Lola Deming Wears Prada
(Dialog)
Andrea: So, none of the girls here eat anything?
Nigel: Not since two became the new four and zero became the new two.
Andrea: Well, I'm a six.
Nigel: Which is the new fourteen.
Have you ever questioned why women's clothing sizes differ from those of men? In 1947, the Mail Order Association of America (MOAA) commissioned the National Bureau of Standards (NBS), now known as the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), to create a new size standard for ladies' bodies. After World War II, the mail-order industry exploded. Because clothing did not fit, many women's items were returned. For example, firms such as Sears Roebuck, Montgomery Ward, and Spiegel dealt with many garments sent back for incorrect sizing. The Commodity Standards Division (CSD), a unit of NBS, was ordered to develop a model for ordering women's apparel in various sizes. Barleycorn is a unit of length that was used in the 14th century. The English used a barleycorn to measure things. A barleycorn was a unit of measure used during the Middle Ages. King Edward III initially used Barleycorn in the 14th century, when he wanted people's feet measured rather than how tall they appear compared to other persons or animals owing to variances in footwear that might give a misleading impression of one's height (some kinds of shoes may make someone appear shorter than his/her real size). One Barleycorn equaled about 3 inches. The CSD had previously been involved in creating sizing models for young men's and boys' clothing.
In 1944, CSD established a size standard for boys' pajamas and men's shirt sizes. This endeavor, on the other hand, would need some additional work. In 1939, the Textile and Clothing Division (TCD) of the Department of Agriculture (USDA) surveyed 15,000 women's weights and measurements. Trained anthropometrists (the study of measuring human body size and proportions) conducted the measurements. The survey covered a lot of ground, including height, weight, and 58 different body parts. However, the data that was generated had numerous issues. The final data set included racial prejudice, which meant that it excluded data from different ethnic groups. There was a concern about how the participants were compensated, including some less well-off women, including some undernourished. Another problem with the study is that it was conducted only in a specific location, thus limiting the data set's usefulness as a general representation of the United States. The most severe issue with the 1939 study is that only weight was found to be linked to statistics. It's doubtful that anyone would want to reveal their weight when shopping for clothes in today's era, but it was probably more of an issue that most Americans didn't have a household scale in the 1940s.
Another issue was that the original data amassed by TCD was considered sensitive, and they were unwilling to share it with anybody. The NBS and TCD initially opposed one another, with the NBS wanting to retain control of the research while TCD desiring it to be delegated to an outside source. The two organizations compromised when they agreed that a new division within the NBS would conduct the research. The Statistical Engineering Laboratory (SEL), a branch of NBS, was chosen to conduct the study. This project was atypical for SEL because it mainly consisted of applied mathematicians and mathematical statisticians who typically worked on complex physics issues. TCD, it seems, felt more at ease surrendering the women's measurements to a group of applied mathematics and statistician geeks. Who knows?
Lola Elizabeth Shupe was one of the original four members of SEL. Lola was a highly educated and sophisticated applied mathematician and statistician. At the research time, Lola Shupe's name was Lola S. Deming, who was married to Edwards Deming in 1932. Lola was Dr. Deming's aide for many years and assisted him in his groundbreaking statistic process control efforts. It was only natural for her to apply more advanced statistics and a more thorough procedure to this new CSD clothing research, which CSD had never done before. One of the main focuses for MOAA was on adolescent girl body dimensions. The Mail Order Association of America had asked for a 5-size standard. Lola began by producing statistical frequency distribution graphs of the hip sizes for girls aged 12 to 17. Lola hunted through several calculations and correlations to find a solution for all the data in five statistical categories (sizes). She discovered, however, that five windows only made up 46% of the data. Lola spent many days analyzing the data and ultimately advised them to gather as much as 85% of it by attempting at least eight categories.
Another issue was that the Mail Order Association of America advised them to allow for a few measurements as possible, believing that mail-order customers would be hesitant to do many sizes to purchase apparel. In previous studies, 33 different bodily measurements were taken, including bust, waist, hips, neck, elbow, ankle, and even crotch length. A three-year study was commissioned, and the findings revealed that a set of typical sizes would be utilized ranging from size 8 to 38, with height suggestions of tall (T), normal (R), and short (S). Only three measurements were required to meet the new requirement: height, chest, and waist. Two decades later, vanity inflation has spread where ideal body sizes were changed to make Marilyn Monroe a "12" in 1960, essentially a "6" by 2006. In truth, the size of Anne Hathaway's (Andrea) announced dimensions in the film, and where Stanley Tucci (Nigel) informs us that two are the new 4 and 0 is the new 2, measures about as big.
