Marginal Revolution: Using the state to counter social conformism

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Using the state to counter social conformism

Women in search of fashionable clothes the world over have a similar problem: What do you do if you are not a size 6?

Some government leaders in Argentina have an answer. They have passed a controversial law designed to break what they see as the tyranny of tiny sizes. Starting Dec.21, Buenos Aires province, which includes the capital's glitzy suburbs but not the fashion-forward city itself, will require shops catering to adolescent girls to stock clothing in a minimum range of sizes roughly equivalent to sizes 6 to 16 in the U.S.

Provincial inspectors will scrutinize merchants' clothing racks, "tape measure in hand," says Ana Serrano, the province's director of commerce and designated sizing sheriff. Shops that don't have the prescribed sizes in stock will face fines of up to $170,000. Officials maintain that the small clothes put pressure on young women to take up extreme dieting. That in turn contributes to one of the highest rates of anorexia and bulimia in the world, they say.

In a nation where stylishness is a national religion, the sizes law is triggering a fevered debate...Argentina women who aren't extremely thin have an unusually tough time finding fashionable clothes.

There is another angle:

Some of the problem has to do with the fragmented structure of the local clothing industry, says Donna Reamy...High tariffs, along with Argentina's history of economic instability, have kept many big foreign chains out of Argentina, leaving only one department store in the city of Buenos Aires and provincial suburbs.

Argentina, by the way, is a leader among Latin American nations in plastic surgery, exercise, eating disorders, and psychoanalysis. This new policy is a funny kind of paternalistic anti-paternalism: "hey, you, I pull out my gun: tell her it is OK to grow a little fat."

That is all from the 26 November Wall Street Journal. A good micro question would be to outline the underlying (implicit) theory of market failure here.

Posted by Tyler Cowen on December 28, 2005 at 06:16 AM in Travels | Permalink

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» Tyranny of tiny sizes? from Fashion-Incubator
In yet another twist to the "is there such a thing as vanity sizing" debate, Tyler Cowen of Marginal Revolution mentions that -in at least Argentina- vanity sizing is obviously not the case. Rather, it seems that clothing is too... [Read More]

Tracked on Dec 29, 2005 2:05:23 PM

Tracked on Mar 26, 2006 2:49:43 PM

Comments

The implied market failure is that the fashion industry realized it could sell more clothes by using "sexy" persons in advertising, whether or not they were healthy or an accurate description of the average body type. This then lead to that sort of body type being percieved as the new standard of beauty, even when for a wide variety of people it may be unattainable or even unhealthy. This leads to selling clothes toward that standard of beauty (modelesque) which of course cuts out many people seeking to buy clothes that fit.

E.g., it's a discrepency between what they advertise and what they sell.

I actually experience something like this, to a lesser degree. I'm an increadibly thin male. It's allmost impossible for me to find pants that fit correctly. I'm 29"x30", and usually end up buying 30 or 31x30, but usually I don't have much selection because thats the least stocked size and the smallest size usually offered in the mens section. Often I end up having to go to the teen's or "boys" section. Which of course if I were self-concious at all, could be mildly embarassing.

Posted by: UberIcarus at Dec 28, 2005 7:40:58 AM

The market here is simply a signalling/status game, as Tyler discussed yesterday http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2005/12/most_status_gam.html

The theory implied by the government's action is that people overinvest in signalling status, and that government action to rein in it will thus lead to a more efficient allocation of investments (i.e. the right amount of clothes in all sizes for the local market.)

There is an interesting twist here - both the women and the stores are signalling! The women want only the most fashionable clothes from the most fashionable stores. The stores, however, want only the most fashionable, supermodelish women as customers -- if customers come to see you as the place where all the average women shop (let alone the place where the overweight women shop), your brand will be ruined. Thus, according to the government's implicit theory, forcing all the stores to accomodate women of all sizes will reduce the signalling gift among stores.

Note that I am not placing value judgements on this, just hypothesizing about the economics. I agree with UberIcarus that the results are unhealthy. Also, I don't think Tyler's argument that status games are positive-sum applies here, due to the negative utility of bulimia, and the stress it places on all women.

Although I agree that the stores' policies are bad, I would disagree with the government policy because I think it will be ineffective. It is likely that stores will find another way to shop for better customers -- for example, they will insult or belittle average and overweight women, or they will choose designers whose clothes only look good in small sizes. In fact, IMHO, a lot of that happens in the US today -- plenty of store clerks will insult women customers to try to guilt-trip them into buying more cosmetics. Maybe they are also trying to get rid of customers who aren't slaves to fashion.

Posted by: DK at Dec 28, 2005 8:30:15 AM

While fashion labels use tiny models in their ads, they tend to actually stock more average sizes in their stores. It's pretty simple... stock the sizes your customers wear so you don't turn away people/cash. Clothing stores are profit-maximizers too.

My girlfriend is a size 6... and really struggles to find clothing, because stores rarely actually stock size 6. If they do have "size 6"s, they're often re-badged size 8s. Maybe I'll have to tell her to go to Argentina!

Posted by: Alan at Dec 28, 2005 9:38:03 AM

Reminds me of a story my Dad told us of the old days before we fled Argentina.

Peron decided to implement traffic circles, raised mounds in the center, more akin to speed humps. These were duly ignored by drivers and simly made for a fun assault course when driving at speed.

His response, soldiers with fully automatic rifles to ensure drivers used them properly.

Seems no one is crying anymore, but the script is the same.

Posted by: Colin Macdonald at Dec 28, 2005 9:39:27 AM

The interesting thing is to juxtapose this with Chilean cities. In the country next door, with largely the same cultural background (some difference on immigration, but Spanish legacy still predominates), there are countless department stores - in the city where I live with a metropolitan area of about 250,000, there are 2 that would be considered "full sized" mall anchors by U.S. standards and at least 3 that are nearly that big. In Santiago it seems that on the larger, fashionable avenues there is a department store nearly every block. Supposedly there are even outlet malls in a few other cities, especially the ones designated as "zonas francas" or "free trade ports". And so we see Santiago, formerly thought of as a large but relatively isolated outpost, eclipsing "fashion forward" B.A. in the number of North American and European brands setting up shop and selling their wares (at least for a "reasonable" price). In fact one of my Argentine friends has complained about this issue in the past, saying that an Argentine brand of inferior quality can be had for the same price as "premium" apparel such as Armani.

Posted by: Sean at Dec 28, 2005 9:57:39 AM

So women acquire builimia (etc.) so they can squeeze into fashionable
clothes. This means women are puppets/sheep -- not autonomous people.
This not 'sexist'?

Posted by: Sudha Shenoy at Dec 28, 2005 10:20:14 AM

Sudha, you're assuming that Argentine leaders don't also treat men as puppets/sheep.

Posted by: DK at Dec 28, 2005 11:43:27 AM

The solution; Find a Need and Fit It:

http://www.ic3d.com/aboutus/index.html

They're swamped with business.

Posted by: Patrick R. Sullivan at Dec 28, 2005 12:11:11 PM

Why is the market failing?

Clothing is about image. When someone asks you where you got those jeans, you don't want to say 'The Big and Tall Store.' Even if you're a plus size girl/woman, you want to shop where everyone else shops. There is a supply of clothes in your size out there, but not at a store you'd 'be caught dead at'.

On the flip side, trendy clothing stores care about their image as well. There's a reason some stores don't go above a size 6 - they feel their customers might not want to shop there if they see plus size girls trying on the same styles they're interested in.

It's an interesting little problem. As long as women who are size 6-16 (I don't think of a size 6 as plus-size) desire to be below a six... this will continue because of the image thing.

Posted by: Andy Wink at Dec 28, 2005 1:24:17 PM

The status argument doesn't make sense.

Women above a six 6 still need to buy clothes at some point in time. Regardless of where they prefer to shop, at some point they need to buy trousers they can squeeze into. So I would expect them to resort to shops selling larger-sized clothes at some point.

While some shops may increase profits by only having thin people shopping there, I would expect some other shops to realise that they can corner their own market segment by selling to the plump women ignored by the first set of shops. Yep, they may not be as high status, but a dollar spends regardless.

My first guess would be the government's got hold of the wrong idea. Second would be some sort of restriction stopping the second set of shops coming in and grabbing the plumper market.

Posted by: Tracy W at Dec 28, 2005 7:52:36 PM

Actually, the most expensive, designer, stores do carry larger sizes. The problem is concentrated in stores with cheap, "fashionable" clothes for the impoverished middle class, and to a lesser extent in brands which are somewhat massive but more expensive.

For the small, cheap, stores, the problem is that larger girls/women are relatively rare (I'm from Buenos Aires and live in New York, so my comparison is between what you see in both cities). This is largely because of the importance given to being thin, and the fact that being "on a diet" is a permanent feature of the life of most women. This is not quite the same as being anorexic or bulimic. I don't think there is a market failure - it's more of a cultural failure. It doesn't make economic sense for *all* stores to carry large sizes - there just isn't a market. (Disclaimer: I used to be on the receiving end of the "we don't have your size" speech. I just stopped going to those stores, told my friends not to, and cried. But I don't think a law is the answer).

So, some stores do carry large sizes. Unfortunately, these are the most massive ones, so that large girls who are not rich end up having to wear mostly ugly, ill-fitting, "unhip" clothes, and this compounds their already diminished status.

I used to believe in the "store signalling" aspect of this, but I don't think that's at work - mainly because the very expensive stores do have large sizes (for at least some of the clothes they carry). And these are very well-regarded labels (also, Levi's are quite in fashion among the wealthier teen crowd, and these come in all sizes, being American and all).

If there's any market failure here, I think it is that stores for some reason charge the same price for all sizes of any garment. Since there are some fixed costs that go into producing an additional size (you have to design the pattern, or whatever it is called, in order to cut the clothes, you may need to waste fabric because you're cutting larger pieces, and so on), and the quantity of larger sizes that stores can expect to sell at any given price is relatively low, it doesn't make sense for them to enter the "large size" market.

Posted by: Maria at Dec 29, 2005 10:34:25 AM

Boy, I'm used to hearing from US women that clothing is oversized as in vanity sizing. While I don't agree with that assertion (really long story, I write a lot about that) I find it rather arrogant that a government has decided apparel sizing is something to be determined by legislative process. Excuse me? Even if I decided to cut only size 0's and 2's, my business is not a democracy. If my clothes don't fit, don't buy them. I'll go out of business soon enough without sufficient consumers "voting" for my product.

Some details don't translate well into larger sizes. It's hard enough to produce regular sizes well, without being compelled to cut for people who often do not have the discretionary income to buy my products anyway. So what's next? Legislated price points? While I do agree there is some market failure here in that needs are obviously not being met, that doesn't mean that I should be compelled to meet them. I'd reiterate what Maria said above, for many businesses, it doesn't make sense to enter the large size market.

However, I'd disagree that the market failure can be reduced to the failure to charge different prices for clothing even in the average size range. The fixed costs of producing apparel don't change enough between the usual scale of sizing (6-16) to warrant pricing differently for it. To whit, producing children's clothing which uses a lot less fabric than adult's, it is just as costly to make patterns, markers, cut, label, sort, sew, inspect, inventory and package -as it is for adult apparel. If you want the apparel equivalent of a "happy meal" or a child's menu, you'll have to consider the diminished quality and input trade-offs as well.

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