Size Discrimination Buying A Jacket On Line

gordiescotland1 | 07:00 Wed 13th May 2015 | Shopping & Style

32 Answers

I went to buy a jacket on line and was quite upset what I thought was a really good price just seemed to be for slim people. The jacket I wanted was £25 at 40 inch chest but when I put in I was 50 inch chest it shot up to £40 I reluctantly bought it as it was very nice but I am wondering if overweight people are being discriminated and Retailers are seeing this as an opportunity to exploit overweight people not everyone is super slim at a 40 inch chest so why they should be financially penalised. Overweight people have a hard enough time with other people's attitudes as it is without now having to pay extra to look nice.

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whiskeryron

The answer of course from a manufacturing point of view is to set the price higher to start with, so all of those jackets would be priced at £40 regardless of size & anyone buying a 40" chest size would be paying over the top for it,
but if that was the price stated you wouldn't know any difference. You cannot have it both ways.

Old_Geezer

If the increase reflects the additional cost to make then it is not discriminatory.

If, however, the price increase is way above the additional manufacturing costs then it is discriminatory.

I have no idea if a cross section perimeter of an extra 25% is correctly covered by a price increase of 60%. It does seem a little steep though. Maybe demand has an effect ? Perhaps the machines need to be reset for a small number of larger garments ? Unless one is in the trade it is difficult to know.

gingejbee

Having a 38/40-inch chest myself....I'm just delighted gordie thinks that's "super-slim"!

Bazile

Are we talking about 'American pies' here ?
Cos it would cost more ; given that americans are generally bigger

bhg481

Larger sizes do not necessarily need more material. It depends how the pattern pieces fit on the cloth, how wide the cloth is and what the "drop" on the cloth-pattern is; there is always wastage on the cloth. Cheap garments can be cheaper because the pattern on the cloth is not matched say for the left and right sleeves. On the other hand going up one size can sometimes cause almost a doubling of the material required if you suddenly can't fit two pattern pieces side-by-side or the length requires an extra "drop" length of material.
Stitching together larger sizes will cause a trivial increase in the time taken to make the garment - it obviously takes longer to stitch a 50in waistband onto a skirt than a 24in one, but most of the assembly time is taken up with fiddling around with darts etc.
I think, for adults' clothes, it's simpler for the manufacturers to go for a single price for all sizes. With the cost of cloth for expensive garments I can understand why some choose to charge more for larger sizes.

weecalf

Worked in rag trade and believe me there is more work in children's clothes than in adult be cause the cutting and sewing is so awkward .

bhg481

You're talking very small sizes there weecalf and I agree with you. Once you get to adult sizes I think the fiddliness factor evens out.
Let me give an example of the amount of cloth required for a garment. I've just been helping my wife make a skirt. Because of her size she was able to lay the waistband alongside the skirt front on the cloth. Also the length of skirt was such that it fit inside the pattern drop on the cloth. The amount of cloth required was 2 x skirt length. Had she been fatter so that the waistband and skirt front couldn't be laid together an extra metre or so of cloth would have been needed (50% more). Had she been taller and the pattern drop been awkward that might have cost another half metre or so.

dave50

Perhaps it might be a good idea to go on a diet rather that play the victim card.

mallyh

yes we are discriminated against . i pay a lot more for a larger size and when i go to the sales there is never any 16+sizes only 10s a 12s ,when are companies going to realise that real women aren't all beanpoles .

bhg481

mallyh - the sales are firms trying to get rid of stuff that hasn't sold before it's "last year's". You wouldn't expect to find popular sizes.