Why women's clothing sizes are NEVER consistent: Author says 1930s eugenics experiment is to blame

Trying on new clothing can be an incredibly negative experience at times - made all the worse by the fact that sizes seem to vary so wildly between different brands, different designs... and even different versions of the same style.

While a person might be a size 12 in one store, they can find themselves swimming in the same size elsewhere, and vice versa.  

Now, an author has uncovered the real reason behind the different proportions on female garments, claiming that fashion's frustrating inconsistencies all date back to a 'racist' eugenics experiment that took place in the 1930s.

Heather Radke, based in the US, who recently released a book about body image called Butts, a Backstory, explained that clothing sizes often fluctuate between stores thanks to one woman - who insisted on using only white people during a study that she conducted on body measurements nearly 100 years ago.

Have you ever noticed that women's clothing sizes aren't consistent from store to store? Well, an author has uncovered the real reason behind the different proportions (stock image)

Heather Radke, who released a book about body image called Butts, a Backstory, explained that clothing sizes fluctuate between stores thanks to a 'racist' 1930s eugenics experiment

In an attempt to create a 'standard size of clothing' in the '30s, Ruth O'Brien (seen), head of the Textiles and Clothing Division of the US Department of Agriculture, conducted the experiment

During the '30s, a problem in inconsistent sizing had plagued the country. Insider reported that women were often sending items back to stores because they didn't fit, which resulted in many of them opting to make their own garments instead.

In an attempt to fix this, Ruth O'Brien, head of the Textiles and Clothing Division of the US Department of Agriculture, set out on developing a 'standard size for commercially sold clothing.'

She teamed up with Works Progress Administration - an agency created by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1935 - and visited thousands of American households to measure women.

However, according to Radke, the results were skewed because O'Brien only collected data from white women during the study.

In her book, Radke blasted 'enthusiastic eugenicist' O'Brien, who she said was 'motivated by a desire to effectively eradicate insufficiently white, disabled, and queer people.'

'[She was] openly attempting to engineer a race of perfectly normal Americans, equating full citizenship with having this decisively average, yet demonstrably unattainable, body,' she wrote in her book, according to Insider.

'By codifying normal, they were also codifying abnormal, which is always the implicit project of the creation of an ideal.'

O'Brien ultimately created 27 sizes based on her findings - but due to her lack of inclusivity in the experiment, the results were largely skewed. 

'Her story shows us how difficult it is to create a standard sizing system for women's clothes, and how ingrained racism and eugenics were in American life in the 1930s and '40s,' Radke told Insider. 

Then, in 1943, gynecologist Robert Latou Dickinson and artist Abram Belskie teamed up to construct life-size plaster casts of a man and woman, which they wanted to showcase the average size of Americans.

They made the mannequins, named Normman and Norma, with the hopes that stores would use them to standardizing clothing sizes - but in reality, it did just the opposite for women.

While making the male statue, Dickinson and Belskie were able to come up with a realistic average size thanks to an excess amount of information that had been gathered by the military. 

According to Radke (pictured), the results were largely skewed because O'Brien only collected data from white women during the study

In her book, she blasted 'enthusiastic eugenicist' O'Brien, who she said was 'motivated by a desire to effectively eradicate insufficiently white, disabled, and queer people'

Then, in 1943, gynecologist Robert Latou Dickinson and artist Abram Belskie (seen) used O'Brien's findings to construct life-size plaster casts of a man and woman

According to Insider, men were required to have their measurements taken when they joined the Army, so 'tons of data existed from both World War I and II.' 

But when it came to creating the female sculpture, they had a much more difficult time figuring out its proportions. 

They decided to use the results from the study conducted by O'Brien to make Norma - the only problem was, only a certain type of body had participated in her experiment.

For years, Normman and Norma were used by stores to determine sizing, however, as time went on, brands began to realize that the female statue was not an accurate representation of a woman's body - and many started changing their sizes based on their own customers.

'What's happened over time is that [brands] have evolved their sizing to represent who they believe their core customer is,' Jessica Murphy, co-founder of a platform called True Fit, which is dedicated to helping shoppers find the right size, told Today show previously.

They made the mannequins, named Normman and Norma, with the hopes that stores would use them to standardizing clothing sizes - but in reality, it did just the opposite for women

Radke explained that many brands have now started changing their sizes based on their own customers, which is why almost every store differs

'That's why we have so much inconsistency. If you have a brand catering to a 60-year-old customer, their size medium is going to be representative of their demographic. 

'If you contrast that with a brand serving a tween or teenage customer, their size medium is going to look very different.'

Radke, who said she herself suffered from body issues because she 'couldn't find clothes that fit her well,' explained that there will likely never be standard size from women's clothing because of the 'wide variation of bodies.'

'It's just too expensive for garment manufacturers to make enough clothing sizes to accommodate the wide variation of human bodies,' she told Insider.

'This can be profound because it can help to feel less like something is wrong with your body when you can't find clothes that fit. It isn't your body that is wrong. It's the clothes.  

'I had always felt like there was something wrong with my body because I often couldn't find clothes that fit me well, but when I learned about the history of sizing and the way sizing works today, I realized that clothes actually aren't designed to fit. 

'They can't be. There are just too many variables in the human body for clothes to fit most people well.'