Women and men have different experiences when it comes to clothes shopping
When going into a store for the first time, men and women have drastically different levels of confidence about knowing what sizes will fit them
The search for the perfect pair of jeans can be difficult. According to new data from YouGov Omnibus, Americans are on the search for jeans that are comfortable (46% say this is their top priority), stylish (7%), and won’t break the bank (22%).
But before going shopping, many people should probably clean out their closets: Over half (56%) of Americans have at least one pair of jeans that no longer fit. One in 10 (10%) report having just one pair of non-fitting jeans in their closet, while 17% reported owning two pairs that don’t fit. 8% own 6 or more pairs of jeans that don’t fit them. There wasn’t a huge difference between the number of non-fitting jeans owned by men vs. women, though men (39%) were slightly more likely than women (34%) to say that “all of my jeans fit.”
But when it comes to shopping for jeans in the first place, there are notable gender differences. When going into a store for the first time, men and women have drastically different levels of confidence about knowing what sizes will fit them. Women (46%) were almost twice as likely as men (24%) to say they are “not very confident” or “not at all confident” that they know which clothing size will fit them best when they initially go into a store. When asked about shopping at an online retailer for the first time, the responses were similarly distant: 63% of women say they’re not confident about finding the right size, compared to 43% of men.
But when it comes to shopping somewhere that they’ve made a purchase before, 81% of Americans say they’re “very” or “somewhat” confident that they know the clothing size that will fit them best, with men only slightly more likely than women to say this is the case.
This discrepancy between men and women was also reflected in another data point. When asked about clothes they own that “fit them well,” men (44%) were considerably more likely than women (29%) to say that their well-fitting clothes are all the exact same size. Almost half of women (47%) said that most of their well-fitting clothes are within one size of each other, while 17% of women say that most of the clothes they own are a variety of different sizes.
