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Why your average kids clothes don’t fit the way they should

According to Susan Ashdown, a professor in the Department of Fiber Science & Apparel Design at Cornell and a leading researcher on improving apparel fit, there’s no such thing. In a recent piece by Virginia Postrel, Ashdown is quoted as saying:

“The average takes you to nobody.”

What she means is that every body comes in different shapes, lengths, widths, etc. and there is no average that covers them all. In other words, “Stuff varies.” And it typically varies in a bell curve distribution, like this example showing women’s weights, with the bulk of kids being somewhere around the middle of the curve, and fewer kids in widely varying heights and weights at the ends of the curve.

If there really is no average child, then why do clothing designers and manufacturers use averages to make clothing for them? For a few reasons, it turns out:

• It is impossible to accommodate every child of a given age/gender/measurement range within a single size.  So, children’s clothing manufacturers tend to design with a specific target customer in mind.   A given brand’s sizes, then will fit kids whose average measurements are consistent with those of their typical customers for those sizes.  Result:  The same size, 3T or 6x, for example, will vary from brand to brand, since they have different customer bases.
• It is expensive to create many sizes.  Given all of the variations in children’s body shapes and measurements, it would be costly – in terms of design, production, fabric, overstocks and shelf space – to create a range of sizes to accommodate all of them.  Result: A brand will focus on the range of sizes that best suits their resources and their average customer.  Esther of the blog Design Loft offers her children’s clothing design expertise on this topic in her post Too Many Sizes!
• A size can only cover so much.  Looking at the curve again, you’ll see that most children’s measurements vary within a few pounds of the “average.”  A manufacturer might design a single size that will fit kids in this range – even if not perfectly.  Result: Clothing manufacturers will create sizes that will fit the “majority” (or average) of kids of a particular measurement range.
• Extended sizes are a challenge. Once you get to the ends of the bell curve, the measurements vary so widely that it becomes impossible to create an average that will fit all smaller or larger than average children.  Regardless, some brands have tried to use average measurements at three different levels – slim (the average of smaller than average kids only), regular (the average of the average), and plus/husky (the average of larger than average kids only).  Result: Some slim sizes will be smaller than others, and some plus/husky sizes larger than other depending on where a brand’s average customers fall along the measurement spectrum.
• Children’s clothing size standards have only recently been updated.  Prior to last year, children’s size standards were based on 1930′s and 1970′s data.  The new standards do represent the average measurements of children today, but  I don’t believe they have been widely adopted by children’s clothing manufacturers yet.  Result: Most clothing sizes will likely remain brand specific so that a brand can meet their target customers’ clothing size needs.

Because average can mean different things when it comes to kids clothing sizes, you might want to look for brands whose sizes fit your child’s measurements particularly well.  Other than that, trying clothing on your child before you buy it, referring to a brand’s size chart (rather than relying only on the size on the label), or adjusting clothing items to fit are probably the best advice for finding clothes that fit your child well.

Sources:

• Virginia Postrel, The Real Reason That Ann Taylor Hates Plus Sizes. Double X, Tuesday, June 9, 2009.
• Virginia Postrel, Rightsize Me: Why sending a man to the moon is easier than finding jeans that fit. Atlantic, December 2007.

This post was updated on 1.23.10