Bah, ribcage!

[breakinglight11]

I am a person of petite dimensions, and of the good fortune to be proportionately built in practically all measures. It makes buying clothes a lot easier, as the retail clothing industry tends to assume there is kind of one general figure and makes each successful size just larger in all dimensions according to those proportions. But time and again, I am confounded by my one feature that is decidedly OUT of proportion with the rest of me, the one that just happens to be my least favorite physical feature, my monstrous blocky ribcage.

A while ago I was reading an article about retail dress sizes that included the measurements they generally conform to for various fitting points. Despite the fact that real people are rarely "standard" shapes, there are a certain confluence of measurements that are expected to coincide in people that dictates their size. For example, for a woman of a given height, she is predicted to have a bust of so many inches, a waist of so many inches, so on and so forth, and that's how they determine the dimensions of a size. For mine, let's call it size X, because what number they actually put on the size is all over the place depending on the manufacturer-- it tends to get considered everything from a double-zero to a four. My height, hips, bust, waist, and shoulders were almost exactly right for size X. My band size? Almost three inches LARGER than the measure predicted. In many systems that three SIZES above where the rest of me falls.

Of course I didn't need a numerical breakdown to tell me that. I don't know how many beautiful things have fit me everywhere except for the uncomfortable binding over my ribs. It's a curse modeling samples, because it's the one part that doesn't conform. The only upside is that it's not usually super-visible in how well it fits me, it just feels really uncomfortable. It sucks being restricted in a place that's supposed to expand even farther out when you breathe. And it's not a matter of weight or anything, this is the shape of my skeleton, so there's nothing I can do to change it.

Look at this. I love this dress and it looks great on me in most ways, but still, when I sit a certain way you can see how the material is pushed on by my monstrous ribcage trying to punch its way out.

Ugh. My stupid ribs are one of the reasons I want to stay so thin. They're so oversized that they blend into a wider waistline and make me look blocky. They're not even freaking EVEN, the left side comes out farther than the right, made worse by the fact that my hernia surgery on the right side seems to have included the complete removal of the patch of muscle immediately below the ribs.

They are easily my coarsest, most unfortunate, least liked feature. And I especially hate it when it makes me feel like a cow when I try on pretty things that fit nicely everywhere else.

Comments

[lisefrac.livejournal.com]

I don't mean to sound unsympathetic, but everyone has this problem, in some degree or another. I'm inclined to think it only gets worse as you get fatter, but maybe I'm just bitter. The one that always gets me is the fact that clothing manufacturers assume that if I have large breasts I must likewise have ginormous arms. This is not, I assure you, the case.

I don't actually know the history of that "confluence of measurements" you mention, but I can pretty much guarantee that, while they may be the mean of common women's measurements (I'm not actually sure they are - they may just be scaled based on some arbitrary proportions), a mean is unlike a median in that it does not itself have to exist in the data set. What I'm saying is that at the end of the day those measurements may not in fact match ANY woman, even though they were made from EVERY woman.

Also I tend to suspect we only have those means--if they exist at all--for smaller sizes, and many items of clothing are just scaled up from that. Hence the big boobs, big arms phenomenon.

I guess all this is a further reason to make your own clothes?

[breakinglight11.livejournal.com]

You're absolutely right that everyone has this problem. And no sympathy needed, I just wanted to bitch and vent because I just tried on several things that I loved that all had the same fit problem. It's just irksome that's it's just one thing, and it's always the same thing. :-P

And yeah, the retail sizing averages are averages that don't actually reflect any real person. Which is why so many sewists combine different sizes into one garment when they sew up patterns, which I think is pretty cool.

DEFINITELY want to make dresses from now on so I don't feel like I'm wearing the world's most useless corset all the time. :-P

[juldea.livejournal.com]

Whereas I often have to size up shirts because they're too tight around my arms but otherwise fit my torso! Hooray diversity! :)

[laurion]

You just have Bruce Banner ribs, trying to Hulk their way out. Not a flaw, sings of latent superpowers in your genes.

[breakinglight11.livejournal.com]

Heehee, I like that. I'm going to start describing them that way. :-)

[acousticshadow2.livejournal.com]

I also have a HUGE ribcage, so I know exactly what you are talking about. Bras are so difficult to find. they don't like making 36(nearly A) in anything but old lady bras. Although I find that trying to get things to fit my chest size is more of a problem than trying to find things that fit my ribcage. What fits my ribcage it too big on my chest. What fits my chest is tooooooo tiny on my ribcage.

Corsets also fit oddly. I find that I have to have someone who knows my ribcage lace me up because I need it looser on my ribcage tighter on my tummy.

[crearespero.livejournal.com]

I also apparently have a big ribcage, and it is also uneven. Which means if you look closely, my waist line, insofar as it exists, is uneven too :P. (Though mostly I don't really have much of a waist 'line'. I just have this sort of waist plane extending with minimal curvature between my ribs and my butt O.o). Body shapes. My body has been irritating me a lot lately when I'm trying to do ballet. Usually I think my body is awesome, but ballet in general makes me look like I have pointless stubby legs (probably because I do) and arabesques invariably make me look fat. [grumbles].

[breakinglight11.livejournal.com]

Heehee, now that I think about it, this confluence of big ribcages worked out for us once. I got the Andromeda dress and just before you tried it on you warned me about them, and I was delighted because I had that problem too, so since the dress fit me it would probably fit you!

UGH, I can so relate about the mostly liking the body thing except when it makes doing ballet right difficult! For me I get pissed with how tight my knees are. It's awesome that you're learning it too. Someday I'd love to dance with you!

[katiescarlett29.livejournal.com]

I think the dress looks great :P Whoever picked it out for you has AWESOME taste.

Also I do not think that your ribcage looks like it's trying to fight its way out. I think it looks perfectly content to be right where it is. But that's just me.

[flyingstalins.livejournal.com]

fwiw, I think your ribs, in particular, are rather lovely. While that doesn't say much for comfort, and I'm certainly no reassuring voice on fashion or popular aesthetics, figured I should chime in.

also, hello.

[breakinglight11.livejournal.com]

Aw, thank you. That's sweet of you to say and nice to hear. :-) Also, hi. Hope you're well!

By the way, do you know I know Carolyn Daitch? She's in HTP now and is an amazing person that I like a lot.

[flyingstalins.livejournal.com]

I know you know. I think it's really awesome (and it adds to my frustration that it's been so long since I've managed to visit for a show.)

[denimskater.livejournal.com]

There's a web app somewhere that will take your size in one clothing line and tell you what your size in other clothing lines is. (For women, of course. Men do not face quite such awful random clothing sizes.)