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23 February 2006
Fashion Designers Still Blind To Reality 
When will fashion designers realize that Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield aren't representative of the consumers they make clothes for? It seems that designers are blind to reality, as they continue to make clothes based on the imagined hourglass figure despite the fact that most women's figures are either rectangular or pear shaped. Astonishingly, a recent study from North Carolina State University's College of Textiles revealed that less than 10 percent of women actually have hourglass figures. The study looked at the body types of over 6,000 women and classified them into seven general categories. Those body shapes were the rectangle, the spoon, the triangle, the inverted triangle, the hourglass, the bottom hourglass and the top hourglass. Dr. Cindy Istook, the study leader, broke down the findings further, saying: - Around 46 percent of women were rectangular, in which the bust and the hips are generally the same size, and the waist is less than nine inches smaller than the hips or the bust.
- More than 20 percent of women possessed the spoon or pear shape, which is marked by a hip measurement that is at least two inches larger than the bust.
- Nearly 14 percent were inverted triangles, meaning their busts were three or more inches larger than their hips.
- The hourglass figure, which features bust and hip measurements that are nearly equal along with a narrow waist, comprised only 8 percent of the women analyzed.
So, why aren't fashion houses designing for real women? "Companies are recognizing that there's an issue," said Istook. "They just haven't changed their sizing system to demonstrate it." She hopes the results of the survey will lead to a change in the clothing industry, in which manufacturers will begin producing clothing that conforms to the real shape of women's bodies. "What we're trying to do now is get manufacturers and retailers to understand the idea that people really are different shapes," Istook explained. "If we can serve the top four groups, we would have almost 90 percent of the market covered." Source: North Carolina State University
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