Fashion Production Standards: My Trip to Macy's

I mentioned in my last blog post that I'm taking the Fashion Industry Essentials online certificate program through Parsons School of Design and Teen Vogue. For an assignment called Production Standards, we were asked to go to a store that carries different brands and try on various articles of clothing, like tops, bottoms, dresses, and jackets. We were asked to pick the item that fit best and try on every "identical" item in the same size to see if there were any differences between them. I decided to go to Macy's for this assignment since it carries a number of different brands. It was fun to look around Macy's and pick out clothes. I found some good stuff!

I tried on a lot of clothes. Including number and letter sizes, four different sizes fit me well: two different number sizes and two different letter sizes, which emphasized to me that it's important to try things on because one single number or letter size doesn't always fit me best. I tried on a Karen Scott three quarter sleeve top in a pretty pool blue, which was a letter size, but it was too big and they didn't have a smaller size. I also tried on International Concepts (INC for short) tops in the same size as the Karen Scott top, and they fit well. So the same size in different brands may not fit the same. The Karen Scott top might have been bigger because Karen Scott seems to target older women, while INC seems to target younger women.

Here's some of the clothes I tried on in the fitting room. I liked the combination of pink, purple, blue, black, and white. I've been looking for something with black and white stripes, so I bought the INC striped top in the front. The Karen Scott top I was talking about is in the back. The picture unfortunately doesn't fully do the pretty color of the top justice.

I picked an INC sleeveless top for the item that fit best and I tried on every identical top in the same size. There seemed to be subtle differences in the overall length of the top and in the size of the armholes: the underarms on some of the tops were slightly lower than on others. I thought this assignment was interesting and valuable because I never thought about the differences between identical items that are the same size. I always assumed that they are the same, but now I realize that isn't always true. I never thought about the fact that there's human error involved in fashion production, even though it can be subtle.

Here's the INC top that fit best. I tried on all of the tops identical to this one in the same size in this color and in different colors and patterns. I bought it in this color (I love hot pink) and in black. I love the mod look of it and the circle zipper pull.