Lifestyle

People Are Flipping Out Over J. Crew's New 000 'Vanity Size'

by Alexia LaFata
Stock

J. Crew has announced a size 000/XXXS to their clothing line, a move that Racked called "vanity sizing" that reaches "a whole new level of crazy."

The company's corporate says this new size is meant to reach Asian markets overseas, especially in Hong Kong, who are in need of smaller sizes.

A spokesperson told the Today show:

We are simply addressing the demand coming from Asia for smaller sizes than what we had carried. Our sizes typically run big and the Asia market tends to run small.

J. Crew noted that their sizes indeed accommodate as many customers as possible. They have an online sizing chart with a range to a size 16 of tall and petite sizes, including special swimwear sizes for long and short torsos.

But I can't help but see a problem in the fact that a blogger at Capitol Hill Style (via the Daily Mail) used to buy a J.Crew dress in a size 6 and, after 12 years and 20 pounds, now buys a size 2.

Blogger "Belle" says this new teeny-tiny size is definitely a case of vanity sizing, which is based on the idea that a company must lie to women to sell clothing.

She says,

[Vanity sizing] promulgates the damaging concept that self-worth is directly proportional to clothing-tag size. And negatively effects girls' feelings about their bodies before they're mature enough to know that they're defined by more than a number assigned to them by a clothing company.

What's happening to women's sizes? Considering I'm about three sizes smaller in Express than I am in American Eagle, I'm thinking we should just do away with these arbitrary sizing numbers altogether.

Has anybody suggested that women's clothing lines just use inches, like men's clothes tend to do? Is there a reason boys' jeans come in sizes of 28 inches and ours come in "4"? What does a "4" even mean?

Help. The patriarchy is swallowing us whole and tricking us into thinking we need to be toothpick-thin to feel good enough to buy pants.

H/T: Jezebel, Photo Credit: Getty Images