Julia Felsentha, 'Why clothing sizes make no sense', Slate, December 28 2012:
"If your clothes are made-to-measure—as they were
in an earlier era, particularly for wealthy women—there’s no need for a
standard set of sizes...And as wealthy women
began to purchase premade clothing, pressure mounted to ensure that it fit in a
consistent way.
The ready-to-wear sizing system that existed prior to the ‘40s was first
developed for menswear. Scholars have found evidence of standardized men’s
sizing as far back as the Revolutionary War. By the War of 1812, the Army was
in the practice of holding stocks of ready-made uniforms sized according to a
single measurement, of the chest—based on the assumption that you could deduce
from it a proportional understanding of the rest of a man’s body. So, when
manufacturers in the early 20th century began to produce women’s
clothing, they based women’s sizes exclusively on a single measurement: the
bust.
The only problem? Bust measurements on their own are not particularly
accurate indicators of a woman’s size or of the rest of her proportions. As we
all know, some small women have very large breasts, and some large women have
very small ones. This sizing conundrum was particularly irksome to the Mail Order
Association of America, which was well aware by the late 1930s that women often
returned clothing because of poor fit...
...Women’s sizes were derived from bust size—with
all other measurements based on the proportions of an hourglass figure—"
My wife's cousin's engagement took place in the last week of December 2012.
Cousin's
mother's blouse- even a simple sleeveless affair- and not a designer one to be worn on the occasion- was a big deal.
To make sure there was no goof up on that
front, she got a trial blouse stitched by a tailor in our area. It came
out perfect. Since he passed the test, he was given the 'real' thing. Every once concerned was happy and confident. And why not?
It was screwed up big time! The lady said she had never seen a worse blouse in her life!
In the end though all was sorted out amicably and every one that mattered looked pretty in the pictures and videos. I stuffed myself with Veg and Panir Manchurian and generally avoided photographers until a mandatory
picture.
I
am so tired of listening to these 'evil tailor stories' now because they seem to
happen all the time.
On the other hand, the last time I got my trouser
or shirt stitched was in the last century. [It was not always the case though. I still remember: we were to catch a morning train (Deccan Express) for
Pune from Miraj- then metre gauge- in 1965 to attend my mother's
brother's wedding. My father, my brother and I were at the tailor
previous night after 8 PM- then very late hour- waiting for our clothes to delivered. I still
remember my exasperation!]
I
wonder why tailoring of women's blouse remains such a fickle art and it
has always been so since my childhood.
One oft-heard female Marathi
expression then was "शिंप्याने ब्लाऊज बिघडवला!" (tailor spoiled the
blouse!) I don't think it has changed much.
Artist: Victoria Roberts, The New Yorker, 17 September 2001
Once upon a time I couldn't live without four pockets to my attire.
Once, in academic year 1973-74, I stuffed my khaki half-pants pockets with the
school tiffin during the break (मधली सुट्टी) of thirty minutes so that I could go play Kabaddi (कबड्डी). I think some of my friends were mildly disgusted once they realised
that I had put thick Maharashtrian pancakes (घावन) in my pocket! Even today, when I share
that story with my son and wife, they shriek at the thought! And I still don't regret what I did.
Therefore, I could never understand why women have no pockets. How can they afford not to?
"...The
question takes us into the murkier depths of the sex war as well as the
arcana of sartorial history. In the 19th century the skills of the Savile Row
tailors devised a male suit that has remained standard for over 100
years, giving its owner 17 pockets in which to distribute all his keys,
watch, notecase, money, matches, hanky etc without seriously altering
his shape....
...Women
did not even have the help of sensible underclothes. They wore
petticoats, up to a dozen at a time. What were then called drawers,
later knickers, were denied to all except prostitutes and dancers, who
needed to show their legs. Drawers for respectable women did not begin
to come in until about the time the papacy dropped its Opposition to
trousers. If women were denied trousers, why could not they be given
pockets?This question is discussed in an ingenious article in a recent
issue of Victorian Studies. In “Form and Deformity: the Trouble with
Victorian Pockets”, the American scholar C.T. Matthews discusses
19th-century writers who analysed fashions with a view to drawing social
lessons. The record shows that the absence of pockets was a huge
disadvantage to females and one reason why male superiority was so
steadfastly maintained...
...Instead
there was the handbag, which evolved in the late 19th century
out of the traditional workbag, in which ladies kept their sewing and
knitting. The point about the handbag was that it was and is external to
the body, and has to be carried. This increases female dependence and
limits freedom of action. Moreover, whereas pockets are distributed
about the person with a view to differentiated purposes, so that a man
knows where everything is and can find it instantly, a bag is exactly
that, a thing into which every needful article is indiscriminately
thrown, so that much time is wasted in searching, quite apart from the
risk of mislaying the bag itself...
...The
20th century brought women, in theory, trousers and pockets. But a
clothes industry run by men, and a fashion trade dominated by
homosexuals, ensured this made little difference. Tight jeans will not
accommodate useful pockets. I remember Christian Dior saying to
me in 1954: “Men have pockets to keep things in, women for decoration”.
Handbags have become much more important in women’s appearance and
practical life than they were in the 19th century, and relatively more
expensive. Bigger, too. And in my observation, women spend a much
greater proportion of their lives looking for mislaid objects than men
do..."
Surprise, surprise even my wife didn't know it.
"Take
the positioning of buttons on clothes. Why are they on the right for
men, and the left for women, especially since, for the 90 percent of the
population who are right-handed, it's much easier to do up buttons from
the right? It's because when buttons were introduced in the 17th
century, they were affordable only by the wealthy. As rich men then
dressed themselves, they did so from the right; whereas wealthy women
were dressed by servants, who preferred to button them up from the left.
The custom continues today, even though fewer women are dressed by
servants, because there has been no incentive for the fashion industry
to change it."
Artist :
Garrett Price, The New Yorker, 22 Nov 1947
Who is he? Servant, husband or lover?
