A couple of years ago, I had a closet full of 34×32 pants that fit just fine. I still have some of those pants today, and they fit now just as well as the day I bought them.
About a year ago, I tried on some 34×32 pants and they were too small. I had to buy 36×32 pants instead. They fit the same as the 34×32 pants that were, and still are, in my closet.
Today I bought some new pants. The 36×32 pants were too small. I had to buy 38×32 pants. They fit the same as the 36×32 pants I wore to the store when I purchased the new ones.
I now have three different sizes of pants in my closet that all fit the same. What the hell is going on? Has something changed with the sizes? Are they measuring something different, or have the units become smaller? I know for a fact that I’m not any bigger, partially because I own several mirrors, and partially because the pants size that is now too small still fits me from a couple of years ago. I’m at a total loss to explain it.
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September 18th, 2005 at 5:58 pm
I would think this is probably, in large part, due to where the respective pants were manufactured. Based on label reading at local stores there appears to be three main pant manufacturing regions. They are 1. United States, 2. Indonesia/Orient, 3. Latin America.
I would guess that the all of the pants in question may have come from different regions and therefor reflect slightly different levels of measuring accuracy, different manufacturing oversights and accuracy, and different levels of societal influence as to design. All of these factor most likely influence the fit of the pants in one way or another.
Of course I could be completely wrong on all accounts as well…who knows.
September 19th, 2005 at 2:08 pm
It is because George Bush hates pants.
September 19th, 2005 at 2:20 pm
Especially black pants.
September 20th, 2005 at 3:12 am
Some river in Egypt comes to mind.
September 20th, 2005 at 11:33 pm
Surely it couldn’t be because the pants in your closet have been slowly stretched to a larger size over the past x years…
September 21st, 2005 at 8:04 am
I used to wear 30×32 and now I wear 34×30 (and their long). I know my waist line got larger because I quit smoking and I gained sympathy weight with my wife during her first pregnancy, but I know I didn’t get shorter. Why don’t the jeans manufacturers hire people that can read a measuring tape!
September 21st, 2005 at 10:37 am
You know, I considered the whole stretching theory.
The problem with that is, there wasn’t a need to stretch anything. When I bought the pants, they fit fine without any need of stretching. They fit the same now as when they were purchased, and at no point in the past did they feel tight, which is when the stretching would have occurred. I’m not even sure they can be stretched. Go home, pick an old pair of pants, and see if you can stretch them out to be four sizes bigger. I realize that most of the readers of this lame blog don’t know me in person, but those who do can attest to the fact that I haven’t become any larger in the past two years. If anything, I’ve become a little smaller since a friend of mine gave me his old Soloflex machine to use at home.
At this moment, I’m wearing size 36 pants. I need a belt to hold them on, actually bunched up at the waist, or else everyone here at work is going to get a good look at my ass. (I’m a sexy, sexy man, but my ass is still considered inappropriate for work.) I showed my loose pants to a coworker who has been reading these comments, and he told me about his three different shoe sizes. And then there’s the comment by just_jeepin about his pants weirdness.
When these manufacturers designate a pants size, what are they supposed to be measuring? And in what units are they allegedly measuring it?