What Do Clothing Manufacturers Have In Common With Airlines?

Posted by Lorren on September 13, 2008

Some of my online friends and I were discussing vanity sizing in clothes. For example, Lucy Ricardo of the I Love Lucy show said that she wore a size 12… but she would drown in the size 12 clothes of today. I’ve noticed that sometimes I can try on a size smaller than I normally wear and it fits perfectly, and I drown in the size I normally wear. I used to wear a size 6… but that was a while ago, and I wonder if I’ll be a size 4, 2, or even 0 when I reach my goal weight of 110 pounds.

In an attempt to make us feel good about ourselves, clothing manufacturers have slowly made sizes bigger, so we won’t feel like we’re fat. Someone gains 10 pounds, but they still fit into a size 8… “hey, I must be doing great with my weight, I still wear size 8!”

It might feel good to wear smaller sizes, but it’s not honest. Perhaps it’s not even kind. Someone who went to the store and had to wear a larger size might cry “Eeek! 16!” and decide that a 16 was unacceptable, so they decide to make a serious attempt to lose weight. If they go to the store and that same size outfit had a 12 on it, they might think that it was okay and go about their lives. After all, Lucy wore a “perfect size 12… right?”

Similarly, the airlines have been trying to fool us. First, they started charging passengers $10 to have a snack on their flights. Several months ago, they started charging extra money to have your second bag. Just recently, Frontier Airlines started charging for their first bag. So do United, Northwest Airlines, and American Airlines. Of course, if you plan on brushing your teeth or washing your hair when you get to your destination, you are forced to pay to check your bags or buy new toothpaste and shampoo at your destination.

The airlines say that they have to do this because they have higher costs. Okay, then charge more for your plane tickets! It’s deceptive to tack on these nickel-and-dime fees for everything. Pretty soon they’ll start charging for you to use the toilet or make you buy vomit bags. Some airlines are already charging if you want a pillow or a blanket on your flight.

I remember when I was younger, it cost a lot of money to fly across the country. I can travel from Seattle to New York for $200… back in the day I remember the price being closer to $600… and a dollar used to be worth a heck of a lot more. Of course, in those days, luggage was actually included, as were meals.

But of course, the $200 is deceptive, just as vanity pricing is. You have to charge these fees? No you don’t. You have to charge more for the tickets, that’s what you have to do. But the airlines don’t want to do that. They want you to think that you are getting a good deal when you’re not getting the service for the price that you’ve been quoted. Which causes headaches to business customers, who either have to pay those extra fees themselves, or go through the hassle of having their business reimburse them… it also costs more for people that win trips, because they’ll have to pay for these fees out of their pockets (I recently won a trip… fortunately I only had one bag and they weren’t charging for them yet).

Vanity sizing doesn’t annoy me to death like the airline nickel-and-dime fees do, but they do have one thing in common… they are deceptive, thinking that you are getting one thing, when you are not.