A post from journalist Eileen McCabe

Seasoned journalist Eileen McCabe, who is currently writing a book about Tony Blair, is kind enough to let me post these comments she has just sent me. She raises some fascinating points about differences in size around the world (what Western woman isn't slightly afraid of what size she turns out to be in a Japanese or even French clothes shop?)and questions how fashion houses figure out figures.

Sizing comes within the same category as 5-a-day, 14 u of alcohol per week, no cigs, daily exercise, no red meat and lots of oily fish. They're all designed ot make us feel mega-guilty about our lifestyles and to what end? If you could measure the angst about what we eat and drink, going from size 10 to 12, what we do or don't do, there would be a mountain of goo-ey stress and nervous tension that debilitates and does much more harm to the body than not quite making the 5 or the devastating health risks of last night's grilled steak.

I can only remember one grandmother...I was eight when she died. I remember her face and beautiful thick white hair but I have no idea whether she was a size 8 or a size 20. She seemed to be wrapped in voluminous skirts and petticoats, and a shawl...who was to know or care? And she smoked a clay pipe and still managed to live to 84... I don't think she lost much sleep about her size.

Why do fashion houses do it? Why make the customer feel guilty and unwanted? Wander into Zara and I have to search for XL. Why be humiliated? thing is the clothes are lovely and v good value as long as you're a skinny minnie. it must be part of their marketing strategy that says we cater for the young and trendy who go for disposable clothes...and young and trendy people tend to be size 4/6/8...and if they're not, they should be. I know that I'm not as slim as I used to be but I hardly feel ready to be labelled XL.

However when we were in China a couple of years ago, I struggled to find anything to fit and because everything was so cheap, the search became serious. Finally I bought a stone coloured silk trouser suit ( for about a fiver) that is labelled XXXL....Now I forgave sizing there because it seemed to me that so many Chinese women are stick-thin... but the same can't be said in Europe or US.

Then how do you deal with yo-yo sizing? Lots of women can go up and down a full size in the course of a month. The marketing people say layering is the answer...the silky sloppy blouses and the chiffon smocks. It's good for business but a. not v flattering and b. unnecessary.

So here is one very simplistic solution:
Do away with sizing as we know it and have three basic sizes, small, medium and large (plus short, regular and long).
They would be determined by weight, not some fictional size8/10/12etc..
small: 7-9st
medium: 9st-11st
large: 11st and above.

If fashion houses standardised, then I would always know to go for a M(short). If I was at the lower end of 9-11, then I could probably afford to wear something slightly fitted... at the upper end, clothes that don't cling with a nice belt around the middle to give it some shape....but at least M(short) sets the parameters.

And I wouldn't feel guilty about slipping into the next size because there's room to manoeuvre within it (literally!)

It's a great project...and I would love to know what the fashion houses have to say about how their sizing policy is determined, something like : When God created Man, He created him to look as we dictate he should look.