I've not recorded my weight for the past week or so due to having broken the tape measure. I purchased a new one yesterday and measured myself this morning. What I found was a little surprising.
This new one seems to have added 10cm to my measurements. Now, it's important to note that there are most likely any number of reasons why this happened. For instance, I haven't walked the dog much in the past couple of weeks, but I have done longer days on the motorcycle at work. I have also been swimming with Little Wookie and had a game of cricket with friends last Friday, and I've also been doing more work in my workshop. So while I've lost in one area, I've gained in a few more.
The other option is that the new tape was directly called a "Taylor's tape" whereas the other tape was called a "Sewing tape". I suspect this is nothing more than semantics but I would assume that there would be far greater accuracy on a Taylor's tape given the skin-like fit of a custom suit etc.
However, one would assume that a centimetre is a centimetre is a centimetre. After all, there is a standard definition for what a metre is and a centimetre is just that divided by 100. So all tapes should be the same measurement. In theory that is.
I have had it on tape measures before in the workshop where if I measured the area I'm working in with one tape, then went into the workshop and measured the timber with another tape, nothing fitted because there were actually two measurements. I assume something like this can happen in the sewing world.
If this is the case though, how can we be assured that the world around us is accurate? If there's standards that aren't being met, the implication is huge. Everything from chippie packet size to safety framing are affected.
We see it all the time in clothing. In fact I would say it's the worst industry for this. I can order a "Large" with one brand and another brand that shirt would be considered "Medium". We have a phrase for this in New Zealand... "Chinese Sizing". It's not that we're being racist, it's just that a "Large" in Chinese sizing is actually a "Medium" in European and most likely a "XS" in USA.
What's even the point of an international standard if no one uses it correctly?
Clothing sizing that uses numbers pisses me off so much that I’m enraged just by the mere mention of it in this post. If the jeans say 25 inch waist it better fucking measure 63,5cm at the waist, but it never does. My vintage Levi 501’s in w28 are the same size as my newer Levi’s in w25! Make it make sense!
I believe it’s called ”vanity sizing” and it’s designed to make people (who are emotionally tied to their clothing size) feel better about being a smaller number, no matter what that means in actual measurements in this dimension we exist in.
For me, as a male, it's not about vanity but about fit. As someone who is short (161cm ~ 5.5') clothing size becomes a hassle. I can't buy pants with a perfect leg because they always make them longer. So I then have to get them resized to fit or I roll them up. Resizing makes that pair of pants more expensive. Rolling makes those pants inefficient as inevitably they will unroll.
Shirts are the same. If I get a "Chinese" large, it's more of a "Medium" on me. This means the arms don't fit nicely and are more often than not too tight. If I was a body builder I would be fine with that but... well... have you seen the pictures of me? 🤣 But a US "Large" is the equivalent of an "XXL" on me and I float in them.
This is why I prefer a standard measurement of CMs. But even this seems to not be correct. Going back to the tape. My previous tape measure read 77cm at the waist before it broke. I couldn't work out why if it was reading that, why was my 87cm pants not sliding off me. My new tape has me back at 87cm which explains it nicely.
This leads me back to my question. Why the hell aren't tape measures a standard? A cheap tape measure using a standard measurement should read the same as the most expensive tape measure.
I have to disagree with you about the pant legs, if there are no options for different lengths, it’s much better to have them too long. I’m 167cm and even I have a problem of finding long enough jeans, the L30 is always on stock and 32 and 34 are always sold out or not available. It’s so much easier to hem than to add more 😅 We have jean stores here that hem the pants for free for you.
I completely glossed over the tape measure thing so I had to pull out some to check if mine are accurate. It doesn’t look like it in the picture but they are all very very close to each other, the clothing tape measure is the odd one out but that is actually pretty normal, they can stretch over time, especially cheap ones because they are soft plastic.
I’m not having a go at pant lengths being too long. I get my wife to hem them but if you don’t have that ability then here you have to pay to get them hemmed. It might be different if say I bought a suit as generally they will do it as part of the fitting.
But if I buy a pair of $20 jeans at The Warehouse it’ll cost me about $20 to get them hemmed otherwise because The Warehouse doesn’t have a fitting service. It’s not worth it.
I never thought about the stretching thing. Both tapes I have/had are fibreglass so not supposed to stretch but they will break, hence my problem.
It is interesting to me though that the tape I just bought is more inline with reality though. I’m now measuring at 87cm which is what my pants are. The one that broke was telling me I was 77cm which is better for my ego I guess but not inline with reality.
I just thought it was interesting that there could be such a discrepancy with something that should be a standard measurement.