Wednesday, January 25, 2012

A Size 2 Is a Size 2 Is a Size 8

?It was pretty impressive, what they did,? says sizing scholar Lynn Boorady, noting that they devised something like 27 different sizes. But, she says, ?It was an obscene number, and obviously not useful for anyone manufacturing.? It wasn?t until almost a decade later that the National Bureau of Standards* (now the National Institute of Standards and Technology) reanalyzed the O?Brien/Shelton data and came up with an official system?one that has served as the basis for all future systems. Women?s sizes were derived from bust size?with all other measurements based on the proportions of an hourglass figure?and represented by even numbers from 8 to 38. These basic sizes were combined with a T, R, or S, to indicate height, and a plus or minus, to represent lower body girth. The system was published as a commercial standard?a recommendation, legally required only for the pattern-making industry?in 1958. The industry was at first enthusiastic about these recommendations, and major mail order companies like Sears and Montgomery Ward started to adopt these government sizes. But enthusiasm eventually flagged. By 1970, the NBS downgraded its Commercial Standard to a Voluntary Product Standard, and by 1983, the government withdrew the standard entirely, damning future generations to inconsistent fits and many, many mail order returns.

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=6c74edf52f6a7c45415f4d6f28dbafae

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