Hello, hello! Signs of life.
Lately I have had so many occasions when I have wanted to come here to talk about communication in my life in different situations. How small details can make a huge difference.
I have wanted to complain about bad and weird experiences (and I still kind of do) but to not make this very one-sided, let’s start with the positive (kind of). It is harder to find or rather recognise because good is normal, right? It is what we expect. Bad leaves more of an impression.
Anyway, today I wanted to talk about clothing sizes. Without going into details, I think I am quite average looking. The time when I was a size S or Small that it stands for, was a very brief period in my teenage years so basically didn’t exist between wearing childrens clothes and grownup clothes. I suspect that the same is true for many of us despite the impression that the people we usually see in media might leave. Also my period of trying to fit into small sized clothes and looking worse as an outcome is behind me.
Some brands seem to have learned to use sizing to their advantage. We all know more or less what sizes fit us and oh how difficult it can be mentally to go up a size or more. Yet we shop quite successfully online without even trying on clothes nowadays but sometimes… sometimes we get surprised by what fits.
For example I recently measured my feet because I really wanted to try barefoot shoes for the first time but when their measuring result came back not one but two sizes bigger than my usual I lost all interest in buying that brand’s shoes. I am comfortable and blister free with my current shoes too. Especially since barefoot should have extra room too. So that would mean like… going 3-4 sizes up all of a sudden? It made no sense to me.
The same tendency is shown with wedding dresses. Imagine that you are preparing for one of the most important days of your life. You want to feel beautiful and know that all eyes will be on you. You might look forward to finding your dream dress and then the shop pulls the carpet out from underneath your feet by telling you that you need a dress 2-3 sizes bigger than your usual. Even after the dieting that you have probably been doing as prep. I was thankfully prepared for that because when one of my best friends got married, I saw that happening to her and got the same experience 9 years later. I personally experienced as well how one shop assistant greeted me on the door with saying that nothing except for perhaps four dresses in their well known shop will fit me. The rest are size 34 or what you might know as Extra Small. In wedding dress sizes that must be size Invisible. I felt horrible. My shopping experience had started off negatively already. Now imagine how different that experience could have been if their sizes were generous and if they were encouraging and offering solutions instead of offering a bride a mental ice bucket over the head! I must say, that that was true in most stores thankfully.
In general too, I prefer numeric sizes because if you are a woman and don’t fit into Small then what are you? If you fit into Medium then I guess you can think of yourself as normal. But what if you don’t? I don’t even want to write: if you are large or extra large… It sounds so bad in my head. Yet some clothing producers at some point thought that it would be a good idea to label people that way. Who wants to be a Small man or a Large woman!? Who identifies themselves that way? I bet no-one. We all have mirrors and are probably painfully aware of our weaknesses or in general the parts about ourselves that we don’t like so much but we all need to wear clothes and clothing companies need us to buy their clothes so why would they at the same time add to body image issues? That cannot be good marketing nor beneficial for their bottom line.
But… I promised to write about something positive today so if you read up to this point, thank you! I am getting there soon.
I went back to gym last autumn and am still going which is quite a big thing for me so bragging here a bit now. That resulted in me looking for some new training clothes. Not that I absolutely needed them but I wanted something nice and comfortable which works for me when I work out. And wow how sports clothing brands have figured out human psychology’s impact in marketing! Wedding dress makers, watch and learn!
After browsing online and finally choosing the clothes matching my style, it was time to pick a size. I opened their sizing chart which contained various international sizing systems and explained what matches their sizes so points for that already! Ok, that is not so unique but what instantly made me feel great was seeing the results. I am somewhere between two sizes usually and their chart recommended that I pick the smaller one. Not only that but it also said that if I go another numeric size up, these smaller size pants should still fit. Wow! I instantly wanted them more. I needed them!
Marketing at its best: make your customer feel good about themselves and they will keep coming back to experience more of that. You might argue that it was more them telling me between the lines that their clothes will make me skinnier which is not true but I don’t care. I am a marketer myself and even knowing some tactics and tricks, this still worked so well because I am a human being first. Extra interesting because you could think that in the sports industry people are often extra fit and they could probably be less inclusive in their sizing. I just think that they have figured out that most people are not size XXS and making clothes that fit well various sizes while subtly giving a compliment with one simple letter or number on the clothing item’s tag, they can sell so much more.
But enough about me. What do you think? I would love to hear your thoughts and examples with clothing sizes that have left an impression.