Do you not use lady much in the US? Pretty common in the UK. We do call strangers "lady" or "gentleman" for example "please say thank you to that kind gentleman over there". One would just substitute gentleman for lady. That said, it is a very binary way of describing people. I should probably just use " them" instead.

Thanks Angie—that it was the all-inclusive term is all the info I needed.

Synne, “mister” and “lady” are not parallel—message me if you want me to explain.

Ok, to get this back on track:
I found these articles interesting. I tried to find some non-US sources
First one talks about fit models
https://fashionunited.com/news.....-europe/20

This is from a business perspective
https://www.voguebusiness.com/.....-plus-size

I'll try to write more of my thoughts later, if I get a chance but I been working a lot lately

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Those are really good articles, Anna. Thank you for sharing. I skimmed both and am going back to read in more depth later.

I did find this survey result (in the pic) info really interesting. How well do we really know our bodies? And how well does the industry really know their market? Seems both are a little out of touch, but I think if the market adjusts, women will be more comfortable identifying their needs.

I enjoyed those articles too and that very pic Janet. I still find the body shapes moderately useful but various new posters on YLF don’t always seem to, as witnessed by various posts asking which body shape they are. It makes sense that many women of all sizes don’t feel they fit those artificial shapes.

Wow Janet that is really interesting. I've been reading alot about diet culture and how it undercuts our intuitions and self knowledge about what is appropriate for us (and observing it firsthand in myself) and wonder if this is the same phenomenon. I agree with you if the designers would make clothes for diverse body types rather than making us feel we need to fit out body type into the clothes, then the gap might close.

Anna, GREAT articles. Very passionate about the subject, and loved reading them

I really believe that this is important:

"For efforts in plus size to truly succeed, they will require businesses to think beyond product and to bring plus size women into their businesses and marketing across all kinds of roles"

Nice Summary of take - aways:

1. 36 percent of women scanned thought they were hourglass, 0 percent were.
2. 81 percent of self-identified body shapes did not match with body scans.
3. The plus size consumer has an individual personality and wants to feel catered to. Her tastes are as diverse as regular sized consumers.
4. Design educators need to lead by example and learn to design for plus size so they can teach the next generation.
5. The majority of women are plus sized; building successful strategies that service them is a significant business opportunity.

And the second article does a great job of explaining the grading rules that have to change across a large assortment of sizes:

"Waldman and co-founder Polina Veksler self-developed a technique for constructing plus-sized clothing called micrograding. They recognised the weakness of the standard formula for grading towards bigger sizes, which they compare to making a photocopy of a photocopy. “After a while, the pattern becomes distorted (a pair of culottes in a size 4 becomes a pair of palazzo pants by the time you reach a US size 24), so we started grading between every size, and using fit models across our entire size range whenever developing a new garment.”

It works. “When you have 11 models (representing alpha sizing) standing shoulder to shoulder, you can see right away if a dress meant to stop at the knee does so on a size 4XS as well as a XL,” they say"

This is the care and control that is needed to create a good fit across ALL the sizes!