A Voluntary Full Body Scan

Let's face it: shopping for pants or jeans can quickly go from a decent day out of "Yes! New clothes!" to storming out of a store after trying on 15 pairs and having nothing fit. And it never happens in just one store, either—maybe the first store you can write off as just having wonky sizing, but after three or four stores with the same result, it's enough to make anyone go crazy. Enter Me-ality, a full-body photographing station that helps you find your perfect fit and size.

The Me-ality scanner offers shoppers an easy way to find their size in a variety of stores.

Me-ality is located in certain malls and allows participants to quickly find their size in a handful of local stores (usually ones located in that specific mall) by simply stepping into a closet-sort of contraption that takes a 360-degree of the person's body (it's radiation-free, unlike the very-controversial body-scanners used by the TSA) and takes measurements from the photos, then gives the person print-out records of what size to choose. Thankfully, also, no one sees the photos—compared to the uproar of the TSA screening wherein security agents look at an outline of your naked body, the Me-ality machine doesn't show anything that the worker isn't seeing right in front of them just by looking at you. And, in comparison to the TSA scanners which are highly disliked and have people participating only because it's mandatory, when this writer tried out the machine, there was a line to wait in.

Interestingly (and very unsurprisingly), the results were all over the board. This writer's results showed a size disparity between various stores of 4 different sizes—in higher end boutiques (usually geared towards adult women), smaller sizes were recommended, but even between styles, different sizes were recommended. How can one person be a size 6 and a size 10 at the same time? In stores where "juniors" sizes prevailed (for example, Wet Seal), larger sizes were recommended, which makes us wonder if the powers that be are actively trying to make teens feel bad about their bodies. Meanwhile, there's the complete crapshoot of certain stores that offer sizes 0-4, in half-step increments. What does being a size 0.5 even translate to?

Vanity sizing isn't a new thing, and the idea that womens' clothes don't have standardized sizes is not a new frustration, but the idea that one person can have up to 7 different sizes (one store said that this writer should look for a "31" -- waist size? Euro sizing? Who knows? And what about height? Ack!) is even more infuriating. How can one even begin to look for clothing in an efficient manner when the size range in one store varies so much? It's been said before, but there needs to be some standardization put in place for clothing sizes.