Found this article and I thought it's rather interesting. It mainly focus on women sizes but the same is true for men, but happen slightly less.

<Source> 

Clothing stores shrink size labels to lure vain shoppers

By Ben Whitford

 

Many high street clothing stores label the sizes of their clothes lower than the actual sizes, as the generous sizing policy makes shoppers feel better about themselves. The practice is called "vanity sizing."

Vanity sizing creates a vacuum at the lower end of size range, as more clothes are labeled smaller and smaller. (Rattaphol Onsanit/CNS)

Vanity sizing sometimes confuses shoppers. It gives them a hard time to find the right size of their clothes. (Rattaphol Onsanit/CNS)

Many women are aware of vanity sizing. They try clothes with one or two sizes smaller than their actual size, when they go shopping. (Rattaphol Onsanit/CNS)

Amid the piles of shirts and pants at her local branch of the Gap, Jennifer Harrison, a 32-year-old actress from Queens, N.Y., had found a bargain: a very snappy khaki summer skirt.

Even better, when Harrison tried the skirt on she mysteriously seemed to have lost weight. “I’m about a size 14,” she said. “But I decided to try on a size 12, just for giggles--and it fitted!”

Harrison reached for her wallet, happy to have gone down a size. But as she left the store, she couldn't help wondering: Had she really gotten thinner, or had she just been taken in by a sales ploy based on the conceit that Big is actually Small?

Whatever the answer, the Gap is one of a number of major U.S. retailers that have been trying to influence shoppers' sales decisions by offering inflated sizes. Across the country, at stores like DKNY, French Connection, Old Navy and J. Crew, retailers are giving relatively large clothing a lower, more flattering size label, a practice known in the industry as "vanity sizing."

An informal survey showed that the shopper who buys 34-inch waistband jeans is doomed to be a size 10 if she opts for Calvin Klein--but could be as little as a 6 if she tries the Gap's “modern fit” flares.

At Anne Klein, meanwhile, someone who squeezes into a summer skirt with a 30-inch waist is considered a size 6--but will drop down to a size 4 at Nine West. And if she heads to French Connection she'll be even more pleasantly surprised: There, a similarly sized skirt is marked a size 2.

Vanity sizing is becoming a common practice for retailers, according to Susie Yalof Schwartz, fashion editor for Glamour magazine. “They do it for a reason, and the reason is that women are vain and want to feel thin, and this is a way to make them feel that way,” she said. “It's invigorating to go down a size.”

Shoppers often pretend not to notice that vanity sizing is taking place, but they nonetheless seek out the stores where sizing policies are most flattering, Schwartz said. “Designers are pulling the wool over a lot of women's eyes,” she added. “But the truth is that's what women want: They want to feel thin, but they don't want to diet or go to the gym to do so.”

Cecile Gyles, a 40-year-old lawyer from Manhattan who had just bought a pair of J. Crew sweat pants because she was so thrilled to fit into an “extra small,” said she thought the designers were “playing with people’s minds.”

“There's a lot of pressure on women, especially young women, to look good and feel thin,” she said. “It's not good.”

But Gyles admitted being put off by less flattering labels. “I'm a size 4 in J. Crew or the Gap,” she said. “But if I go to Armani I'm an 8 or a 10--and I'm just not a size 10, so I don't buy that brand. They're just not cut for me.”

Dr. Roberta Gruber, head of design and merchandizing at Drexel University, said manufacturers have quietly increased the size of their clothes without changing the size label in a bid to keep pace with expanding American waistlines.

“Thin is always considered better than fat, but the reality is that America is getting much larger,” she said. “So it's a psychological thing: If you offer women a size 4 they can fit into instead of a size 6, or a 6 instead of an 8, then the chances are they will buy that garment.”

Vanity sizing is becoming so widespread that it's creating a vacuum at the lower end of the size range as lower and lower labels are commandeered to serve larger-sized clothes. Dozens of retailers have already adopted a “size 0” label for clothes that used to be size 2 or 4; some are even turning to “double 0” labels to cater to their more petite customers.

“I imagine in 10 years time we'll have negative sizes for clothes,” Gruber joked.

But petite shoppers can find size inflation frustrating. Emma Groombridge, 25, a skinny British pharmaceutical technician on a shopping trip to New York, loves American doughnuts--but can’t stand the clothing sizes.

“I can't get small enough sizes,” she said, munching on a Krispy Kreme. “I hate it! You pick up a size and it doesn’t fit.”

Groombridge knew she was a size 8 in Britain, and according to the conversion charts she should have been a size 6 in America. “But I've been trying on jeans over here, and suddenly I'm a 2,” she said. “It's just crazy.”

Representatives of Gap, and its sister-stores Banana Republic and Old Navy, declined to return phone calls seeking comment on the retail group's sizing policies.

It's in the retailers' interest to keep quiet about vanity sizing, said Karen Davis, a marketing specialist at Textile Clothing Technology Corp., an influential industry research group. “They don't want to admit they're making garments bigger,” Davis said. “They want everyone to believe they're wearing smaller-sized clothes.”

The tendency for retailers to inflate clothing sizes is nothing new. “It's happened at least three times in the past 50 years,” said April Girtman, who runs VintageVixen.com, a Florida-based online retro clothing store. “A 1950s size 12 is different to a late-60s size 12, and by the 1980s it's different yet again. Over the years these size differences build up.”

Having changed so much over the years, Girtman said, size labels are now more or less meaningless. “But they have to keep changing, because people want to feel like they're a smaller size, whether or not they're physically getting thinner,” she said. “It's all about petting people's egos.”

It's the egos of the rich that get petted most, said Dr. Tammy Kinley of the University of North Texas. She recently published a study showing that vanity sizing is most pronounced in expensive, luxury couture, where designers can use large quantities of cloth without worrying about the cost.

Cheap clothes, on the other hand, tend to run smaller and to be more accurately labeled. “If you're making an inexpensive garment you've got to maximize your resources,” Kinley explained. “And that means minimizing the amount of cloth.”

But whatever the price tag, size inflation can confuse shoppers. Patience Pierce, a slim 50-year-old artist from Middletown, N.J., said that after being struck by vanity sizing, especially at Gap and Old Navy, she had taken to wearing men’s pants, where the size labels tend to be more reflective of the clothing's actual measurements.

“My husband just picks shirts and pants off the shelf and buys them,” she said, with a hint of envy. “He bought a suit the other day, and the sales assistant knew what size he was as soon as he walked in the store, just by looking at him.”

But although Pierce said she wasn't taken in by vanity sizing, she could understand its appeal.

“It's just psychological,” she said. “I know what's going on--but my fat friends love it!”

I like shopping online and this isn't making it any easier... Size S for 1 brand is a size M for another. You can go and shop by size and you still found 3 different sizes for the specific size you're trying to find. Why isn't there a mandatory standard in sizing?

I think the sizes should follow the metric system or something instead of some obscure number and/or letter representation.

/rant 

Another newer article, but pretty much the same thing. <Source>

Sized out: Women struggle to find clothes that fit

By Crystal Boyles
Monday, April 16, 2007

As most women know all too well, it is nearly impossible to walk into a clothing store and pick up “your size,” buy it, and know that it’ll fit perfectly when you get home.

Instead, a dreaded trip to the dressing room awaits. And more than likely, you’ll need to carry with you the same pair of pants in three different sizes. Because you can’t predict which size is “yours” anymore.

In recent years it would seem clothing sizes have gotten bigger — or, to put it another way, we’re all wearing smaller sizes.

Barbara Corell, president and owner of Millie Lewis Studios, a modeling/personal shopping agency in Greenville, calls it vanity sizing.

“Women like buying their clothes in a smaller size,” she said. “It’s a psychological thing.”

Savvy clothing manufacturers are picking up on that psychology and making women’s clothing sizes “more generous,” Ms. Corell said.

But, she adds, all clothes are cut differently and if a specific cut doesn’t flatter your body type, no size in that cut is going to look right and fit well.

Typically, clothing lines have a fitting model — an actual live person of specific measurements — upon which their sizes are based. The size and shape of the styles change when the model is replaced by another one, which explains why a particular brand and size of pants might fit one year, but not the next.

Which, of course, makes shopping an exercise in annoyance for many women.

“It’s frustrating, because if you see something you like, then it doesn’t fit, you have to look for something else,” said Monica Norris of Anderson.

In fact, Ms. Norris doesn’t even shop in stores anymore. Now she shops from mail order catalogs, which usually provide detailed fitting measurements on their Web sites.

“Once you know that company and that size, you’re set,” she said.

Even so, it can take one or two exchanges before she finds an outfit in her size.

Although there are not uniform sizes across clothing lines and stores, there are ways to avoid hours in the dressing room trying to find a size that fits, said Tica Tallent, personal shopper at Belk in the Anderson Mall.

When Ms. Tallent helps someone find clothes, she doesn’t ask her size. Instead she’s more concerned with the woman’s body shape. Does she have a long neck? Wide shoulders? Short or long waist? Those assessments drive her to specific lines and brands of clothing.

“Liz Claiborne has a curvier fitting model, in general,” Ms. Tallent said. “Jones New York fits the longer and leaner body, Ralph Lauren generally has a little thicker thigh.”

Ms. Corell, of Millie Lewis, explained that the pricier and better a clothing line, the more generous the cut of its styles will be.

“If you’re in a fine label, you’ll be able to wear a smaller size,” she said.

It can take ages to figure out how to navigate a retail store’s many departments such as juniors, misses, and so on — which makes shopping a trial-and-error experience. But when a woman finds a clothing line that fits her well, both Ms. Tallent and Ms. Corell advise that she stick with it.

“You just keep searching for those places (and designers) that work for you,” Ms. Corell said.

Most women typically find clothes within a two-size range, she said. Either a woman is a six/eight, meaning she tends to go more eight than four, or she is a four/six, meaning she leans more toward a four than an eight. From that starting point a woman shouldn’t have too much trouble finding a size that fits her.

Remember, too, that certain cuts work for particular body types and others don’t. So don’t keep trying to wear a scoop-neck shirt every year. If it didn’t fit properly in 2006, it’s likely not going to fit properly in 2007.

Well last time I went to the US I was amazed about how fat people were, it was ridiculous, almos half of the people I saw in a mall were at least XL (I'm an S) and when I browsed some shirts in a store I saw sizes I've never seen in my life and never thought they existed at retail, from 3XL up to 5XL!

Maybe in another decade or 2, you'll be wearing negative sizes

Well it is something that should be stopped it puts false ideas into people's minds. I mean of course in some way women feel better in smaller clothing but in another hand it's making them feel they lost weight when they didn't.

The real issue under it all is that women feel fat and ugly because all of the media, Hollywood and such... Women, teens and even children aren't satified with their bodies and the stores seem to take that weekness as an advantage to sell more, which is just plain aweful imo.

Personal experiance, sizes are really diverse from one store to the other, but also one brand to another. Generally I wear small... But in some places, I'm get in xsmall. Jeans is 5/7 due that I have large(r) hips.

I hope they won't do similar things in europe/germany - I don't like to have to search for my correct size ,because some marketing guys tried to "make me feel better about myself"...(well, I guess mens clothing isn't affected anyway , so there is little risk for me to suffer from "vanity sizing" )

 Haha, yes I know what you mean. I live in Chicago and take the bus to work, I see soooo many obese people that require 2 seats!

 On the whole sizes thing, I went to Vancouver with my gf last year, and she found a store with some cool womens clothing.  There were no sizes at all on any of the clothes. I asked the lady about the sizes and she told me "no sizes, all one size, all clothes "Hong Kong size!". Thought that was kind of wierd, but anyways my gf (who is Chinese) ended up buying some stuff because it fit her perfectly.

so does that mean they will put larger sizes on the condom packs to make all the guys feel better?