Tuesday, October 31, 2006

The Size Racist

Work was relatively dull as usual, except that I managed to hang up the phone as rudely as possible on my boss (I thought it was [redacted] harassing me with some useless information that most likely could have waited).

I managed to encounter my least favourite type of customer - The Size Racist, or a girl who insists that she's a certain size when it's clear that she isn't anymore. "I mean, I'm sure at one point you were a 24 honey but that was when you were 12!"

The Scene: The skinny jean wall by the fitting rooms, her pushy mother forces 6 or 7 items into her hands, boldly ignoring the '3 items max. per change room' signs.

Team Gingerbread: What size are do you need (while mentally sizing her up for the 28s)
The Size Racist: 24
Team Gingerbread: We don't have any 24s, we do have a 25 but that pair is almost $300 because it's premium denim, how about a 26? (even though you will not fit into those)
The Size Racist: Uh, ok...

5 minutes later

Team Gingerbread: How did those work out for you?
The Size Racist: Um, not well. The jeans fit my legs, but not my butt or hips (totally stumped)
Team Gingerbread: (internal monologue - that's because they're too small you idiot!) Oh, well how about a 28?
The Size Racist: (dejectedly accepts a bigger size but only pretends to try them on then scurries out)

The funny thing is, this girl was clearly not even close to being a 24, and I usually can't tell with any accuracy what size people are just by eyeballing them, but I know what a 24 or 25 looks like, and she wasn't it. Unless you're shopping at Old Navy, which seems to eschew the concept of a semi-standardized sizing system from garment to garment, you could at least try on a couple of sizes, especially when it comes to skinny jeans, which depending on the cut, can necessitate going up a couple of sizes.

If it really bothers you all that much you could always cut out the tags after buying them - I mean Christ!

6 comments:

Michelle said...

Hm...size doesn't really matter as long as you wear the clothes to flatter your body. That's what I always say...even though I do get pissy when I don't fit my normal size.lo

HomeImprovementNinja said...

I think it's like grade inflation in school. The companies keep messing with the numbers so that when someone gives them an honest number, they feel like somehow they are being screwed over.

Nicoel said...

sushi - very true

homeimprovementninja - very apt analogy!

S* said...

And what makes it worse is that so many stores are screwing around with sizing, so that what used to be a 0 in Banana Republic is now more like a 2...just to make women feel like they're smaller than they are? Fabulous. Except they don't carry 00 in the store, just online. I hate Banana. So I tried grow an ass so I could fill out the zero nicely. *sigh*

Sorry, we skinny girls have issues too.

BTW, I'm here now: http://femmenoirerevisited.blogspot.com

Nicoel said...

s* - yeah I agree that a lot of the sizing has been skewed, for example we just got some RVCA skinny jeans in at work at they are sooo incredibly skinny that people who normally take 25s are rocking 29s in these bad boys. Funny thing is that the 30 is the biggest size we got in those jeans, so I figure we'll be selling them ot a lot of little kids that can afford $120 pairs of jeans

Oh, and thanks for the updated address, I'll sub it with bloglines

Shay said...

I can never figure out what my size is anymore! The stores all seem to have different scales!
I swear some stores make their clothes bigger so that size racists can feel good about themselves for buying a 24 that actually fits like a 26 or 28.