Spanish women get a break

Every day women wake up to a billion dollar advertising campaign aimed at convincing them that they are ugly and can’t conform to an anorexic body shape. The way marketing reflects neurosis and sells that neurosis to meet the human need of feeling connected in an alienated consumer culture has always been a bone of contention and now the Spanish Government are leading the way in challenging those marketed preconceptions of body image.

Spain resizes clothes for women
Spain is to standardise its clothing sizes for women as part of a government drive to ease pressure on young girls over their body size.
Clothes currently on sale in Spain often vary in size from shop to shop, despite carrying the same size label. Some fear the labels are confusing shoppers and that efforts to conform could be leading to eating disorders. The move follows Spain's ban of ultra-thin models on the catwalk during Madrid fashion week last September. Spanish women often head into changing rooms with an armful of different sizes never knowing which one will fit this time or whether any will fit at all. But by 2008 those days could be over. Spain's biggest fashion retailers have bowed to government pressure to standardise their sizes and reflect the real size of Spain's growing population. Under new regulations, a size 40 garment in one store will need to be at least roughly comparable to a size 40 in another shop.