Think Negative

I still have a stupid smirk on my face. Here's an informative, entertaining Newsweek article on vanity sizing. It talks about what may be the next big thing in apparel marketing: sub-zero sizes. Over the next few seasons lucky women will have the chance to think negative and feel positive.

First a crash course on vanity sizing.

Think of vanity-sizing as self-delusion on a mass scale. Anyone over the age of 40 knows that something isn't quite right if she can wear a smaller size now than she wore 20 years and 10 pounds ago. Yet many of us slip gratefully into a size 6 pair of Old Navy jeans even though we're pretty sure we wouldn't be able to squeeze into our size 10 Calvin Kleins from circa 1980. Call it faith-based sizing. We want to believe--hell, we really do believe--we're a size 6 or 8 because the label says so even when the scale disagrees.

Then check this:

While it's hard to imagine that anyone wants to be called "minus" or "sub" anything, there is some concern that the less-than-zero sizes will be a new status symbol for girls with eating disorders. Last month, rail-thin models were banned from a Madrid runway show for being underweight size zeros. But despite the banishing of bony models and the disparaging headlines over photos of shrinking celebs like Kate Bosworth, it's hard to shake the impression that razor thin is still very much in vogue. Or, as Stanley Tucci's character famously said in "The Devil Wears Prada," size 6 is the new 14.

Click on the link below and read the article complete with a gallery of celebs Newsweek believes can wear sub-zero sizes.

Newsweek Article