Clothes Shops....

bonkey

No, seriously....it is a Humanities question.....

I was just reading the thread about "unattainable standards", and something hit me which is somewhat related, but not entirely......so I said I'd take it to another thread.

Here it is...

Why are women's clothes shops larger then men's? Take a simple example : M&S on Grafton Street in Dublin :

Mens section : top floor, shared (I believe) with the kids section.

Women's section : Ground, Mezzanine, and First floor.

In pretty much any "both-gender" shop you can think of, the women's section will typically outsize the men's by a factor of 3.

Why such a big discrepancy?

Now...see...here's where I'm coming from....

Statistics show that women are far more prone to suffering from psychological eating disorders then men.

Women are generally "expected" to be wearing makeup, men are generally laughed at if they do so.

( Aside: Hell, I was laughed at by some of my mates some time ago for being able to discuss shampoo with another bloke....and all I was trying to do was recommend something that would actually take care of his dandruff. I'm a complete ponce for knowing something like that, apparently.)

Women's travel-bags usually contain about 3x the number of toiletries as men's do.

And lets not even start to compare shoe-collections.

(Aside: I have a total of 6 pairs, one of which desperately needs to be binned. This number is so large only because I need decent summer and winter shoes living in a country which has decent summers and winters. In Ireland, 3 pairs was my limit)

Now, there is something clearly different between the two genders here. Personally, I tend to believe its sociological, but you're free to differ.

What gets me is when a discussion like the "unattainable standards" come up, you have the men lining up to tell us how stupid someone would have to be to fall prey to the entire cult/myth of beauty thing, and so on and so forth....and to be honest.....I honestly don't think they're basing it off anything but the male's small-clothes-section, small-toiletry-bag, small-shoe-collection point of view.

So I'm curious....

do the other guys here think women are generally stupid for going to all this "extra" effort (fashion, makeup, shoes, whatever...) that men do not do (and would often be laughed at for doing), or is that all ok, but the other aspects of buying into the myth of beauty are just stupid....and if so....where's the difference?

jc

simu

Fashions change - in the 16th, 17th centuries aristocratic men used to wear fancier clother than women. Apparently it wasn't until Victorian times that the fashion for men to wear sombre colours started. This is connected to the industrial revolution and the expansion of the middle class. Middle class males were expected to take care of the serious issues and were involved in public life while their wives, daughters etc were to stay aqt home and keep everything "pretty".

Kell

Just on clothes shops, I also feel that we males have far less choice than women do even in the number of shops/styles etc.

What I really want to know if how women can buy a top off a bargain rail for a fiver. I have never seen a decent shirt on any rail anywhere for a fiver. Písses me off no end.

K-

Seraphina

Originally posted by Kell
What I really want to know if how women can buy a top off a bargain rail for a fiver. I have never seen a decent shirt on any rail anywhere for a fiver. Písses me off no end.

K-

yea but 99% of the time you cant buy NICE tops for a fiver, its usually just cheap crap.
depends on where you shop, and also women are more fussy about fashion, therefor last season's stuff is far less likely to sell so the price on old stock is slashed.

Kold

Howcome we are considered gay if we dont dress the same as everyone else?

sceptre

I've long assumed that the reason the women's department was bigger than the men's was because of the greater variety of clothing there. Trousers and skirts and dresses (I've recently been firmly informed that a "dress" is not the same thing as a "skirt" and I should refer to them by their proper names), all in different colours ranging from black to white and taking in bright pink and green along the way. I'm leaving tops out of the equation as blokes have a reasonable variety of shirts to choose from. Meanwhile in the men's department, it's trousers or nothing and there are fewer choices of colour. Which doesn't really bother me as I guess that a pair of pink and white polkadot pants wouldn't really be my thing. There's always some colour-blind fashion refugee from the seventies in the women's department who thinks this will make her look hip and youthful though.

Then there's the underwear department (or "lingerie" if you're French or an underwear salesman). Fellas (no "lonjereee" thank you very much) tend to make do with a wee display of socks and boxers, a few scraggly pairs of "briefs" (does anyone out there actually call them "briefs"?) on a little display that screams "Just get a dark pair in two sizes in case they don't fit" whereas women enjoy a far more restful and luxurious shopping experience with a sub-department of their own, often walled off, that almost seems designed to give pubescent boys wet dreams with the amount of underwear on display (now that they don't have Playtex adverts on the telly any more). Kind ladies are on hand to help the bonny lass as she searches around for something nice and comfortable that will make her happy and that her boyfriend probably won't complain about. And they try the stuff on. It's quite funny watching guys look for underwear for "herself". They always seem to go for the laciest skimpiest most unsupportive underwear you're ever likely to see. She'll wear it once. Once you get her to bed, guys, you'll never see that sexy underwear again except on your birthday. If you last that long. She certainly won't ever take you bra shopping.

Ooh, look at that. Its turning into an unfunny rant. I'll stop then before I start in on the spectacled types searching for Pringle sweaters in the back of the shop or women with a fascination for shoes with bows glued on.


Incidentally, and on-topic, I couldn't care less how small the men's department is relative to the women's. It makes it easier for me when I try to get in and out of the shop in under 3 minutes (and that includes the time spent to see if the chosen shirt fits. I've tried on trousers in less time than it's taken the credit card transaction to go through).

Oh, and I had a conversation about shampoo recently with another bloke. Admittedly it was in relation to marketing the stuff (it was a specific conversation about how Pantene moved from selling 50,000 units a year for years up to about a decade ago into becoming the world's biggest selling shampoo today) but the conversation did rotate around shampoo.

Kell

Note on buying lingerie for women-

Make it sexy, comfortable, soft and something that she'll go- "this feels really nice and makes me feel really sexy".

Its stuff that normally costs you an arm and a leg, so if your not prepared to shed out a whack load on your missus' undies, dont even bother.

K-

Stark

They should make the men's department easier to find. Nothing worse than finding yourself wandering aimlessly around the women's department whilst trying to find if there's a men's. Have noticed they actually do it in one or two shops in Dublin now, you walk in and there's a massive black and white sign saying "MENS >>". Women seem a lot more comfortable walking around the men's section.

There is a lot more variety in the women's section. A friend of mine was complaining before that women have so many choices whereas men all have the same boring clothes.

Kappar

How come we are considered gay if we don't dress the same as everyone else?

You're damn right when ever I go out and buy something that looks nice and is in fashion and by fashion I don't mean from Lifestyle or Marathon Sports but maybe a blazer over a t-shirt kind of look I get stuff like "That's very Gay" etc.

Also hair styles unless you have a short back and sides with a **** load of dax wax you are "Gay"

Chaos-Engine

Note on getting lost in the womens sections... There is marketing reason behind this.

If a man and a woman go shopping together(a couple per say). The man is looking for a nice pair of black cotton socks. He has to walk all the way through the womens section before he gets to the mans(no male section is at the ground floor/front door... except topshop in Jervis Centre as far as i am aware). Seen as you will pass all the lovely women's cloths she will see something she likes and "Have to try it on" and then u buy the bloody thing :rolleyes:

Its the truth. Marketing Buffs the world over know it. I worked as a window display designer too. Its just exploiting the weaknesses of the opposite sex

Kappar

(no male section is at the ground floor/front door... except topshop in Jervis Centre as far as i am aware).

The minute i read the first part of your post this immediately came to mind and it's the only place i can think of that doesn't conform to your conspiracy theory.