Posts Tagged ‘design’

The other day I asked a bunch of mom’s what their biggest problem was when buying clothes to fit their child. Boy did I get an earful. Many of them had the following issues in common. Tips on how to deal with them are offered below.

RealKidz founder, Merrill Guerra, first found she was not alone in her frustration at not being able to find clothing that fit her daughter just right – and then set out to do something about it. Guerra’s company developed a new type of sizing to address the clothing needs of girls that fall somewhere in between regular and plus sizes. Learn more about the Above Average sizing that bucks clothing industry standards to offer a better fit.

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.”
If there really is no average child, why do clothing designers and manufacturers use averages to make clothing for them, then?

As a parent, I would hope that if something is true to size, it means that I should be able to buy the size that matches by child’s age. So, if my kid is 3 years old, I should be able to buy size 3 or 3T, right? Of course, this assumes that I know if my kid is average for their age in terms of height and weight and that both I and the brand have the same idea of what that is.

The problem is that, children’s clothing designers use different approaches to develop their size charts and design standards. And, depending on what source of child measurement data a manufacturer uses and when they accessed that data, “typical” measurements vary.

What has your experience been with different brands? What brands do you find run true to size – and if they do, does your child have typical measurements? Any designers out there that want to weigh in on the subject: what data do you use?

Are you concerned about growth spurts affecting how long your child can wear the clothing you just bought for them? Here are some clothing styles and design features to look for when you shop (or incorporate into the clothes you sew for your child). Each tip will give your child room to grow and extend the life of the clothing they wear.