Defining size

How often do you walk through a store and see signs that designate where certain clothes are? Such as, men, women's, boys, girls, etc. Or perhaps during online shopping? I'll admit, I love online shopping, even if I have no intent of buying anything I love seeing new shipments and imaging if I could buy whatever I wanted. For much of my life (meaning, the time in my life I could start shopping for myself) I had a hard time going into stores and buying things. I would usually end up crying and being upset, not liking anything that I saw or if I liked something it wouldn't be in my "size". I'm not sure, but I may not be the only one who has had this experience before. It makes me sad thinking that there are people who have or still are feeling the way I would when it came to shopping. Now that I am older I started to understand shopping more and shopping for my size, don't get me wrong sometimes I accidentally buy the wrong size. I didn't really have anyone when I was younger telling me if something looked good or bad. The typical words were: Okay, get it. Sure. So on and so forth. I remember shopping for a school dance my sophomore year in high school. I was at Macy's and saw so many cute dresses. I grabbed a few I really liked thinking they were my size and went to try them on. None of them worked, making me feel like something was wrong with me. That my body didn't meet the standard that these clothing companies appealed to. I ended up buying a very plain baggy dress that I despised even to this day. But don't worry, that whole dance in general was one of the lamest things I ever attended. Even up till this past year I couldn't eye my size or was in denial of my size. When you are a teen or in your 20's, maybe even older, you want to shop in your age groups area. I didn't want to shop in women's, or plus size. Though, I don't believe I was plus sized at any point but in a weird size of not junior or plus. So women's ended up being the easiest place to shop for me.

The point I am trying to make in this post is what defines size? Why do we have to have petite and plus size designated areas? I understand that separating men and women and from there women and juniors. But why do we need to advertise that in this area you are petite and over here you are plus size? You could argue that it makes it easier to shop. But what I would say to that is first, shopping is never easy regardless of organizing. But secondly, how much harder or more work would be placed on the shopper if the sizes were just in the same area with no giant sign? Our society has created this stigma with what our size is. That our size defines us, that we can't shop in the same area as someone who is smaller or bigger than us. All the while designers and retail know that them separating sizes can make someone feel uncomfortable. We shouldn't be afraid to shop in what is right for us. But also, there needs to be a bigger spectrum of sizes, not just a certain body frame. I'm sure in this post I bounced across that discussion of size and that maybe I didn't hit any particular point but perhaps this will help people to start thinking about the question at hand: What defines size?