Evening star., 1941-08-05
Of Stars, Men
And Atoms
Notebook Of Science Progress
In Laboratory, Field
And Study
Bu Thomas r. Henri.

6y IhOn0S II. henry.
The perfect So" is out.
It Is what Is supposed to have been
the bust circumference Of the average
18-year girl-used as a standard
size for ready-made womens dresses.
These came in assorted sizes-32, "a,
36, SO and even up to 48 for extremely
corpulent ladies. Manufacturers assumed
that woman with certain bust meas
urement would have a certain shoulder
width, hip circumference, height. etc.
The 1885," according to dressmaking
authorities Of the Home Economics Bu-
reau of the United States Department
of Agriculture, was supposed to be ideal.
1t was for a well-proportioned stately
matron who had escaped putting on
flesh
Actually there are very few perfect
36s" or perfect anything else among
women, the bureau scientists have found.
That is why few women ever have been
able to find a ready-made dress which
fitted without extensive and expensive
alterations.
About IS years ago clothing manu-
facturers adopted another standard Of
sizes-according to ages. This was the
same scale as was used for children. A
woman could order "12-year- -old dress"
which corresponded to a bust circum-
ference of 80 inches. A "16-year-old"
was "a and "20-year-oId" a SO.
This, say the Bureau of Home Econom-
les r.
A woman of 40 would boast that she
wore the clothes of girl of 1s.
"A friend of mine who got married a
few weeks ago" explained one of them,
ordered '18-year-old' wedding dress
that is, one with a 30-inch bust circum-
ference. She was in her mid-twenties."
The Bureau of Home Economics has
just completed body proportion measure
ments OF more than 14,000 women in
order to find some size criterion which
will have real meaning. They have
just about decided that ladies don't
come in standard sizes, but that the bust
circumference means practically nothing
SO far as fit of the rest of the body is
concerned.
Mems clothes are fitted according to
the width Of the shoulders, girth of the
hips and length of the legs This. it is
shown by the study, would not be SO
good a criterion for women, but would
be better than chest circumference.
The enormous amount Of data has
not yet been analyzed. The measurers.
mostly w. p. A. workers under expert
supervision, took So separate measure
ments OF each woman in the hope that
some one feature would be found which
would correlate with everything else.
'The present measures" according to
report Of the project which has Just
been issued, have grown up in the in
dustries chiefly by trial and error, based
on measurements taken on a few women
by various inadequate procedures. As
a result, there are no standards for gar
ment or pattern sizes and the consumer
is subjected to enormous expense in OBJ
tanning properly fitting clothing. Gar
ments labeled the same size but made by
different manufacturers vary enormously,
and few of them fit without alterations.
These may amount to as much as an
additional Is per cent of the cost of
dress.
Garments which cannot be fitted or
altered where bought often are returned
to the store due to wrong size, with SUBJ
sequent great expense to the retailer.
Mail-order houses have large volume of
returns for this reason"
The study was a cooperative project
between the Department of Agriculture
and the Universities of Arkansas, Cali
fornia, Maryland and North Carolina,
the Chicago Board of Education. the
New Jersey College for Women and
Pennsylvania State College.