NON-IDEAL MATCH

Clothing is one of the oldest inventions of humanity. Its key role is to protect the human body from various kinds of exposure. However, nowadays clothing increasingly plays an aesthetic role. You can tell a person's style, outlook and lifestyle from what he or she wears. But what is more interesting is that not everyone is aware that the wrong choice of clothing size may cause harm.

This is especially true for shoes. As we know, demand sparks supply, and Azerbaijan is overwhelmed by the supply of products of both good and average quality. Boutiques and street markets are "flooded" with footwear. But it is always a problem to find the right size. The owners of large and small feet suffer the most. People with broad feet, needing size 38 often have problems finding comfortable shoes. So, they buy size 40 which is too big for them. But they have no other choice. Azerbaijan does not import footwear to fit the length and width of a potential consumer's feet. Women encounter this kind of problem more than men, be it at cheap markets or expensive boutiques. There are also small size shoes. Many may have guessed that they are Chinese-made.

Not to a fit 

Length is yet another common problem. The bigger the size, the longer the skirt or trousers. You can find this kind of inconsistency mainly in clothing for mass consumption. No wonder that when it comes to ready-made goods, particularly Chinese-made clothing manufactured on production lines, no-one cares about the intricacies of size - height and width are not taken into account, just like quality. As a result, when adjusting the length, the style is changed too, which consumers do not always welcome. However, if the manufacturer provides chest, waist and thigh sizes along with the general size, this can be of enormous help to consumers when choosing and buying clothing.

Experts believe that problems in choosing clothing emerge primarily because there is no unified system in this field. Americans and Europeans use quite different systems. In the meantime, Azerbaijan is still using the so-called "Soviet scale" of measurement. It is next to impossible to check that all clothing imported into the country meets "Soviet" standards.  One could try not to buy mass consumption goods, though not everyone can afford this. But there is a way out. Europe is already thinking about setting up a unified system of clothing sizes - Italian manufacturers came to this decision following a conference at the Unitex national textile association last March. The new standard, called EN 13402, will soon be introduced in all European countries. Azerbaijan could also use the new European standards.  In this event, suppliers would be aware of the standards for clothing sizes to be imported in our country.   

In the meantime, the European standards committee noted that average Italians, like other Europeans, are taller and bigger than 50 years ago and suggested a new system for size standards and numbers. "The introduction of a unified European size system was necessary to avoid confusion when buying clothing. Everyone will benefit from this historical decision -manufacturers, retailers and, more importantly, consumers," Unitex president, Ludovico Jacker, said.

The new adult size system will have the following elements: chest and waist size and length. Children's clothing size, apart from the existing height parameters, will also include chest and waist size, which is important when choosing clothes for tall or plump children. 

Clothes: so different    

It must be noted that clothes currently on sale in Azerbaijan are made mainly in Turkey, China, Europe and America. Consumers encounter the following problems when deciphering sizes on labels. For instance, American sizes range from 8 to 16. Local buyers would not understand what the figure 8 or 12 meant on the label of an American-made garment. American size 8 matches European size 36, size 12 is European size 38 and 14 is 40. Clothes made in Europe are usually labelled size 38, 40 and so on. But buyers do not always know that in fact, size 36 (which matches our size 42) means proportionate chest, waist and hip size. So, you have first to try a garment on. Therefore, optimal conditions should be created for consumers. Clothes are seldom labelled with all the different size variants. Either good-quality garments or the goods from firms wishing to ease the process of choosing and buying clothing have these kinds of labels. Some even provide anatomical sizes.  

When manufacturing clothes for mass consumption, calculations are based on standard models.  Everyone has a different build, and if you study a certain selection of people, you will see that there are certain types of people. These will not be simply slim and plump people, but a whole process of measuring and correlation that gives you an idea of proportion and size.

Dummies are produced based on certain types and are used by fashion designers to manufacture garments. However, dummies do not reflect the possible disproportions or asymmetry or any other peculiarities of a human figure, they are just an average version. This is why we spend hours in shops looking for suitable clothes that will fit our unique bodies. 

Women must be stouter

In view of the above, Russian standards are the closest to Azerbaijani standards. In line with international standards, clothes made in Russia are labelled with three measurements. These are height, chest size, and hip size for women and waist size for men. A label that says 164 - 96 - 104 means that the garment fits a person with the height of 164 cm, the chest size of 96 cm and the thigh size of 104 cm. It tells you if it is worth trying the garment on. Incidentally, chest size divided by two is the size of a garment. In this case, the garment's size is 48 (96:2=48). 

Thigh size helps identify how big a body is. In accordance with standards, there are four categories to show this. Given the height of 158 cm and chest measurement 96 cm, the hip measurement for the first category will be 100 cm; for the second category 104 cm; for the third category 108 cm; and for the fourth category 112 cm. In Russia the main category is the second category for size 164 - 96 - 104. 

However, Spanish Health Minister Elena Salgado believes that clothing size should be brought into line with the real size of Spanish women.

Average Spanish women do not wear size 36 or even 38 (42-44) if they are not seriously ill. Moreover, "the ideal model of beauty, which is often associated with excessive slimness, is already a medical problem", the minister said and recalled that in Spain, like in the rest of Europe, the number of diseases caused by malnutrition and especially dangerous dietary   programmes is on the rise, particularly among women of average age. In view of the simplicity of the concept - clothes should be made bigger to match a woman's body rather than women becoming slimmer in order to be able to wear small-size clothes - a commission has been set up which is to carry out as soon as possible an anthropometric survey among Spanish women above 12. 

It will be interesting to see how successful the Spanish government's initiative will be, since it has to do both with people's lives and their bodies, a field that rules out political interference.  The move to regulate clothing size will cause debates. We would want Azerbaijan to be involved, too, since both slim and plump people in our country like dressing well.