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Cover Story: The tyranny of size
Surprise, surprise! Size-S flies off the shelves the fastest. Much of fashion is designed for small, lithe and lean women. Small is beautiful, or so says everyone! Read on for more...
Ever been witness to the trial-room wars? Now, these aren’t exactly sequels to The Hunger Games, Hollywood’s futuristic take on the pitfalls of consumer culture, but they come close. The arena for these Glamazon gladiators is usually a changing room in a mall.
In the red corner is a size small, with a 32-inch bust, 26-inch waist and 33-inch butt, who comes out triumphant, fitting into most clothes. Pitted against her is the medium or large ‘real’ woman, usually with a voluptuous bosom, curvaceous waist and ample hips, who sheepishly vanishes into the trial room with 11 dresses and doesn’t seem to fit well into even one.
Egging them on from the sidelines is the entourage: boyfriends/husbands/girlfriends, who either nod their approval or express dismay.
/DIVSO question is, do cool brands give preferential treatment stick-thin, girl frown upon women, who are closer to traditional Indian type? designers brand heads say unanimous “yes”. Fashion designer Nachiket Barve perception ideal beauty has changed: “A curvaceous Sophia Loren not celebrated as lean Megan Fox.” Bollywood, too, reflecting changed aesthetics. The thin, thinner and now vanishing Katrina Kaif far cry slim, yet real body say, a Sridevi of past. And that’s why at stores, small (S) fastest. Sanjeev Mohanty, MD, Benetton India, says Medium sells smaller cities but top 10 cities, S vanishes from shelves: “Small is fastest moving size in the fashion forward metros,” he affirms.
Priya Sachdev, COO, Kitsch, concurs that sizes Small and Medium go the fastest (referring to sizes 0 to 4 as small for many brands). While internationally there are blogs and forums dedicated to petite women (just like plus-sized women) where they rant about never finding their sizes, we didn’t think India would have a similar story to tell.
Desi and androgynous?
This seems like a plausible explanation. Look around and you’ll notice many girls and women walking around marketplaces and malls in the tiniest shorts, skimpy tops and showing off skinny legs.
Ten years ago, women would harangue fashion designer Rina Dhaka for making really small clothes – only for the lean and lithe. Now that she has relented, the same lot goads her to make even smaller sizes. This marks a shift in what Indian women are fitting into. Roma Manjarekar, brand manager for Spanish label Mango and American brand bebe, says, “Even till a few years ago, the most popular sizes were Medium and Large and now they are Small and Medium. Also, women have come down a size or two.”
The reasons behind the growing tribe of women in the ‘Small’ club can be traced back to the usual suspects – fashion magazines which perpetuate body myths, fashion brands that hard-sell clothes and actresses obsessed with vanity and slimness.
Popular media across the world is screaming that lithe, toned, tall, thin – a body that fits into Small and Extra Small sizes – is the ideal of beauty. “To be part of the bunch, women are now working out more, eating right and taking extra care about the way they look,” says designer Barve.
Thin and fit are the sartorial equivalents of status questions like ‘what car do you have?’ or ‘where do you live?’ Fashion designer David Abraham of the team Abraham & Thakore agrees: “India is slowly moving the America way. The rich are thin and the poor fat. If you are thin it means you have access to the best fitness and diet.”
The bare bones
The cycle of demand and supply comes full circle with the demand for clothes in small sizes influencing trends (cuts and styles that brands are churning out). Journalist Rama Vaidyanathan, 31, who has always been a size Medium, feels most European brands in India have sizes that are just too little. (American ones, which offer bigger sizes, are not that easily available here). “Imagine, me wearing a peplum, belted dresses or clingy tops that are flooding stores. I have some flab on my stomach and come out of stores feeling fat,” she rues. Similarly, Saima Arora, a 28-year-old professional dancer, says only 20 per cent of styles look good on women like her, who oscillate between a Medium and Large.
The snob report
Thirty-year-old petite PR executive Anchal Singhal, who is usually a size Small, is spoilt for choice. Till four years ago, she couldn’t find clothes that fit her. “Even a size Small was loose. My denims hung from my hips,” she says. Today, thanks to the growing obsession with petite sizes, Singhal even gets unheard of 25-inch waist denims in Levi’s. And she is laughing all the way to the trial room. “I make sure I loudly tell the salesperson the size I am,” says Singhal.
