why do women have dress sizes and men have measurements for clothes?

Answer 1

Ready to wear clothes only really came about in the 20th century. Before that, you had your clothes made by a dressmaker or tailor - or you made your own.

Women started wearing ready made clothes after the second world war. Dress sizes were fairly arbitrary (they still are!) but they gradually settled down to the present system. The US uses smaller numbers that the UK. (Insert your own joke here)

Although men's casual clothes have been available off-the-peg since the 1920s, it was still normal for men to wear tailor-made suits until the 1960s. The middle classes wore suits to work, the working classes had one for Sundays, weddings and funerals. Since tailor-made clothes are based on chest measurements, so were all men's sizes. Men's underpants are still sized by chest measurement.

Things work a little better in continental Europe where all sizes are based on measurements.

Answer 2

I often wonder this and have decided it is probably along the lines of old fashioned values, such as men retiring to the smoking room after dinner while the women clear up.

I have to say I know women who would die if they descrided them selves a 34 instead of a 12.

There is a lot of pressure on women to maintain the hour glass figure and society and the media makes anyone over a size 12 feel as though they are grossly over weight. Chnaging the sizes to the same as men would cause millions of women to become depressed and would actually threaten the sounde stable society we live in.

The difference in sizes has been around for too long to consider changing, and we do need to deal with the media and society veiw that slimmer is best - as it is not!

Women should be treated as equals in society, there is no pressure on men to slim down and fit into small size clothes so why should there be on women.

Different clothes sizes do not matter, just as long as we allow women to be who they really are and not expect them to become someone else.

Long live healthy women!!!

Answer 3

During a womans time of the month her size may alter. This fluctuation is taken in to account by having dress sizes that go up in two inch segments.

Men only have to worry about how many pies they scoff. Fluctuations in the waist line can therefore be gradual, depending upon exercise etc.

So it makes more sence to build in redundancy into the clothes size of women to allow for these alterations in size. Otherwise a woman would need two sets of clothes.

Answer 4

ok
not all mens clothes have measurements and not all ladies clothes have sizes but mostly yes ur right they do... womens clothes should start having ,measurements as i have sizes form different shops from size 8-14.... and im 14

Answer 5

So that clothes manufacturers do not have to stick to a standard size for women. I have clothes ranging from size 16 to 20 in the wardrobe. It's time the rules were changed so that womens clothes had standard sizes as mens clothes do.

Answer 6

I don't know why but its a really stupid system. My chest is a 14 my waist a 10 and my hips a 12. Makes shopping very confusing. I wish they did measurements like mens clothes, i wouldn't be bothered about buying larger numbers like somebody else mentioned. I would be happy because finally something would fit without being altered!

Answer 7

So that different shops can make dress sizes different, one shop a size 8 will be as big as the shop next dorrs size 10, to make women feel better

Answer 8

Good point actually. Never really thought about that until now. I guess it goes back years and years, but hopefully it will change soon. Maybe men are more closely related in size than women?

Answer 9

I'm cursing this! I bought my teeny daughter a size 32 pair of pyjamas. Naturally, we could all camp in the damn thing. I should have ordered a size 10!

Answer 10

cos dress sizes are smaller numbers.
can you imagine any woman wanting to be a size 110 (cms)
or a guy who will admit to being a size 8?