Why Women Buy Clothes That are Too Small

Posted by Gill Hart May 16, 2009

According to recent research, the average British woman buys around 600 items of clothing during her working life, which she will never wear.

So why do we do it? Well, according to Lloydspharmacy (who commissioned the research) more than one third of the women interviewed splashed out on under-sized clothes as motivation to lose weight. These pieces are dubbed “Carrots” — Clothes Aquired Rashly, Requiring Owners To Slim.

Deliberately buying an outfit that is too small provides an incentive for slimming into it. The biggest culprits are Scottish women who claim that they have 10 or more items hanging in the wardrobe which they have knowingly bought as too small, hoping one day to fit into them.

Not all our unworn clothing is too small however. The Daily Mail, December 5^th, 2008 revealed that research carried out on 778 ladies for UK TV's The Clothes Show Live found that women owned an average of 100 pieces but only wore around 30 of them, whilst the rest stayed on hangers. The reason? In addition to hoping to fit into some of them one day, women also keep clothing for sentimental reasons. The survey revealed that women may keep a favorite item for around 12 years. This is likely to be one that makes us feel particularly attractive or glamorous.