The numbers game of women's sizes

NEW YORK In terms of the sizes of women's clothing, there is a game with numbers.

The average American woman weighs about 11 kilos more than in 1960. However, the size of feminine clothing for women thicker, usually 14 or more, still generates only 9 percent of the 190 billion dollars spent annually clothing in the country.

Where is the mistake? Not that at least lean women are not interested in fashion. It is that the fashion industry does not seem to be interested in them.

The fashion industry has always devoted more time, money and marketing to clothing to slender bodies for curves, because it is easier and more profitable.

But retail analysts and extra size women say there is something more at stake: the stereotypes that large women do not want to dress fashionably prevent manufacturing companies offer them clothes that make them look good. And in turn, that the discouraged from spending more.

"There is still a stigma about Extra clothing size and women who use them," says Marie Denee, using size 16 and study the sector as TheCurvyFashionista.com website. "Many think they do not want attention, live life, have confidence, wearing tight clothes in bright colors, when the truth is just the opposite."

Carmen Barrington, 32, says that this attitude has led to fewer options for extra clothing sizes. Barrington, who wears a size 22, recently complained after a day of shopping at Forever 21, Lane Bryant and other stores, which sometimes can not even find decent clothes in plus sizes as those in specialized retailers.

"It was a hot day, very annoying, and I spent trying to prove all sorts of things, and I could not buy anything," Barrington, who works in human resources he said. "Many dislike not be linked to plus-size clothing."

But I must say that the carvings are an inexact science. Clothing sizes for women were created in the 1920s when it became popular catalogs and store-bought clothes replaced those made by dressmakers and women themselves.

But while the men's sizing system based on the circumference of the chest, which the army had worked well, similar attempts to base sizes of women in bust measures proved not to be as reliable, because these measures are more variable .

In the 1930s, retailers began to adopt carvings numbers usually ranging from 14 to 24, says Alaina Zulli, seamstress who studies the history of clothing. But those carvings have little to do with today. Then a size 24, for example, would be 14 today. So the issue of not having enough fashionable clothes in plus sizes then it probably was not as pronounced.

Gabi Gregg, a popular blogger on plus size women, collaborated with the company this summer Swimsuits for All in a line of swimsuits, usually a category that offers women little extra height. The two-piece suits with colorful designs are very little exhausted after launch.

"The size women are hungry for more choices, only choices, not the same as always in the store," says Sanford. "I hope that retailers do not sell large sizes realize they have the same amount of money to spend than the others."