Women's clothing: macro indicator

Investment Analysis Clubs Macro Economic Trends and Risks
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This article discusses the problems of the clothing retailer, Old Navy, which decided to make its entire line of women’s clothing “inclusive” – size 0 to 30 and XS to 4X, making it one of the first retailers to place such a big bet on inclusive sizing. Usually, large size clothing is in a separate “Plus Size” department.

The decision turned out to be a disaster for Old Navy. The mid-sizes sold out, so many customers switched to other retailers. They were left with a lot of unsold inventory at the extreme sizes. Also, the strategy was unfair because they charged the same for the super-large sizes as the small, even though the large sizes use much more fabric.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/old-navy-made-clothing-sizes-fo…

The average American woman is a size 18 today, up from a size 14 five years ago, according to Don Howard, executive director of Alvanon, which works with brands and retailers on sizing and fit.

The mean weight for women aged 20 and over was 170.8 pounds as of 2016, according to the most recent data from the National Center for Health Statistics. That is up from 163.6 pounds in 2000.

Why is that a macro indicator?

The average American woman is 5’4" tall. That gives an average BMI of 29.3, just on the verge of obesity (BMI = 30). The CDC has maps showing the spread of obesity in the population.
https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/index.html

Obesity is correlated with many expensive illnesses, including Type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, breast cancer and Alzheimer’s disease.

Old Navy was smart to expand their clothing range. They would have done better to hire a statistician and do some market research to see which size women prefer their style of clothing and the distribution of sizes.

Wendy

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Wow, size 18 is average, but the supermodels are a fraction of this size. Are they mutants or something?

I’m glad that men’s clothing doesn’t have the same size system as women’s clothing does. I wouldn’t like being size zero/zippo/zilch. It would imply that I’m not worth anything and don’t count for anything. I wouldn’t like being size 4, because that would imply that I’m only half the man that a size 8 is.

Because I was curious, I’ve looked up what waist sizes correspond to women’s clothing sizes. I have a 30-inch waist, which equates to about size 12. In the world of men’s clothing, a 30-inch waist is tiny!

This makes me wonder how microscopic those supermodels are. I’m guessing that size 0 is the size of a first grader!

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Because I was curious, I’ve looked up what waist sizes correspond to women’s clothing sizes.

Depends on what store you’re in - and in some stores, on where the specific items of clothing you’re looking at were made.

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Heh, I used to have a 30" waist, been a long time now, but back then, Levi 3x3’s were an easy find, but between job function changes, less physical, more computerist, and long ago quitting smoking, better income, eating ‘better’, and now Covid, this das are long gone… held at 40x30, until this last couple years, the fight is on… A long way to go…

“If it tastes good, spit it OUT!”

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<This makes me wonder how microscopic those supermodels are. I’m guessing that size 0 is the size of a first grader! >

Modern size 0 clothing, depending on brand and style, fits measurements of chest-stomach-hips from 30-22-32 inches (76-56-81 cm) to 36-28-36 inches (90-71½-90 cm). This is a tremendous difference in size and proportion. Women’s clothing, unfortunately, isn’t standardized like men’s clothing. Fortunately, some of the internet merchants give the actual measurements on the web site.

This isn’t totally unreasonable. When I was 17, I weighed (my lowest adult weight) 117 pounds and was a muscular 5’5" tall, 36-22-34. I was Size 10 at the time. As an old lady, my proportions have changed dramatically. I’m Size 14 now, 5’3" tall, 148 pounds. My sister, who is 5’4" tall and weighs 106 pounds, is Size 6.

But the supermodels are much taller so they are very, very thin. So thin that many are anorexic to keep their jobs. They certainly don’t represent average women. Some women have body image problems because they care about beauty standards, however unrealistic. I don’t like the models because I can’t tell how a garment will actually look on my body.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Size_zero

Wendy

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Obesity is correlated with many expensive illnesses, including Type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, breast cancer and Alzheimer’s disease.

I wish I could remember the exact numbers, but here’s the story. The high school I went to had a huge auditorium, for a high school. The students moved to a new building in 72, while the old building remained in use for adult ed, among other things. The auditorium also continues in use.

One of my former classmates organized a tour of the old building on the occasion of our 45th reunion a few years ago.

The auditorium has been extensively remodeled in recent years, our guide told us, including much wider seats, because people are so fat now. I forget the exact number, but the seating capacity lost to wider seats was significant.

The average American woman is a size 18 today, up from a size 14 five years ago, according to Don Howard, executive director of Alvanon, which works with brands and retailers on sizing and fit.

The mean weight for women aged 20 and over was 170.8 pounds as of 2016, according to the most recent data from the National Center for Health Statistics. That is up from 163.6 pounds in 2000.

(with tongue firmly in cheek) then they can hang on to the plus sizes, because, in a few years, they will be normal size, and everything in women’s fashion comes around again. Remember the stupid cut out shoulders that were popular in the early 90s? They came back again a few years ago.

Steve

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Wendy,

I like Old Navy for summer wear…ie sweats, shorts and tropical shirts.

As a box store it is much better than the others on the low end.

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The decision turned out to be a disaster for Old Navy. The mid-sizes sold out, so many customers switched to other retailers. They were left with a lot of unsold inventory at the extreme sizes.

The Macro conclusion is that hare brained inclusiveness leads to extreme financial disaster but it is so, so healing for the soul.

The Captain
sailors will recall…
the right way, the wrong way, and The Old Navy way…

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The Macro conclusion is that hare brained inclusiveness leads to extreme financial disaster but it is so, so healing for the soul.

There’s nothing wrong with inclusiveness when done smartly. Instead of ordering so many items of each size, you need to order on the bell curve - very few of the tiny sizes, a few of the lower sizes, a lot of the middle sizes, a few of the larger sizes, and very few of the gigantic sizes. Or only stock “common” sizes at the store, but for uncommon sizes, you have to order online.

I haven’t purchased anything at the GAP (or Old Navy) in 5 1/2 years. I used to purchase all sorts of stuff at GAP, for example, I regularly bought 6-8 pairs of pants there, about annually. BUT suddenly 6 years ago, they discontinued my size COMPLETELY, not in store, not in outlet, not online. That was, and still is, 32x28. So now I purchase my pants at Lands End instead, not only do they have my size, they even have in between sizes, so I can order 32 x 28 1/2 which is perfect for me. AND, while their prices are a bit higher than GAP would be (I think), their quality is definitely better.

I can understand a mass retailer not keeping certain sizes in stock at stores, but I cannot understand them simply not having a size at all.

More recently, I haven’t bought any pants due to the pandemic. I only wear pants once a week for 2 hours, and twice for 2 hours at funerals.

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There’s nothing wrong with inclusiveness when done smartly. Instead of ordering so many items of each size, you need to order on the bell curve - very few of the tiny sizes, a few of the lower sizes, a lot of the middle sizes, a few of the larger sizes, and very few of the gigantic sizes. Or only stock “common” sizes at the store, but for uncommon sizes, you have to order online.

That was the bizarre part. Surely, a major clothing retailer would know how many of each size they were likely to sell, even if they weren’t labeled as plus size.

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There’s nothing wrong with inclusiveness when done smartly. Instead of ordering so many items of each size, you need to order on the bell curve - very few of the tiny sizes, a few of the lower sizes, a lot of the middle sizes, a few of the larger sizes, and very few of the gigantic sizes. Or only stock “common” sizes at the store, but for uncommon sizes, you have to order online.

I’m going to guess, although I do not know, that the people ordering for the stores understand the concept; they’ve been at it for years and already order more of the most common sizes than the outliers. At least they do in mens’ pants, which is what I look at.

The problem, I suspect, is that while you can predict the bell curve for a macro production run, it’s far more difficult to apportion that as it comes to store by store. The smaller the sample population the more divergent the result is likely to be. (Flip a coin 500 times and you get get a 50/50 result. Flip it 4 times and it may not be so.)

And while ‘order online’ appears to be a reasonable solution, women seem to like to try on their clothes (I can’t count how many hours I’ve spent waiting outside the store dressing rooms waiting…) rather than get them online, because they like to see how they fall and fit. (I’m aware that there’s a growing online business for clothes, but it’s dwarfed by the “in-person” industry.

A contributing factor, I would guess, is that Old Navy (among others) has long neglected the Plus market, Plus women probably don’t even think to go there and it would take time to change the perception that “there’s no point in shopping there” when there are Department stores and others which have long offered products in those sizes.

[OK, the 14-year-old in me wants to write “I can’t count how many hours I’ve spent waiting outside women’s dressing rooms - and I wasn’t even there with someone. But I refrained, so the 16-year-old in me is very proud.]

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The REAL macro problem in the clothing and retail markets stems from the following cascade of trends:

  • the long-standing trend towards cheap, throwaway clothing
  • e-commerce trends pioneered by Zappos to allow no-charge returns
  • the more recent chronic supply chain issues
  • which trigger more people to buy online
  • and just order multiple sizes

Makes perfect sense, right? You aren’t sure how a particular vendor’s sizes run so just order 2 or 3, keep the one that fits and send the others back for free. No wasted time driving to a real store to find empty shelves, no extra return shipping charges and you get what you want in one cart.

The problem with this is that

  • all of that shipping isn’t actually cost-free
  • we already said the clothes are typically cheap
  • ergo returned clothes are usually NOT repackaged and resold
  • instead, returned clothes are typically sent to the landfill

This is wasteful and kinda stupid when a few thousand people do it. When MILLIONS are routinely buying clothes this way, it is incredibly inefficient and damaging to the planet.

WTH

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Have the stores have one of each size so it can be tried on, returned to the hangar, and ordered to be shipped to home.

IP

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