Abstract
Feminist scholars have long critiqued the fashion industry’s ultra-thin beauty standards as harmful to women. Combining data from three qualitative studies of women’s clothing retailers—of bras, plus-size clothing, and bridal wear—we shift the analytical focus away from glamorized media images toward the seemingly mundane realm of clothing size standards, examining how women encounter, understand, and navigate these standards in their daily lives. We conceptualize clothing size standards as “floating signifiers,” given their lack of consistency within and across brands and the extent to which women engage in identity work and body work in relation to them. Our findings indicate that the instability of these unregulated standards allows some women—particularly those with bodies located closest to the boundaries between size categories—to claim conformity to body ideals and to access some of the associated psychological, social, and material privileges. However, even as individual women may benefit by distancing themselves from stigmatized size categories, this pattern renders women’s body acceptance tenuous while simultaneously reinforcing hierarchies among women based on body size and shape.
In March 2016, Glamour magazine featured popular comedian Amy Schumer in its first plus-size edition, which targeted women wearing clothing sizes 12 and above. Schumer, well known for critiquing Hollywood’s unrealistic beauty ideals in her comedy, unexpectedly objected to her inclusion in the issue, writing on Instagram, “Plus size is considered size 16 in America. I go between a size 6 and an 8 . . . Young girls seeing my body type thinking that I’m plus size? . . . not cool glamour.” In response, news headlines implied that Schumer might be lying about her size (e.g., Negi 2016). Fans simultaneously debated the event in online forums; some expressed outrage at Glamour for including Schumer in the issue, while others expressed betrayal at the comedian’s decision to distance herself from the plus-size label.
Schumer’s comments, and the resulting public debate, reveal how women employ clothing size standards to make claims regarding their own and other women’s bodies. For instance, while Schumer’s comedy focuses on her larger body size relative to other (ultra-thin) celebrities, she utilizes the language of clothing size to defend herself as not truly fat. Indeed, the numerous headlines and comments centered on discerning Schumer’s “real” clothing size indicate the widespread use of clothing size standards as meaningful signifiers of body size. This discourse, however, is somewhat ironic given that clothing sizes are not standardized. In other words, Schumer could certainly wear a “plus-size” 12 or 16 in some brands, and a size 6 or 8 in others, simultaneously. Further, as illustrated by the discrepancy between how Glamour and Schumer define “plus-size” (i.e., sizes 12+ vs. 16+), the borders between clothing size categories seem similarly unstable.
While this incident reflects the public scrutiny of celebrities’ bodies, it also illustrates the more diffuse relevance of clothing size standards as measures by which ordinary women assess their bodies. Because of the extensive social and utilitarian functions of clothing in society, women are routinely confronted with the fashion industry’s shifting and unstable size standards—pointing to the need for sociological inquiry into the role of these standards in women’s daily lives. This article investigates how women encounter, understand, and navigate clothing size standards, and with what social consequences. We ask: How do retail spaces—through their spatial organization and sales practices—facilitate or impede women’s access to clothing in particular sizes? How do women with varied backgrounds and diverse body types navigate having these seemingly “official”—yet unstable—labels assigned to their bodies, in terms of identity work and/or body work (Gimlin 2001)? Finally, what broader consequences do these patterns have for inequalities between different groups of women and for gender inequality more generally?
To answer these questions, we combined qualitative data collected through three separate studies—conducted by each of the authors, respectively—allowing us to examine women’s engagement with clothing size standards through their consumption of (1) bras, (2) plus-size clothing, and (3) bridal wear. Our findings demonstrate the far-reaching impact of clothing size standards on women’s identity and well-being, and how these standards reproduce inequalities between women. We conceptualize these unstable standards as “floating signifiers” (Lévi-Strauss 1950), a theoretical lens through which we can more easily see that their instability is key to how women navigate them and with what consequences. We find that the instability of size standards provides some women—particularly those whose bodies are at the borders of flexible divisions (such as that between plus- and standard-size, as the Schumer incident demonstrates)—with discursive leverage to claim membership in less stigmatized body categories. This discursive distancing allows certain women to access some of the psychological, social, and material benefits associated with conformity to body ideals. Nevertheless, the instability of these categories simultaneously renders women’s body acceptance precarious, which is evidenced by women’s persistent discursive efforts to “prove” their conformity to shifting and unstable standards, and by some women’s efforts to alter their bodies to fit into desired size standards. Thus, the instability of these standards allows women a degree of agency in self-defining their bodies, while simultaneously reinforcing gendered hierarchies based on body size and shape.
The Making and Social Consequences of Gendered Body Ideals
A robust feminist literature has critiqued the role of the fashion industry in producing unrealistic body ideals through media images (e.g., Bordo 2004; Wolf 1991). Yet, marketing is not the only realm through which the fashion industry influences women’s body perceptions. Just as the medical community provides patients with normative body size standards through body mass index (BMI), the fashion industry provides consumers with standards—albeit inconsistent ones—that label and categorize bodies through clothing size.
Fat studies scholars have paid more attention to the politics of gender and clothing size, though most of this writing has been theoretical, rather than empirical. For example, LeBesco (2004) examined discourse on the expansion of plus-size fashion, arguing that this trend seems revolutionary because it “alter[s] the material conditions of a heretofore underserved population,” but that it is ultimately more about reinforcing consumerism and enhancing corporate profits than challenging fat stigma (8). We build from these theoretical underpinnings to empirically examine how women understand and navigate size standards in their everyday lives. We additionally move beyond focusing only on body size to consider how bodily proportions—that is, shape—play into women’s experiences. Below, we review pertinent scholarship on gender, embodiment, and inequality, and then outline previous research pointing to the need for this project.
Gender, Embodiment, and Inequality
It is well established that American body ideals celebrate thinness and denigrate fatness, and that conformity to these ideals translates into social benefits and disadvantages, particularly for women (Conley and Glauber 2007; Puhl, Andreyeva, and Brownell 2008). Body size ideals are also mediated by class and racial/ethnic context, such that preferences for thinness appear to be strongest among high–socioeconomic status whites. While findings regarding the degree to which Asian American women accept or reject Western beauty ideals have been mixed (see Brady 2016), researchers have generally found that beauty ideals within Latino/a and Black communities typically place less emphasis on thinness (Bordo 2004; Etcoff 2000, 196; Stearns 1997, 72). Yet, Latina and Black women do encounter upper limits to acceptable size in their communities, and, regardless of their own aesthetic preferences, they still endure the social consequences of defying dominant beauty ideals (Wilson 2009).
Ideals regarding body shape place further demands on women. For example, breasts are salient markers of femininity and sexuality in American culture, with significant emphasis placed on their size and shape (Latteier 1998; Young 1992). The “ideal” breast is neither too small nor too large and sits high on the chest, demonstrating how breast appearance is linked to cultural preferences for youthfulness (Goodman and Walsh-Childers 2004; Lee 1997). Although large breasts are culturally celebrated, they are also associated with negative stereotypes, such as excessive sexuality and low intelligence (Latteier 1998). Compared to research on body size, less research has investigated how conformity to shape ideals confers specific social benefits or disadvantages. There is, however, evidence of high levels of breast size dissatisfaction across racial groups (Forbes and Frederick 2008). Further, despite greater acceptance or celebration of larger figures among Black and Latino/a communities, these women feel pressure to have curves in the “right” places, including breasts, buttocks, and hips (Emerson 2002).
Body size and shape are not merely physical attributes existing alongside gender and race; they also are socially constructed categories that intersect with these other markers of privilege and oppression. The concept of “floating signifiers” is a helpful framework for understanding how clothing size standards are linked to intersecting inequalities. First theorized by Lévi-Strauss (1950), a floating signifier, or “empty signifier,” is a symbolic term that “absorbs rather than emits meaning” (Buchanan 2010, 173). More recently, Hall (1996) used this concept to illustrate the social construction of race and racial inequality, noting that floating signifiers, such as racial categories, become meaningful through “shifting relations of difference” (8). The meaning of a floating signifier, in other words, “can never be finally fixed, but is subject to the constant process of redefinition and appropriation” (8). Fat studies scholar Wann (2009) conceptualizes fatness as a floating signifier, suggesting that the categorization of bodies as “fat” has more to do with power relationships than with objective physical characteristics, and that, because of this, “fat oppression” may be experienced by people of all sizes (xv).
Conceptualizing clothing size standards as floating signifiers provides analytical leverage to more clearly see how women engage with these “empty” standards in their everyday lives. As a set of institutionally derived markers that women are confronted with in the everyday tasks of shopping for and wearing clothing, it is reasonable to expect that clothing size standards are a means through which women receive feedback about whether and how their bodies conform to cultural ideals. At the same time, the very instability of clothing size standards, as floating signifiers, may provide discursive ammunition for women to perform identity work regarding their bodies, distancing themselves from stigmatized categories. Although some individual women may personally benefit (psychologically, socially, and/or materially) by distancing themselves from stigmatized categories of embodiment through identity work and/or body work, these efforts may take the form a “patriarchal bargain” (Kandiyoti 1988) that ultimately reinforces larger systems of gender oppression.
Clothing Size, Identity, and Inequality
Several studies suggest that clothing size standards have consequences for women’s identities, social status, and bodily practices, and that these standards serve as markers of status distinctions that may reproduce inequalities based on gender, race, class, and body size. However, most of the scholars noted below encountered data on clothing size while pursuing other research questions, indicating a need for targeted research in this area.
Because body size carries strong moral and aesthetic meanings in American culture, clothing size standards may deeply influence individuals’ self-perceptions. In her historical study of adolescent women’s body image, Brumberg (1997) reported that many girls “regard [clothing] size, much like weight, as a definitive element of their identity” and may reject clothing that fits simply because of its size label (129). Russ (2008) similarly found that clothing size was a focal point in women’s body dissatisfactions, and Gruys (2012) observed that many shoppers at a women’s plus-size clothing store hid their shopping bags when leaving the store to hide the “discreditable” stigma (Goffman 1963) of larger body size. In research on the connection between women’s breast size and body image, bra cup size is routinely used by women to express their satisfaction or dissatisfaction with their bodies; for example, in a study of college-aged women, most desired to have “C-cup” breasts (Goodman and Walsh-Childers 2004).
Unequal access to clothes that fit appears to have implications for social inequality. Clothing is for the most part a mandatory aspect of social life, and a core way people communicate self-identity and group membership (Crane 2000; Davis 1992; Featherstone 1990). Degher and Hughes (1999), for example, drew on the example of “clothing that does not fit” as evidence that fat people are “continually confronted with mundane indicators of their devalued condition” (18). Plus-size fashion retailers have been accused of designing clothes specifically to conceal the body (Colls 2004) and of offering limited and outdated style options (Adam 2001; Peters 2014). Linking clothing size to employment opportunities, Cummins and Blum (2015) observed that the work attire, such as business suits, required to convey “professionalism” in higher-status occupations are often deemed better-suited to thinner bodies. Gruys (2017) similarly found that it is more difficult for larger and curvier women to find well-fitting business suits, particularly if they are poor. In these ways, limited access to fashion choices may translate into social disadvantages with economic consequences.
Lastly, studies also have shown that people use clothing size to gauge their health and make medical decisions, such as by deciding to lose weight upon reaching a particular clothing size. Degher and Hughes (1999) interviewed members of a national weight loss program, asking them when and/or how they realized they were fat; along with other everyday indignities such as not fitting into chairs, clothing size was mentioned frequently. Other researchers have found that tightly fitting clothes (Monaghan 2008), as well as having to wear clothes in large sizes (Colls 2006), can “trigger” dieting (Monaghan 2008, 80).
The studies described above suggest that the clothing size system may impact women’s lives on multiple levels, including individual identity, social status, and bodily health. However, none of these studies carried out an intentional and focused analysis of clothing size, and none have considered the instability of these standards. Additional research is needed to more fully understand how women engage with clothing size standards in their everyday lives, and with what consequences for inequality.
Size Standards in American Women’s Clothing
At the time of this writing, in most American women’s clothing stores, sizes run in even numbers starting with “0” up to size “12” or are marked as Extra-Small, Small, Medium, Large, or Extra-Large. These are considered “standard” sizes. In contrast, sizes outside this range are typically grouped together into “dimensional size categories” (Chun-Yoon and Jasper 1995) and labeled separately, such as “petite” (for shorter women) or “plus-size” (for larger women). Sizes “14” through “28” are generally considered “plus-size” and sold in designated sections within department or big-box stores, or by specialty “plus-size” retailers. Sizes above “28” are typically sold exclusively online.
Bra sizing differs from other women’s clothing size standards in that it is (at least nominally) based upon measurement in inches. Bra sizes are composed of a number and a letter, for example, 36D, with a numeric size for the band (which sits below the breasts), and a letter size for the cups (which hold the breasts). “Standard-size” bra retailers typically carry bra band sizes 32 through 38, and cup sizes A through DDD, though sizes combining larger cups with smaller bands and smaller cups with larger bands are less common, and sometimes available only online. Bras with band sizes 40 and over are typically labeled “plus-size” or “full figure” and tend to be available only in larger cup sizes. Therefore, assumptions about bodily proportions are built into bra sizing, marginalizing not only fatter women, but also those with purportedly “uncommon” bodily proportions.
While determining women’s “average” clothing size is complicated due to the very inconsistencies in size standards that this article examines, it is nevertheless useful to approximate a rough benchmark. The most recent available data indicate that the average American woman wears clothing in sizes 16 to 20 (Christel and Dunn 2017). Data about average bra size are less widely reported, but a 2013 industry study suggests that the average American woman wears bra size 34DD (Dicker 2013). These data indicate, ironically, that mainstream U.S. retailers’ size ranges place the average-sized American woman on the margins of clothing size norms.
Additionally, despite the existence of a “voluntary” national standard sizing system (National Bureau of Standards 1970), size standards differ markedly across apparel manufacturers, and most clothing firms have changed their fit measurements over time. Size standards for women’s ready-to-wear clothing have reportedly experienced dramatic “size inflation,” or “vanity sizing,” with clothing of the same nominal size (i.e., “medium,” “XL,” “14,” etc.) increasing in measurement over time, causing women to fit into “smaller” sizes (Franz 2017). Bridal wear has remained more “true to size,” meaning that brides’ wedding dress sizes typically exceed those of their everyday clothes (Daniels 2014).
Methods
We used a comparative study design to analyze how women confront clothing size standards in relation to their consumption of bras, plus-size clothing, and bridal wear. Our data were collected through three separate studies, and we combined them for analysis after we met at a conference and noted common observations through discussion of our projects. The methods we used across our studies include ethnographic observations of brick-and-mortar retail spaces (all of which were located in Western U.S. cities), along with in-depth interviews with consumers and with the owners and employees of clothing stores. Below, we outline the data and collection methods for each project before describing our analyses. For all the studies, the names of all field sites and research participants are pseudonyms.
Between 2015 and 2016, Bishop conducted interviews and focus groups with 65 women about their bra shopping experiences and bra-wearing practices. Interviewees ranged in age from 18 to 75 and had varied class backgrounds and sexual identities, and three identified as transgender women. Approximately two thirds of the interviewees were white, and one third were women of color. Interviewees were recruited through personal networks, snowball sampling, and social media. Bishop also interviewed five women owners of specialty bra boutiques that offered expanded size ranges, and conducted one day of participant observation at one of these boutiques, Intimate Fit.
For ten months in 2009-2010, Gruys conducted participant observation as a paid sales associate at Real Style, a plus-size women’s clothing store that is one retail location of a corporate chain. This location’s customers were diverse in age, class, and race/ethnicity. Almost all shoppers were plus-size women, though a few standard-size women frequented the store solely to purchase bras. Gruys assisted customers by fetching clothes from the stock room, performing bra fittings, and providing clothing advice. She was able to observe women’s reactions to size standards by listening to their body talk in the fitting room and while shopping for and returning clothes. As an employee, Gruys was also privy to workers’ attitudes regarding body size and shape, as well as their strategies for assisting customers in finding or learning their clothing size.
Evans conducted participant observation for eight months in 2016 at Elegant Bride, an independently owned boutique selling name-brand wedding dresses. Its clients were predominantly upper middle-class and white. As a participant observer, Evans helped brides put on dresses, answered phone calls, and interacted with workers during downtime. Evans additionally conducted 12 semi-structured interviews with 10 brides and two shop workers, a convenience sample recruited during Evans’ participant observation. The brides interviewed spanned in age from 25 to 65, and seven were white women and three were women of color. The employees interviewed were white and middle-aged.
Bishop’s data are primarily from interviews, Gruys’ data are primarily from participant observation, and Evans has a mix of both. Although these differences mean that our cases are not perfectly commensurable, they are nevertheless ideal for examining our research questions. Our mixed methods offer us multiple vantage points on the myriad ways in which women encounter and engage with clothing size standards, including their interactions with clothing size standards in retail spaces, and the identity work and body work they perform in relation to size standards beyond these spaces. Further, because the retail spaces we observed had similarities and differences in how they facilitated women’s access to clothing in particular sizes, our comparative approach allows insight into women’s management of their bodies and identities in relation to size standards encountered in differing contexts. This said, we note that the specific retail spaces we studied are not economically or geographically accessible to all women compared to, for example, big-box clothing and bridal stores. Because of this, our findings should not be overgeneralized, and additional research should further investigate how class differences mitigate women’s navigation of the clothing size system.
Encountering, Understanding, And Navigating Clothing Size Standards
In the discussion that follows, we first present the findings from our respective sites. We detail both the institutional organization of these retail spaces—including their general atmosphere, the routes through which they provided access to clothing in particular sizes, and sales practices—and the identity and body work women perform in relation to size standards within and beyond these spaces. We then discuss the similarities and differences across these sites, emphasizing how our combined findings provide insight into how the instability and inconsistency of size standards reinforces inequality.
Women’s Consumption of Bras at and Beyond Intimate Fit
All five of the bra shop owners interviewed by Bishop agreed that specialty bra boutiques are designed to feel like destinations in and of themselves. Indeed, Intimate Fit was elegant and cozy, with wood floors and a plush velvet couch. A curated selection of matching lace bra-and-panty sets adorned the walls; in contrast, the stockroom overflowed with a plethora of bras in varied colors and sizes. According to the owner, Carmen, Intimate Fit offered a highly personalized experience, centered on finding the “perfect” fit for each woman’s unique body and style. Indeed, during Bishop’s participant observation at Intimate Fit, an employee measured her, asked extensive questions about her bra “problems” and style preferences, and spent nearly an hour retrieving bras in different sizes and evaluating their fit, all while carefully managing personal boundaries. Interviews with other bra shop owners indicate that this amount of time and attention was typical of all five boutiques. Notably, as was reported by other bra shop owners, prices for bras at Intimate Fit were higher than what could be found in big-box stores, such as Walmart or Target; therefore, although these spaces expanded access to bras for women of particular sizes/shapes, class status could still impede women’s access to these products.
Carmen designed her store to accommodate women with bra sizes beyond those served by “conventional” bra stores. The store carried bras in conventional sizes, along with band and cup sizes smaller and larger than those carried by big-box stores, and bras in less common proportions, such as smaller cup sizes with larger band widths and vice versa. Carmen, like the other owners, also emphasized promoting acceptance for bodily diversity as a goal of her business, noting that customers often confided in her and her employees about body image struggles during bra fittings. She cited her own difficulties finding bras that fit as motivating her decision to open Intimate Fit.
Being unable to access one’s bra size through what were perceived as “standard” routes—for example, shopping at the brick-and-mortar locations of “mainstream” stores—marked certain bodies and breasts as outside of body norms. Retailers’ distinctions between “standard-size” and “plus-size” were typically constructed around band size, rather than cup size—nevertheless, bra cup sizes had particularly strong cultural associations, with sizes beyond D deemed extremely large by many women. Marjorie, a 29-year-old white woman, resisted the implications of being “sized out” of Victoria’s Secret’s “regular sizes”:
[The Victoria’s Secret employee] sized me as a 32 double D . . . when I think of a double D, it’s not my boobs, and they don’t make that in their regular bras, so she like basically sized me out of their store, but I very clearly have an average, medium-sized, thin body, so to be sized out was so weird . . . I mean, I’m fairly thin and, like, a size 4, like, average size . . . I obviously don’t have such huge boobs I can’t fit in a normal store, I have very normal boobs, so it was just funny! (laughing)
Marjorie’s tone wavered between indignant and amused; she simultaneously acknowledged the absurdity of size standards, while attempting to depict herself as “standard-size.” However, while she chose to question the fitter’s assessment rather than redefine her body, she nonetheless oriented to a division between normal and abnormal bodies that hinged on how bodies relate to clothing size standards.
Despite celebrating body diversity, some shop owners criticized women’s bra choices, bemoaning that many clients insisted upon wearing the “wrong” size even after being professionally fitted. Intimate Fit and the other specialty shops also promoted “alternative” bra fitting methods, which tended to place women into sizes to which they were not accustomed, generally with smaller band sizes and larger cup sizes. Employees therefore used strategies to forestall these disputes. For example, Carmen often referred to the numerical difference between band and cup size (saying “seven-inch difference” rather than “FF cup”) to sidestep strong reactions to cup sizes beyond D. Another shop owner, Janice, did not reveal customers’ sizes until they had been fitted in a bra and could agree that it fit. While shop owners reported that many customers were resistant to adopting alternative size standards, other customers (as Bishop found through interviews) were deeply committed to using the alternative size standards shop owners promoted. Eight interviewees engaged in online discussion forums devoted to these size standards, and, in at least one case, a group of online commenters met and travelled together to shop at Carmen’s store.
For many interviewees, finding bras that fit both their bodies and their personal style was incredibly meaningful. For Monica, a 24-year-old Black woman, the aesthetic characteristics of the larger-sized bras she needed as an adolescent symbolized her feelings about her breasts:
I kind of just remember, like, going from the cuter, you know, 34Bs, to my mom being like, “Okay, we have to take you over to like 34Ds and double Ds” and these are all in beige, and kind of satiny, and more grandma-looking.
Monica felt that her breasts marked her as different from peers, and the shift from “cuter” to “grandma-looking” bras signified her difference from the “youthful” bodies of peers. She also struggled with having to shop at Frederick’s of Hollywood to find bras in her size, a store she described as “more sexual than my young brain was prepared for.” In contrast, due to the scarcity of products designed for adult women in their size, some women with smaller breasts described feeling inadequately feminine or sexual. Amber, a 27-year-old white and Colombian woman, had to choose between poorly fitting size-32A bras and shopping in the “children’s section” before discovering expanded size ranges; she now enjoys wearing bras that fit her body and style, which she purchases online because there are no local specialty shops.
Monica and other interviewees described how finding “stylish” bras in their size altered their feelings about their bodies and breasts. Sonja, a 29-year-old Black and Filipina woman, felt “like a woman” for the first time when she found attractive bras that accommodated her large breasts. Access to extended sizes may be consequential not only for self-expression, but also for health. For instance, after experiencing back pain due to years of ill-fitting bras purchased at Walmart (which did not stock sizes beyond DDD), Tracy, a 48-year-old white woman, reported being grateful she could afford well-fitting G-cup-sized bras in a specialty store. In Tracy’s case, the size label was less important than her practical need for a well-fitting bra. In general, Bishop observed similarities in how women negotiated bra sizing across racial categories. Women across racial categories treated wearing bra cup sizes that they deemed “excessively large” (usually defined as beyond a DDD) as stigmatizing, though, as illustrated by Tracy, practical and health-related needs sometimes “overrode” the identity-related implications of these labels.
For some of Bishop’s interviewees, bra size informed decisions to perform body work in the forms of diet, exercise, and surgical procedures, as well as assessments of the “success” of these efforts. For instance, Carol, a 55-year-old white woman, felt empowered when a reduction in breast size due to weight loss expanded her bra options and enabled her to shop in “regular stores.” And Mary Ann, a 28-year-old white woman, commented that, prior to a breast reduction, she “felt that wearing a 32H was like a stigma, because I didn’t know anyone bigger than that.” Though Mary Ann chose breast reduction surgery for many reasons, including back pain and migraines, her bra size, itself, nonetheless impacted her perception of her breasts as too large, contributing to her decision to pursue medical intervention. Her comment underscores the extent to which clothing size impacts women’s perceptions of their bodies by enabling comparisons with others.
Women’s Consumption of Plus-Size Clothing at Real Style
Real Style, located inside a suburban mall, was bright and cheerfully decorated with walls covered in posters of zaftig women wearing colorful and carefully layered attire. Similarly-styled mannequins in the store windows were larger in size than those found at most stores, though their athletic-yet-hourglass proportions did not meaningfully depart from mainstream ideals for body shape. Real Style sold both casual and business wear in sizes 14 through 28 in the store, with additional sizes 30, 32, and 12 available online for some styles. The store supposedly offered bras in sizes 36C to 50DDD, though the smallest and largest sizes were rarely in stock and could only be ordered online. The left side of the store housed casual and trendy clothes, while the right side housed workwear suits and blouses in more formal fabrics. The “intimates” area in the back of the store featured underwear, bras, and “support” undergarments. Real Style’s marketing celebrated larger sizes, frequently using the term “real women” in posters and flyers.
In addition to organizing clothing by size, Real Style labeled some garments by shape. The “Perfect Fit” denim line, produced in three fits—labeled “hourglass,” “pear,” and “apple”—accounted for women’s varied proportions and facilitated women’s access to clothing that more predictably fit different body types. Yet, employees acknowledged that not all shapes were equally desirable, warning Gruys that she “shouldn’t be afraid to tell a customer she’s an apple, even though it’s the most awful shape. You have to just be brave and give them the bad news.”
Real Style employees underwent specialized training in measuring women to determine their bra size. Bra fit training materials stated that most women wear the wrong size, and that employees could “help change that.” As with the “Perfect Fit” denim, employees anticipated that customers might challenge their official size evaluations, and they devised strategies to forestall disputes. A coworker informed Gruys that many customers resisted being told that their bra cup size is larger than they thought because “they think a bigger cup size means that they’re fat.” She instructed Gruys to tell resistant clients to “just try it.” Gruys experienced this exact scenario the first time she conducted a bra fit with a customer, a middle-aged white woman whose measurements indicated she should wear a 42F. After Gruys shared this information, the client insisted, “No, I wear a DDD.” Gruys then suggested that a bra’s fit was more important than its size label, but the client refused to consider any bras except those with a DDD cup, leaving empty-handed.
Real Style customers often used the language of “having to” shop at particular stores and “not being able to” shop at others, characterizing their bodies, rather than retailers’ limited size ranges, as problematic. However, it is important to point out that plus-size stigma was not universal among the Real Style clientele. Gruys found that Black and Latina customers were less likely than white customers to express shame for “having” to shop at Real Style. In fact, on two different occasions, standard-size Black women entered the store and expressed frustration that they weren’t big enough to fit into the clothes. These instances suggest that shopping at Real Style was not seen as stigmatizing for these women, perhaps due to differing cultural body ideals.
The significance of clothing size to health assessments is marked by the behaviors of some Real Style customers for whom buying clothes in a new size served as a celebratory ritual, used to mark their success at weight loss. For example, one customer came into the store and announced plans to replace her “entire wardrobe” to celebrate losing twenty pounds. Even more coveted was losing enough weight to no longer “need to” shop at Real Style, a milestone evidencing the attainment of a superior body. Take the following field-notes excerpt:
Daphne, the manager, is helping an older white woman returning a pair of size 14 pants because they are too big. She explains she recently lost 13 pounds [through “starving” herself], and has 10 more to lose. . . . Daphne asks if she wants to exchange the pants, saying, “We don’t carry size 12, but I can show you the styles that run small.” But the woman said, “No, just return them . . . I can shop at the normal size stores now.”
Although this customer likely could have found Real Style selections that would fit her body, she chose to shop at a store that would designate her body as “normal.”
Women’s Consumption of Bridal Wear at Elegant Bride
At Elegant Bride, rows of white dresses “popped” against rich brown walls, the scent of lavender wafted through the air, and an elaborate chandelier dazzled overhead. On the walls hung pictures of smiling brides donning their selections on their wedding days. Notably, each picture depicted a heterosexual couple, and only one of 23 showed a woman of color. The shopping experience at Elegant Bride was more structured compared to Intimate Fit and Real Style. Appointments were required to try on dresses, and shoppers were often discouraged from perusing the wares by themselves. Additionally, rather than being able to purchase gowns “off-the-rack,” as consumers did at Intimate Fit and Real Style, Elegant Bride only stocked “sample sizes.” Customers would try on the sample dresses in the store and, upon making their selections, store employees would compare brides’ measurements to manufacturers’ size charts, typically recommending that brides purchase one size larger, as dresses could more easily be tailored to be made smaller than larger. Unlike Intimate Fit and Real Style, the dresses were customized to fit individual brides by seamstresses employed by the store.
At Elegant Bride, the idealization of a thin, hourglass figure—and the assumption that weight loss was integral to wedding preparation—were reinforced through institutional practices and through employees’ and clients’ conversations. Samples were typically stocked in size 10 or 12, except for a few “curvy” dress styles available in larger sample sizes. The store levied a 25 percent fee on dresses over size 16, which employees defended as justified by the additional fabric larger gowns required. Brides were required to sign a contract releasing the store from responsibility for altering dresses that no longer fit due to weight gain, whereas alterations to accommodate weight loss were considered routine, even celebrated (and incurred no additional fees). Further, dress alterations involved more than simply fitting garments to clients’ bodies; they also included tricks to enhance some features and deemphasize others. For example, seamstresses generally insisted upon sewing bra cups into dresses to shape and support the breasts, and many gowns contained internal corsets to whittle the waist.
The fact that sample sizes did not accommodate even average-sized women had important implications for clients’ self-understandings. Being unable to fit into sample sizes, even after being told that the sizes ran small, caused women of many sizes to evaluate themselves as too large. Deanna, for example, found a dress that she “loved,” but she chose not to purchase it because trying on the too-small sample size made her feel “fat” and prevented her from visualizing how the dress would look on her wedding day. Here, clients’ evaluations of their body size were less tied to their actual (corporeal) size, relying more on their (newly assigned) clothing size.
Customers were often resistant to being told their wedding dress size was larger than the size with which they identified. Bridal shop workers attempted to thwart this resistance by informing customers that bridal dresses run small, but these efforts did not eliminate the negative emotions associated with “having to” wear a larger size. One bride, Sarah, a 24-year-old white woman, demonstrated that size standards were emotionally impactful, even when women were aware of their inconsistency. She said:
Even though it is just an arbitrary set of numbers and they literally just ascribe the dresses a number, I still felt like, no, I am not a size 6, I’m a 2. I wanted to be my real size when I bought my wedding dress.
Brides who did not typically wear plus-size dresses, but who were categorized as plus-size in bridal dresses, felt this discrepancy between their “real” size and their “bridal” size even more acutely. For example, Trisha, a 25-year-old Latina woman, decided to lose weight rather than purchase a plus-size wedding dress, a decision motivated both by financial considerations and an unwillingness to be labeled “plus-size.” She said:
I didn’t originally plan on losing weight but I didn’t want to pay the extra 25 percent for the “plus-size” dress. I was sort of bummed because I didn’t want to fall into that trap of forcing myself to lose weight but the cost would have been too much since it was a higher-end dress. I also didn’t really like the stigma behind the label of being a “plus-size” bride. I have never been plus-size my entire life so I didn’t want to start having that label just because of my wedding day.
Trisha’s reasoning—rooted in her identity as not plus-size—illustrates how deeply size labels were integrated into women’s self-understandings. Notably, this identity was, itself, unstable, requiring weight loss to seemingly prove with certainty that she would not experience “the stigma behind the label.”
Trisha was not alone in performing body work to avoid being labeled plus-size; many other brides aimed to lose weight to avoid “having to” wear plus-size dresses. Heather, a 22-year-old white woman, recalled:
I tried on the dress, and it was pretty snug on me but I still bought it in that size. I knew I probably shouldn’t have but I was on a weight loss process so I said “whatever” and went for it. Fitting into the dress will be a problem if I don’t lose the weight. It’s keeping me motivated to stay on track.
Rather than purchasing a larger dress (which could be altered if she did lose weight), Heather instead chose a smaller dress to force herself into losing weight, planning body work to avoid being categorized with a stigmatizing size label. Nevertheless, the intentions of both Trisha and Heather to adapt their bodies to gain access to the normative status implied by the standard-size label were contingent upon their embodied location at the “boundaries” of categories. That is, women much larger than Trisha and Heather would likely be unable to adapt their bodies to fit into standard-size clothing within the relatively short time frame of their wedding preparation.
Conclusion
Feminist scholarship has long been critical of the fashion industry’s negative influence on women’s body perceptions through unrealistic media images. This study builds upon these existing critiques by examining another means through which the fashion industry shapes women’s body image: through its production of clothing size standards. These unstable and shifting standards have received little sustained scholarly attention, despite their omnipresence in women’s everyday lives. Whereas other scholars have made incidental observations about the relation between clothing size, identity, and inequality, our multisited inquiry identifies patterns through which women encounter, understand, and navigate these standards across three retail environments. Further, through conceptualizing these standards as “floating signifiers” (Hall 1996; Lévi-Strauss 1950) we extend previous research by more precisely identifying the impacts of the instability of these standards. Below, we discuss our findings regarding the organization of the retail contexts in which women encounter size standards, the strategies women employ to navigate them, and the broader consequences these patterns have for gendered inequalities.
The institutional organization of retail spaces filters women into differential statuses associated with varying body types. The retailers we studied reinforce narrow cultural body ideals by segregating larger clothing and clothing for purportedly uncommon proportions either in designated sections within individual stores or across stores. The inaccessibility of extended size ranges beyond these spaces stigmatize particular body types, as evidenced by many women’s interpretations of “having to” shop in specialty stores as an indicator of their failure to meet body ideals. The higher prices at specialty bra shops, and the plus-size fee at Elegant Bride, posed additional economic barriers to accessing this clothing. These varied retail practices entrench the inequalities associated with body size and shape by creating spatial, temporal, and economic barriers to clothing access for women whose bodies violate cultural ideals, and by symbolically marking their stigmatized status.
While the organization of clothing by size across these sites tended to reify differences among women on the basis of body type, we also found that retail employees attempted to downplay the significance of size labels in their interactions with customers. Across our sites, employees emphasized the inconsistency or arbitrariness of size labels, and insisted to customers that garment fit is more important than size labels. These (often futile) efforts seemingly were intended to prevent women from using size labels to form negative self-evaluations, though these efforts also coincided with workers’ intentions to make sales (see also Gruys 2012). Unfortunately, our data cannot provide insight into the corporate-level decision making that drives these institutional practices. Thus, exploring these production-side processes is a key area for future investigation.
While confrontations with size standards (and their relationship to body ideals) are inevitable in women’s consumer encounters, we also found that women actively navigated these standards, performing identity work and body work to deflect stigmatizing clothing size labels. Women resisted retail workers’ “official” size assessments, and they refused to try on garments in stigmatized sizes, even if they were likely to fit. The instability of size standards enables these forms of identity work, which were most common among women near the flexible boundaries of size categories such as “standard-size” and “plus-size.” In some cases, rather than manipulating the flexibility of size categories, women manipulated their bodies—through diet, exercise, and even surgery—to fit into desired clothing sizes. Overall, though individual women may gain status and psychological benefits from these forms of identity and body work, these gains are fleeting, as they are premised upon standards that shift over time and across contexts. More broadly, using these hierarchical standards to make claims to normative status reinforces status differences among women on the basis of body type.
As indicated by these forms of identity and body work, we largely found that women managed size standards on an individual basis, rather than engaging with size standards collectively. We saw little evidence of women’s engagement with size politics within retail spaces, despite burgeoning activism around these issues. For instance, the fashion model–led campaign to “#DropthePlus” advocates for the elimination of the stigmatizing plus-size label (Friedman 2015). Though it is possible that the women we observed might be supportive of these political efforts, our data illustrate how consumer encounters—which are necessary to gain access to the social and utilitarian aspects of fashion—encourage individual and neoliberal modes of relating to the body, thus foreclosing on space for engagement with body politics. One exception is Bishop’s finding that some women engaged in online discussions oriented around collectively engaging with size standards, and in at least one case, this engagement led them to shop together in a retail space they viewed as enabling them to celebrate body diversity. Though the enmeshment of social change with consumerism poses limitations, as scholars such as LeBesco (2004) argue, we take seriously the negative impacts of the current sizing system on women and suggest, accordingly, that collective efforts to challenge sizing standards would have positive consequences.
We also observed these forms of identity work and body work among women of varied racial identities and body types; thus, our combined cases further elucidate how body pressures impinge upon women across social categories. In line with extant research on race and body ideals—which finds that Latina and Black women often hold alternative body ideals—Gruys found that women in these groups were less likely to interpret shopping at Real Style as stigmatizing. In contrast, Evans and Bishop identified similarities in how white women and women of color performed identity and body work in relation to clothing size standards. Evans’ data from Elegant Bride is particularly interesting, in that, with the exception of one Black woman who did not intend to diet for her wedding day, brides across racial categories all intended to lose weight. While further research is needed to make broad claims related to race/ethnicity and brides’ weight loss efforts, our findings supplement previous research on race and body ideals by specifying one context in which dominant beauty ideals seemingly have a stronger-than-usual influence on women of color. Future research should continue to specify the complex relationship between race and women’s body image, including more directly investigating body image among Asian American women—a group that, we acknowledge, is heterogeneous.
Overall, women’s persistent use of clothing size labels to define themselves, despite their awareness that they are inconsistent, seems counterintuitive. However, because conforming to body ideals has tangible consequences in American women’s lives, these forms of identity and body work are understandable efforts to attain some marker—however tenuous—that one’s body measures up to these ideals. Nevertheless, women’s body acceptance will remain precarious so long as it is tied to unstable and hierarchical markers. Below, we speculate on the implications of this study for future research and activism.
Changes within and beyond the fashion industry could challenge the gendered inequalities associated with size standards. Feminist critiques of the fashion industry should continue to expand beyond their focus on the production of media images to examine the impacts of clothing size standards, which are an inextricable element of women’s everyday lives. We also suggest that retailers should desegregate clothing size ranges, make clothing of varied sizes equally accessible (both economically and otherwise), eliminate stigmatizing labels, and expand the aesthetic options available in clothing of various sizes. We note that activism related to some of these issues has already begun, as represented by the #DropthePlus campaign noted above. Although we expect that these changes would mitigate the gendered inequalities described in this article, these efforts will not independently resolve the inequalities without broader challenges to a patriarchal system that locates women’s worth in their appearance. Similarly, any consumer-based solutions to women’s oppression must be accompanied by advocacy for more sustainable and ethical practices within the fashion industry more broadly.
Our theoretical approach, centered on understanding clothing size categories as “floating signifiers,” has implications for further research related to individuals’ negotiations of identity, stigma, and inequality. While the concept of floating signifiers has been most prominently used to theorize the instability of racial categories over time and across geographical spaces (see Hall 1993), we propose that this concept might be taken up by other researchers who, like ourselves, are interested in empirically examining social actors’ day-to-day negotiation of a range of social categories. It is clear that the ability to leverage the flexibility of various social categories to derive personal benefits (whether psychological, social, or material) is unequally distributed. Other research should further explore how variously situated social actors navigate increasingly flexible and fluid identity categories related to gender, race/ethnicity, and/or sexualities, among others. Exploring these questions through the theoretical framework of floating signification will lead to deeper insights about the role of micro-level social processes in reinforcing and/or challenging broader social hierarchies.
Footnotes
Authors’ note:
The authors are grateful to Jo Reger and two anonymous reviewers, whose generous feedback has helped us to substantially improve this paper.
Katelynn Bishop recently earned a PhD in sociology from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her research interests include gender, embodiment, and consumerism. Her dissertation and current book project, Imperfect Fit: Bras, Embodied Difference, and the Limits of Consumerism, focuses in part on the social constraints generated by expanded consumer choice. She has been published in Body & Society.
Kjerstin Gruys is an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Nevada, Reno. Her research focuses on how intersections of gender, race, class, and embodiment affect social inequality. She is writing a book tentatively titled True to Size?: A Social History of Women’s Clothing Size Standards in the U.S. Ready-to-Wear Fashion Industry.
Maddie Evans holds an MA in sociology from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and is currently pursuing a career in medicine.