12 to 14, which is considered an XL. And then at Kirkland brand or Costco, I would be considered a M, which is a size 6. So it’s just very confusing. A lot of shopping now is online, obviously.

And size guides, man, the sizing chart, you have to look at it every time and it’s not always accurate.

The sizing chart, you have to look at it every time and it’s not always accurate.

Caroline Locke, on shopping for clothes

CHAKRABARTI: Honestly, Caroline, the sizing charts online are the bane of my existence. They don’t seem to help at all. And chances are, if you’re a woman who’s bought clothes, you have experienced this exact same thing.

Maybe a pair of pants that fit perfectly in one size, but completely differently when you bought the same style and size, but from a different company. Or maybe you’ve started ordering two sizes of the same item when you’re shopping online just to make sure one of them fits how you want. So why are women’s clothing sizes so confusing?

And is there anything that we can do about it? So let’s start with Alison Hoenes. She’s a fit expert and pattern maker for women’s slow fashion brands, and she joins us from St. Louis, Missouri. Alison, welcome to On Point.

ALISON HOENES: Thank you. It’s a pleasure to be here.

CHAKRABARTI: So you’re an expert in how fashion is constructed and made.

But let me first ask you, have you experienced this same sort of major life conundrum that the rest of us have?

HOENES: Oh, definitely. Yes. Even knowing a little bit more about how brands operate from the inside and develop clothing and the fit and their sizing, it’s still a problem for me when I’m shopping for clothes.

CHAKRABARTI: So you feel that same frustration. That’s so fascinating to me. Okay. So I’ll come back to your personal experience in a moment, but let’s just get the ABCDs of how sizing works. Obviously, like there’s the numerical sizes, 2, 4, 6, 8, then there’s small, medium, large, XL, plus sizes, et cetera.

So let’s start with the numerical sizes. Like what exactly does a 2 or a 4 or a 6 or an 8 or a 14 even mean?

HOENES: So it can really mean whatever the brand wants it to mean. There isn’t a overarching standard for what brands have to follow. There are some fit standards, sizing standards recommended by different organizations or body data companies.

So a popular one is ASTM has some body data and studies they did decades ago for what body measurements a size 2 or a size 10 or a size 22 fits. More modern ones could be companies like Alvanon, where they have different standards, maybe like a curvy standard or a straight, more straight body shape standard or an athletic one, for what those bodies measure for different sizes.

But their brands don’t have to follow that. They can make their sizes whatever they want.

Brands don’t have to follow [sizing standards]. They can make their sizes whatever they want.

Alison Hoenes

CHAKRABARTI: Okay. First of all, ASTM, that’s something I’ve heard back in my engineering days. The American Society for Testing and Materials. They had body standards at one time. Okay. That’s fascinating. But I guess the bottom line, like you said, is brands can do whatever they want.

And like, how do they decide then? There has to be a place where they start and say, “Okay, these body measurements, whatever they might be, are going to be I don’t know, an 8.” How does it work for the brands?

HOENES: Yeah, so often they will start with some sort of sizing standard.

And it’s also dependent on their customer too. So hopefully they’re looking at who is the person that’s buying their clothes and maybe what is their age, what is their body shape. What are their expectations for fit? So that would be the best way I think brands can really set their sizing up based on who their actual customers are.

[Clothing brands are] looking at who is the person that’s buying their clothes and … what is their age, what is their body shape. What are their expectations for fit?

Alison Hoenes

Oftentimes, though, brands are starting from those standards if they don’t know who their customer is yet or they don’t have all that data of their actual customers, or they look to other brands. What are other brands, competitors, so to speak, what are their size charts like?

What are they calling a medium? Whether that’s a 6, 8 numeric equivalent or an 8, 10, or what are those bust, waist, hip measurements that kind of popular brands they’re looking to or that their customers might also buy, what are they doing? And copy off of that?

Which helps in some ways, but also, I think that creates some other issues too, where it’s developing the sizing in relation to another brand versus the body of their customer.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay. Let me go back to something you said a second ago, because it seems a little problematic to me, about brands try to get a sense as to who their customer is, right?

And then craft their sizing around that. Oh my gosh, I hope people don’t hate me for saying this, but I’m thinking like a Lululemon out there, are they thinking that their customer, I know they do market research, but it’s like, okay, their size medium or size small is going to be the 20-something Brooklynite with the big sunglasses that goes to an 11:00 a.m. yoga class.

She might have a particular average body shape, but that doesn’t mean that everyone who would want to buy Lululemon has that same shape or even proportions. So do you see what I’m saying? What if you’re not that svelte, but you’re like, “I want to buy Lululemon because it’s, if I find the right size, it’s comfortable.”

Do the sizes account for that, I’ll say it’s that variation in reality?

HOENES: Yeah, it can be an issue. That’s what I was saying, where the maybe aspirational, what they want the body of their ideal customer to be versus what it actually is. And some brands will weigh those two sides more heavily, towards one or the other, and that’s where you’ll often see differences.

One of the women who was speaking earlier was talking about how in Lululemon she wears their XL, but in the Kirkland brand from Costco she wears the medium. And you will find often that more expensive or more designer luxury level brands will run smaller than more affordable or mass market brands.

CHAKRABARTI: Yeah, they want it to be aspirational, but I find it really demoralizing, Alison. Am I really an XXL? Like sometimes, ugh, I don’t know if other women have felt this, but sometimes I’ll go try something on, I’ll pull it off the rack and I’ll be like, “I’m a medium, yay” and I try it on and it’s horrible, and then I keep trying other sizes until I’m like up in the multiple Xs and I’m like, “I can’t believe this,” and I don’t even wanna buy it at all.

I’m not sure, do brands even care about that kind of thing, the psychology of the sizing for their customers?

HOENES: Yes. It is something definitely to think about, both the psychology of what size you and I wear or need to buy to get the fit that we want, but also what are the expectations of the customer?

Because maybe you weren’t there to be able to try on multiple sizes in person. If you’re ordering online and if in general wear a medium may or may not check the size chart. It may or may not reflect what you’re expecting that garment to fit when you order it, even if it is accurate.

And so you might just say I’m usually a medium, so I’m gonna buy a medium. And so that’s where it is helpful to see what are some other brands in this space that my customer would be familiar with and is already wearing? What are the body measurements for a certain size for those other brands so that we can match the expectations of the customer and it isn’t wildly different from your brand to everything else in her closet?

But yeah, there is that psychology about what size am I actually wearing and what does that mean?

CHAKRABARTI: Yeah. I’m wondering if the size specificity also can actually vary within a brand, right? Or even within sort of a type of clothing. Say I buy a shirt from Gap, right? And then I try to buy another shirt from Gap at the same size, but it doesn’t fit, which is weird, but I think that happens. Why does that happen?

HOENES: Yeah. Yeah, so there’s a couple things that are going on there, and part of it is a technical thing and part of it is more of a relational issue that we need to consider that psychology, too. But between, even within a brand it could be that the fabrics were different.

Maybe you tried on a T-shirt in a stretchy knit fabric and then another shirt that was more like a blouse and a woven fabric. And so even for the same measurements, let’s say, of that garment, they’re going to fit very differently depending on the fabric that’s used, depending on the style of that garment, and the fit intent.

So maybe, right now it’s an oversized tee is popular, so they’re going to call that still a medium, but it’s going to fit much bigger than maybe a medium that you’re used to or that you bought in the past from that brand. And so part of it is technical, how can the brand develop their different styles in the different fabrics, following different trends if they’re doing that.

In a way where it’s still a cohesive fit across the collection. So that’s kind of the technical piece. There’s lots of things with that. But then that kind of more relational piece of how can we communicate this to the customer of what that fit intent is, what maybe are the differences, maybe how one style, you might want to size up or down depending on your personal preference for how you want your clothes to fit.

That might not be how the brand developed it. They wanted it more oversized, but you didn’t want it to be, so you might size down. And I think here it’s helpful to keep in mind, like as shoppers, that size is just a number. It does not mean anything about our own worth or what our body is.

Size is just a number. It does not mean anything about our own worth or what our body is.

Alison Hoenes

CHAKRABARTI: I agree. The logical side of my brain completely understands that, but the pure lizard emotional side of my brain is like, “No!” I want it to be a good number, whatever that means.

Part II

CHAKRABARTI: Actually, Alison, before we get into the more big picture of how companies or brands set their sizing, I would love to hear a little bit from you about what you actually do.

Pattern making, what is that?

HOENES: Yeah, so pattern-making is the engineering of fashion. So brands come to me with a style that they want to, they have their design of the style they want to make, and they know what fabric they want to make it in, and then I help them create that fit for the different sizes.

Decide maybe what sizes, whether we’re going to do numeric or alpha size, and develop this garment kind of technically and for their customer so that it fits their customer’s lifestyle, and their values. And then helping them onboard with factories to get it made. So it’s the engineering of how to make this garment versus they’re designing what they want made.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay, so they present you with a sample, with one sort of prototype garment, which isn’t in any particular size, and you work with the brand to say, “Okay here are the measurements that would be for…” If they’re doing small, medium, large, for example, “Here are the measurements that I suggest for a medium.

Is that kind of the start of the process?

HOENES: So they’re usually coming to me with a sketch —

CHAKRABARTI: Oh, a sketch, okay.

HOENES: Yeah, a sketch. So before we even have a prototype or a sample of this design. And then I’m working with them to decide, who is this for? How is it gonna be worn? What are the expectations of that customer?

How is it going to be washed and cared for? And with all of that, that more relational bit of things, how then is that going to impact the technical side of developing essentially the template or the cookie cutter for production of what are the shapes and measurements for each of the sizes that creates that design in a way that fits that customer?

CHAKRABARTI: Oh, this is so interesting. I have more questions, Alison, actually. No, because so you start off with doing some analysis and decision-making around essentially how that garment is going to be a part of the person’s life, right? You said, like, maybe how often they’re gonna wear it, how they’re gonna care for it, things like that.

And that creates technical constraints around the actual cut for the patterns?

HOENES: Yes. Yeah. Because if you think about a big obvious difference is a blazer versus a T-shirt. A blazer, you’re not going to the gym. You’re not doing crazy athletic movement in it.

And so typically, a blazer has a more slim sleeve. It’s a little bit more constricting on the arm to raise your arms up and down. But that is a style, preference, and it’s appropriate for the context that a blazer gets worn in. Versus you would not want that kind of constriction, and that’s not the aesthetic even that you’re going for if you’re designing a T-shirt or something that maybe you’re gonna go rock climbing in.

You would want more movement for those arms. That would be comfortable for that activity, for how that garment’s gonna be worn. And that’ll affect both the look of the design and how it fits, and therefore the shape of what needs to be cut out of the fabric in order to create that type of movement and fit and aesthetic that the brand is going for.

CHAKRABARTI: Got it. And then once one particular pattern is set, how are the patterns for the other sizes determined? I guess what I’m asking is, is a 10 just proportionally larger than an 8, across the board with all the measurements? Or are there, for a 10 in a particular pair of pants, for example, is the waist larger but maybe the inseam isn’t necessarily proportionally larger?

How does that work?

HOENES: Yeah, the second one. So it is larger and smaller. So typically, the size that we do the first prototype in is ideally the middle size in their size range. So for an XS through XL, we’re testing that initial sample in a size medium. And then the other sizes are created from what’s called a process called grading, where that base pattern is then we apply kind of different formulas to different parts of the garment pattern to make it larger and smaller for each size.

And that of course is different depending on what type of sizing we’re using. But you’re right, where some of those measurements are getting larger much faster than others. So for example, like you said, the waist is getting larger in a pant, but usually we’re not making the inseam longer with size because there is no correlation between height and size for women especially. So we don’t need to make it that long. Same with sleeves, like sleeves often is a pet peeve of mine when especially plus size sleeves get super long where they’re like over the hand in certain sizes, and there’s no need for that. Like the body is getting deeper and larger, but it’s not really getting longer.

So each point on the garment is graded up or down at an appropriate increment for that part of the body.

CHAKRABARTI: They need better pattern makers then. Okay. So one more question about the technicalities of pattern making, because this is just really so interesting to me, Alison, I hope you don’t mind.

So I mentioned that you’re a pattern maker for slow fashion brands, which brings into question all the fast fashion out there. I mean, in order for them to turn over their designs as quickly as they do, I imagine, are they putting as much effort into thinking about the grading and all, and the patterns for different sizes?

Because I think every time someone of your expertise comes in and does that work, that adds to the overall cost, and I’m not sure if the fast fashion brands of the world want to spend that much money when they know that they don’t even expect these clothes to be on the rack for more than two months.

HOENES: Yeah. So larger brands or fast fashion brands, they still they have some sort of standards, but due to the time, they’re moving so much quicker, there usually isn’t time for them to fit maybe every style or even to fit multiple sizes on actual people to do a wear test of this.

Or to even test the fabric, like how does it shrink when it’s washed? Do your side seams on your T-shirt twist around the body once you’ve thrown it in the wash once? Things like that where if we have a longer process, we can do more of that testing. We can really dial that in on across the size range.

We have more time to spend on that than a fast fashion brand that is trying to keep costs down and move as quickly as possible to put out new styles.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay. Alison Hoenes joins us today. She has a company, it’s called Alison Hoenes Design. She’s a fit expert, as you’re hearing, and a pattern maker for women’s slow fashion brands, with us from St. Louis. And now I wanna bring in Bridgette Raes into the conversation. She’s joining us from New York. She’s a personal stylist and founder and president at Bridgette Raes Style Group. Bridgette, welcome to On Point.

BRIDGETTE RAES: It’s great to be here. Thank you for having me.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay. So I just want to lay out a thesis of mine, which is I don’t think women’s bodies should be harder to size than men’s. There’s nothing about a woman’s body that should make it more challenging, but it does seem like, I don’t know if it’s part of the industry or the way brands have sold clothes to women historically, but it seems like coming up with standardized sizing for women has historically been more difficult.

Do I have that wrong, Bridgette?

RAES: I don’t think you’re wrong. I think that men are still considering tailoring and how clothing fits, I think women have a much different expectation on what they can expect from clothing off the rack.

CHAKRABARTI: What do you mean?

RAES: What I mean by that is if men buy clothing, like if a man goes and buys a suit, he automatically assumes he’s going to have to tailor it.

Women, we tend to have more of an expectation that, why isn’t it fitting me? And we tend to personalize that more so than men.

CHAKRABARTI: Oh, okay. In terms of, there may be something wrong with me because this isn’t fitting.

RAES: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Very common. But I don’t know if it’s necessarily harder to fit a man than a woman.

I don’t necessarily disagree with you on that. I just think it’s how we approach it, and what’s available and what are men really wearing in comparison to women, right? Pants, a shirt. They’re basically walking around in khakis and button downs all day. When we really compare it, it’s a much easier need to fill.

CHAKRABARTI: Guys, who are listening right now, don’t get mad, okay? Don’t get mad. We know everything we say doesn’t apply equally to everyone.

RAES: Fair enough. Fair enough.

CHAKRABARTI: One thing I asked in our editorial meeting yesterday, I think, was I don’t understand why at least, for things like suits and shirts and slacks, why men get what seemed to me to be straightforward measurements. My waist is a 30, my inseam is a 32, those are the pants I’m gonna buy. But then I was told by my boss, who knows a thing or two about clothing, that isn’t even consistent for men.

RAES: No. No.

CHAKRABARTI: That blew my mind. Yeah, tell me more.

RAES: I can’t speak too much to it because I deal exclusively, I work exclusively with women, but I am married. And I’ve seen my husband buy pants that should fit him and in the waist, in the length, and the waist, it will be inconsistent across the board.

But it’s no different than we as women know our bra size and still can’t go into a store and say I’m going to get the 34C, and it doesn’t matter what brand I buy. We still have a preferred fit because we are so diverse that it’s more nuanced than just throwing numbers around.

CHAKRABRTI: Okay. Alison, let me turn back to you here. And by the way, both of you, feel free, even though I might direct some questions specifically to one of you, feel free to jump in at any time. Let’s mix this up. But Alison, just sticking with the guys for one more second since you’re a pattern maker. Do you have the same kind of challenges if you’re designing patterns for men as we had been talking about with pattern-making for women’s clothing?

HOENES: So I also specialize in womenswear only, but I’m also married and have made some clothes for my husband as well. And there are differences. Men and women, our body shapes vary, and even vary as we age. One person when they’re younger versus older, where we carry our weight, where just the proportions of our body are different even though it’s the same skeleton.

CHAKRABARTI: I’m only laughing because I have walked reluctantly into the welcoming arms of middle age. And I know exactly what you mean.

HOENES: Yeah. So there is such variance here where I think that’s actually a good reason to have some difference in what brands are, the fits that they’re developing because, one, if you had a standard, let’s say, medium, if you weren’t that exact body shape or size that everybody was designing for, you wouldn’t be able to find clothes that fit. Versus if we have different brands that are specializing in different demographics, different preferences, then you can find something that fits better.

But your question of, like, why are women maybe harder to fit, and why you don’t really see women’s pants ever sized by waist and inseam in the same way that you see men’s, is that we have more curves. And with that comes more variation in our body type. So for women, a given waist size doesn’t really tell you anything about their hip size.

And so like it still wouldn’t be just a direct waist measurement, inseam measurement because you have to consider what is that hip shape as well. How full of a thigh are we talking about? And that varies so widely that it’s already disconnected from that kind of simple measurement to body correlation that women’s brands just end up using alphanumeric sizing that doesn’t have the correlation to the measurements.

Then there’s also variation in the, you know, same for on top. With a bra size, like you could have a chest measurement that’s a certain, you know, number of inches, but is that because it’s a larger cup size and smaller back, basically small band, large cup? Or is it a very small cup size and a larger like ribcage and band size in making up that measurement?

So there’s so many variations, that’s where it’s hard to just choose kind of one measurement and size things based on that. Because it still wouldn’t fit everybody.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay. You know what? If you don’t mind, I want to actually just take a quick step back and talk about the history of trying to standardize sizes because there’s a story there. And Bridgette, I was hoping that you might tell that story to us.

RAES: Sure. So what so many women call for, which I think Allison really pointed out why it doesn’t work, is we need to standardize sizing. And I think Alison brought up a fantastic point about why that would actually not work, but there is a history around it.

It’s been attempted twice to standardize sizing, first in the late 1930s early 1940s. They actually invested, I’m sorry, they polled 15,000 women because manufacturers were guessing that it was costing them about $10 million a year not to have set sizes. What happened was, no surprise, it didn’t really get a good enough cross-section of women despite this.

So then in 1958, they tried it again. Interestingly enough, they used women in the Air Force, I think and which women tend to be more athletic in, when they’re in the military, so that didn’t work. And back then, sizing really only started at a size 8. When they established this, the sizing actually only started at a size 8.

So we didn’t have sizes back then like 00, 0, 2, 4. All of that didn’t exist. So it’s only recently that those sizes started to become creative. In 1970, this whole standard that was set in the late ’60s was largely abandoned. It became voluntary, and then in 1983 it was withdrawn from completely.

And what’s interesting is that’s when you start to see vanity sizing really starting to take shape.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay, interesting. So every time there was an attempt, it failed. … The attempt maybe wasn’t as thoughtful as it could have been. It failed. Okay. So it sounds like, then, are we stuck with this with the high variation in sizing now forever?

RAES: I think the bell’s been, you can’t un-ring a bell. Yeah. So but I think that there’s a deeper conversation. I think that when women understand it more, which I think is what’s so important about a show like this, but also, it’s one of those things where you say, “Okay I can’t change it. What can I do about it?” And looking at how much we’re buying, thinking about the fact that no one’s really tailoring anymore, it’s hard to justify tailoring a pair of pants you get for $30. Fast fashion, where you’re going to spend $18 tailoring it. So thinking along those lines of how we’re buying clothing and the economic reality of that.

Part III

CHAKRABARTI: We got some really wonderful feedback from listeners who are living this reality that we all are, and one of them is Beth Kenny.

She works at an outdoor retailer in Denver, Colorado, and she says she does a lot of consoling about clothing sizes outside the dressing rooms.

BETH KENNY: There are some women that really start body shaming themselves as they go to the three-way mirror. They’re like, “Wow, this has been my size for so long, and it just doesn’t work anymore.”

I’ll just say, “Hey let’s try something else. Here’s a different look. Maybe this will be more flattering.”

CHAKRABARTI: And Beth says that some athletic brands are cut much smaller and tighter than others and can be a squeeze, especially when people aren’t expecting it.

KENNY: There is this sigh of relief when they set the body-conscious stuff aside and put on something, that’s a little more classically fit and has a little give.

I think a lot of times people are like, whew, they feel better about their appearance just because they don’t feel like they’re encased in a sausage casing.

CHAKRABARTI: Beth says she tries to tell people not to focus so much on the size number, but she also understands how annoyingly inconsistent and subjective sizing can be.

KENNY: Personally, I can wear something between a 10, a 14. I can fit into three sizes. That’s frustrating, and I think particularly as a post-menopausal woman, I didn’t think I’d find myself here, but I’m really embracing pants with a stretch waistband just to get around all this nonsense.

I’m really embracing pants with a stretch waistband just to get around all this nonsense.

Beth Kenny, On Point listener

CHAKRABARTI: And Beth says she hopes women will stop worrying so much and recognize their own beauty.

KENNY: I’m 63, but just to say, “Hey, I’m strong, I’m healthy, I’m out there,” like that should really be something that helps you move and feel comfortable as you make your way through the world. I just, I hate to see someone get too caught up in all this arbitrary sizing.

CHAKRABARTI: So that’s Beth Kenny. She listens to On Point in Denver, Colorado.

Bridgette, let me turn to you on this because I talked about it a little bit with Alison and we’ve got a better understanding now of why sizing is so variable and how vanity sizing does have a lot to do with it, except the flip side to that is when things don’t fit at a size you think you should be wearing.

I’m only sizing because it’s just taking me back to, like, all my nightmares in the dressing rooms of various, when I’ve tried to buy clothes and it hurts. It actually hurts. I’m gonna say that.

RAES: I’ve been a personal stylist for 24 years, and everything that Beth just said and this experience, I feel it.

I feel it. I deal with it all the time with clients who’ve been there. And I work with primarily with women in leadership roles, executive. These are really women who are accomplishing things, and they’re intelligent, and they’re smart, and they know, and they’ve even said, “I know these numbers are arbitrary,” but it doesn’t matter.

It’s amazing because we have so much emotional baggage that we’re carrying in that’s handed, even handed down to us. So we can logic it out a lot of times. And I even say to my clients, one of my favorite things to say is, “Your body’s not wrong for the clothing. The clothing’s wrong for your body.” But it still sometimes can ring hollow.

One of my favorite things to say [to clients] is, “Your body’s not wrong for the clothing. The clothing’s wrong for your body.” But it still sometimes can ring hollow.

Bridgette Raes

Like, where we have so much worth tied up in this.

CHAKRABARTI: So this gets me back to something that you were saying earlier. And I want to ask both of you about this. Maybe we should be changing our relationship not just to the number of the sizes but our expectation of the clothing, right?

Because back in the day, whatever that was, my understanding was, first of all, people weren’t buying as many clothes, because the clothing lasted longer and how much we were spending on it, I guess we were spending proportionally more but for better quality clothing. And as you said, not just for men, but maybe women also, the expectation was it won’t fit perfectly, but I’m gonna get it tailored.

Should we be going back to that?

RAES: I don’t think, there’s a few issues. So interestingly, just to give you a comparison, in 1890 the average household spent 15% of their income on clothing. In 2024, the average family spends 2.5%. So there’s a huge difference in how much we’re buying and how little we’re paying for it.

In 1890, the average household spent 15% of their income on clothing. In 2024, the average family spends 2.5%.

Bridgette Raes

I don’t think it hurts to go back to thinking about tailoring, I also say that if clothing fits off the rack, that should be something that is not an expectation, right? That should be seen more as “Wow, what a happy, wonderful thing that I don’t have to think further.”

The issue is, though, you and I live in major cities, right? We probably can find five tailors. We’re dealing with parts of the country where they’re hard to find. I have a client in Montana who used to have a woman drive to town, and she would pick up mending, and like we’re watching Little House on the Prairie, right?

She took in mending. But this is the reality that some people are dealing with. And then also because we’re spending so little on clothing, it’s hard to justify.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay. The spending so little part. Alison let me bring you back in here. Because on the one hand, we can point our fingers at fast fashion in terms of its huge impact on the environment.

But then on the other hand, Alison, I also wonder if a lot of these, not just fast fashion, but maybe sort of mass-market brands are being more honest in terms of the question of quality, right? They’re like, we’re not going to charge you $200 for this shirt. We’re gonna charge you a tenth of that because the fit may not be perfect.

The material quality is not gonna be tippy-top. And so that just is what it is. You’re gonna pay literally for what you get. Versus maybe, and correct me if I’m wrong, but my sense is there has been a feeling that even for higher price point brands, the quality of those brands has been declining, Alison.

So I’m wondering what you think about that.

HOENES: Yeah. It is true that especially with, for fabric quality, the more that you spend, the higher quality it’s gonna be. It’s gonna last longer. It’s gonna launder better. And so that is a part of it. But in terms of quality overall declining, there’s also the issue of we’re losing a lot of these skills.

Bridgette mentioned where we don’t have tailors available in every city necessarily versus decades ago we did. There was always someone or maybe everyone’s mom could hem a skirt for them or alter some pants. But we don’t have those skills like within our households.

We’re not training that now. So even within the U.S. at the production level, there’s far fewer factories based here and far fewer talented people in garment construction and alteration than there ever have been. So that’s one issue, like the accessibility of tailoring to be able to make quality alterations or to even construct garments here.

So then we’ve outsourced a lot of that. I think, though, another thing is really the communication of, what those trade-offs are or even what is the sizing of one brand versus another. That’s where I think there’s a lot of room for improvement in the industry … mentioned earlier of maybe we need to change our expectations for how clothes should fit.

But I think before that, in addition to that, I think the industry can do a better job of communicating to the customer what is the fit of their brand. Who was it developed to fit? If there’s a certain body shape or personal preference for style and fit, whether it is more of a classic, more generous fit or more fitted, or what is the age of the customer that this was made to fit best.

Other people are going to be able to fit into that. But I think the communication, the presentation to the customer of their fit and sizing, I think is an area for improvement.

The communication, the presentation to the customer of their fit and sizing, I think is an area for improvement.

Alison Hoenes

CHAKRABARTI: I would add that I think you guys have both mentioned this, I just want to underscore it, and is that personal preference really does matter, and I don’t think we as consumers/women, female women shoppers should expect that every brand’s going to have exactly the kind of fit that I want, right?

Because you can’t really create clothes for 300 million people like different, in terms of personal preference. So yes, I’m all for taking some responsibility in terms of what the expectations I have for size delivery from the brands. But Bridgette, let me turn back to you here. Because I do want to see what you think about this relationship between fit and quality. Because we’ve actually, we did a show in the past, maybe it was a year or so ago about thrifting and vintage shopping. And in that show people were talking about how they prefer to, they’re selective in what they buy from thrift stores, but they can often find clothing of better quality, fabric quality, better construction.

And so those things, because of that, it fits better. And I wonder, that I feel like a lot of people are experiencing that just older clothes seem to fit better.

RAES: Oh, I would say so. I think that the fabrics are better, the construction’s better. So yeah, think about if you’ve ever bought something very flimsy and cheap- to wear, it probably, it didn’t fit well. So 100% there’s a connection. I come from a fashion design background before starting my business, so I understand construction and I understand the difference in fabric and yeah, we’re absolutely seeing that. And the fashion industry has such tight margins.

A great place to cut costs is around fabric.

CHAKRABARTI: So is there a way to get, I understand that we can’t find the perfect standardization for women in all of our glorious diversity in our dimensions. But is there, are there some improvements that brands can make to maybe make it at least a little less emotionally taxing?

RAES: Call me a pessimist. I think, in having been in this industry for almost 35 years, good luck. Look, for an industry that moves trends at the speed of light, they also tend to be very glacial in making changes. It’s also a behemoth of an industry. And I’m also a little, I’m always a little hesitant when they try to do something that seems very customer, “Oh, we’re here for you.”

For an industry that moves trends at the speed of light, they also tend to be very glacial in making changes.

Bridgette Raes

Yeah, at the end of the day, it’s all about a financial bottom line, too. What can, how can we endear you to our brand? So call me, I may sound like a horrible pessimist. I may sound like, “Oh, yeah,” “Good luck.” But I don’t know. I don’t know if they would take on any accountability.

And certainly, I don’t know how accountable they should feel or what they should be doing around what we have to do ourselves in our relationship. Yeah, is there some blame to be put on the fashion industry who’s probably made us all feel like we’re not good enough all these years? Yes. But at the same time, where is it also our responsibility to recognize and to bring logic to, yeah, if I’m trying on an 8 and then all of a sudden, I’m a 12, it’s not about me.

It’s nothing to do with me.

CHAKRABARTI: Since you mentioned sort of our personal roles in relationship with clothing and fashion, we’ve got about, oh, three and a half minutes left. And I wanna end with honestly, tips from both of you, for two reasons. One is I am definitely not a fashionista.

Ask anyone that I work with and they’ll be like, a day that I don’t wear jeans and a T-shirt to work, they’re wondering if I’m interviewing for another job. Which I’m not. Not yet.

RAES: But you know what? Jeans and t-shirt is your style.

CHAKRABARTI: And I have a problem finding jeans that fit these days.

RAES: Oh, call me. We’ll work it out. We’ll work it out. I got you, girl.

CHAKRABARTI: But when you find something that fits, it feels amazing. Amazing. And I’m now thinking of all those makeover shows where there are women who, they have responsibility to care for others, or the work is really busy, or for whatever, all the sort of external energy they have to put into the world around them, they don’t have a chance to take care of themselves.

Then they get on a makeover show, and one of the most transformative moments is when a stylist says, “You’re beautiful. Doesn’t matter your shape. Here are some clothes that fit you,” and they walk out of the dressing room, and I cry every time, because they look amazing and the women feel amazing.

So I want you guys, in the last couple of minutes that we have, to give us one or two tips on how everybody can get closer to having that feeling when picking out clothes. So Alison, let me start with you. What are your one or two tips for finding a better fit?

HOENES: Yeah. So I love that you brought up that story because that’s actually something that I look for in fittings as we’re developing styles is what is the face of the person trying that on?

If they’re looking in the mirror at themselves and smiling, I know we nailed it.

If they’re not, then I’m like, “We still have work to do.” So that is definitely something that I work towards. But in terms of tips of what we can do for shopping, I think one is disconnect from the idea that a size has any bearing on you as a person.

And then beyond that, let’s say you’re shopping online, looking at what is the size chart that the brand has said. And then I love it when brands include sometimes on their product pages they’ll have, they’ll say “This model is wearing our size large and has a bust, waist, hip, and height of the- these measurements.”

And I think that’s a really helpful thing to look at because then you can see how do my measurements compare to that model’s? And if you like how it looks on them, then you know it looks good on you.

CHAKRABARTI: It’s not just how tall they are, but they’re giving the measurements of the models.

That’s really interesting. Yeah. Okay. I didn’t mean to cut you off there … but we’ve just got under a minute. I wanna hear Bridgettes’s tips. Go ahead, Bridgette.

RAES: First thing is completely agree with Alison. My job is to make sure that someone who is expressing themselves inwardly is external.

So when I see that change as well. So I think that’s something even women have to look out for. The last thing, because I know we don’t have a lot of time, is just use that mantra, “It’s not my body that’s wrong for the clothing, it’s the clothing that’s wrong for my body,” and start getting yourself out of the idea that this has anything to do with you.

The first draft of this transcript was created by Descript, an AI transcription tool. An On Point producer then thoroughly reviewed, corrected, and reformatted the transcript before publication. The use of this AI tool creates the capacity to provide these transcripts.