When was size 0 created

The article pointed to designer Nicole Miller as the arbiter of the double zero, so I reached out to find out whether she remembers being the first.

For me, it became a necessity because my sales department wanted to size clothing a bit larger, and I didn't want to lose the tiny customer. Miller said the odd size didn't confuse potential shoppers, many of whom were already requiring smaller fits and depending on the alteration departments of the stores they were shopping at.

Suffice it to say, assuming all year-old girls and in. But consumers — and the booming catalog industry, which proliferated as Americans moved to more rural areas — were ready for change.

Since the survey was done on a volunteer basis, it was largely made up of women of a lower socioeconomic status who needed the participation fee.

It was also primarily white women. And the measurements still primarily relied on bust size, assuming women had an hourglass figure. Then in the late s, the Mail-Order Association of America, representing catalog businesses including Sears Roebuck, enlisted the help of the National Bureau of Standards now the National Institute of Standards and Technology to reanalyze the sizing — often using the measurements of women who had served in the air force, some of the most fit people in the country — creating a standard that was largely arbitrary.

Sizes ranged from 8 to 38 with height indications of tall T , regular R , and short S , and a plus or minus sign when referring to girth. There was no size zero, let alone the triple zeroes that sometimes are displayed in stores today. As American girth increased, so did egos.

And now with Internet shopping as prevalent as it is, size ranges should standardize. Not every store is as democratically minded as Neiman Marcus is. One fashion insider went in looking for a Chloe blouse in an 8 and got the kind of looks reserved for a shoplifter. The French and the British are pretty true to size. Italians run a size smaller. Americans run true to size or a little more generous. In different parts of the world, body types are different: Italian skirts and pants are where one might need to size up.

On the other hand, vanity sizing can hurt a store, asserts Hoegg. That will intimidate many shoppers into not going there. Our appearance is a large influence on our overall self-esteem. Size can become a very strong criteria for self-worth. Your size becomes your label. Years ago, the urban myth goes, Sharon Stone was shooting for W magazine, and the clothes the stylist brought were of sizes … not to her liking.

Not that Stone has ever had a bad-size day. Stone sent an assistant up to her house to fetch her own clothes — with all the sizes cut out. Or at the box office. Sign up for THR news straight to your inbox every day.