"Garment industry representative: Women's pants..." (CR)

[gtckim]

Garment industry representative: Women's pants are usually sized according to the circumference of the wearer's natural waist – the narrowest part of her torso, located roughly at the height of her navel. For instance, a pair of women's pants tagged size 29 is designed to fit the average woman with a 29-inch natural waist.

Consultant: But then the sizing number is not an actual measurement of the pants themselves. If a pair of pants is tagged size 29, then no dimension of the pants themselves will necessarily measure 29 inches. The current sizing system is thus likely to be more confusing for consumers than, say, a system in which sizes are numbered according to the waistband circumference of the pants themselves.

Garment industry representative: You are correct that the size number does not necessarily represent an actual dimension of the pants. However, your proposed sizing system would lead to substantially more confusion than the current one.

Which of the following, if true, supports the garment industry representative's position and also undermines the consultant's argument?

A) Most consumers are quick to learn the sizing systems of their preferred brands, regardless of how counterintuitive or unusual they may find those systems at first.
B) Many shoppers will measure their favorite pairs of pants at home before a shopping trip, so that they can quickly evaluate the fit of unfamiliar brands of pants without having to try them on.
C) Even when wearing identical brands and styles of pants, some women prefer a tighter fit, while other women with similar bodies prefer a looser fit; moreover, a given woman's preferences often vary unpredictably from style to style within the same brand.
D) Many women find smaller size numbers psychologically appealing and, when choosing among identically sized garments, are more likely to buy those tagged with smaller size numbers.
E) Different styles of women's pants are worn with their waistbands at widely varying heights, some as high as the wearer's natural waist and some as low as the wearer's hipbone.

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E is the correct answer, and the reasoning given is that the consultant's proposal is more complicated because such a system would force shoppers to "know the exact height at which every style of pants was designed to be worn, as well as their own preferred size at each of those heights."

I am having difficulty understanding why the above complication would not apply to the existing measuring system as well. Under the current system, pants are sized according to the natural waistline, meaning that if the pants are designed to be worn at a different height other than the waistline (e.g., hipbone), the shopper would have to be aware of this fact and "scale" the size accordingly. Thus, isn't the current sizing scheme essentially forcing the shopper to do the same thing as they'd have to if the consultant's proposal were accepted? For example, under the current sizing scheme, a shopper may say to herself, "I am a 29 for ABC brand, since it sits at my waistline, but I am actually a 30 for XYZ brand since it sits at my hipbone".

Thanks in advance.

[ahmedb419]

Experts please jump in.We need your help

[Chelsey Cooley]

Under the current sizing scheme, any woman with a 29" waist would (at least in theory) always wear size 29 pants. That's because the garment industry assumes that everyone who has a 29" waist also has, say, 36" hips. So, if the pants were meant to be worn on the hips, they'd measure 36" and be tagged as a size 29. If they were meant to be worn at the waist, they'd measure 29" and also be tagged as a size 29. A woman lucky enough to have exactly those proportions (and the garment industry apparently assumes that all women do) wouldn't have to remember anything about how different brands fit - every time she tried on a 29, even if it wasn't actually 29" around, it would fit her anatomy.