It's the size of the market that matters. Size in the sense of how many people, and how big those people are.
It's crazy that at 6' I end up buying clothes in "small" sizes. Most of the time you can't find pants smaller than the size I fit.
What do genuinely small men do? Buy children's clothing? Women's clothing? Order stuff over the web? I find the small sizes comfortably loose, and I can only imagine that men of 5' 9'' and 130lb find it even harder to buy stuff that does not make them look like they're wearing their big brothers hand-me-downs.
(Google provides this answer. The salespeople at least suggest they shop in the kids section. For a suit. That'll work!)
Anyhow, in the process of purchasing tank tops/singlets I found that even in specialist running clothing I have to buy the small size. This, in itself, says something ... even in sporting goods the average size is still assumed to be pretty large.
More revealing was the adidas singlet which was labelled "US Small. UK Medium" Now it all makes sense ... I'm still buying the same sized clothes I did in foreign climes, they are just relabelled here to make others feel better about their girth!
Posted by robe0419 at April 10, 2005 2:47 PM