Think you’re really a size ‘Subzero?’ Fat chance
By Beth Teitell
Boston Herald Columnist
Wednesday, October 25, 2006 - Updated: 01:08 AM EST
To paraphrase Andy Warhol, in the future, every woman will be a size -15.
Or even smaller. The dizzying freefall of “vanity sizing” - in which a size 12 pair of pants miraculously morphed into a size 6 without losing an inch of fabric - has spurred Banana Republic to sell size clothes in size 00 (you can save size 0 for your “fat days”). This fall, designer Nicole Miller plans to introduce a size tentatively called Subzero.
I’m not sure what size Subzero is the real-world equivalent of - by now, sizes 2 and 4 are practically reserved for caftans.
So what’s not to like? Who doesn’t want to be 20 pounds heavier than she was in high school and yet wear clothing that alleges to be three sizes smaller?
To be sure, this “faith-based” sizing comes at just the right time: fatter than ever, (and in a nation that invented the “fourthmeal,” for that post-dinner, pre-breakfast slump) American women need a psychological boost they’re not getting from their scales. Of course, we could always change those numbers, too.
Alas, as economists know, deflation - even faux-flation - is not sustainable. Just as drug addicts need more and more to get the same high a single hit used to provide, shoppers who used to cheer as they slipped into a size 8, are now ashamed of the number. The thrill of yelling out to the salesgirl from the dressing room, “Can you get me a 4, this 6 is swimming on me,” is gone. Six? That sounds positively zaftig.
The question now becomes - What’s really petite? When they changed the SAT scoring system last year from a 1600 point maximum to a 2400 max, no one knew what was even good. A pre-2005 score of 1400 was great - now, it sounds like you just stabbed the pencil randomly on the test sheet.
The same goes for clothing. In the old days, describing a woman as a size 6 conjured an image of someone slim. Now, unless there’s an asterisk next to the number to indicate that she was a 6 when 6s were 6, it’s meaningless.
And yet, there’s no going back. Clothing manufacturers eager to appeal to a clientele desperate for flattery have an incentive to keep going negative. Fine. So why not do away with numbers altogether (just like the preschool soccer teams, with their no-winners, no-losers policies, have)?
I’d like to suggest an animal-based system. You’re no longer a 6 or 8 or 10, but rather a gazelle, or whippet or greyhound. It might just work.
Of course, we could backslide, so eager for the size-ego-gratification that we squeeze into a “tape worm” when a “panda” is more like it.
