Semi-related thing that suprises me as a man (this is in Europe):
I go to a clothing shop at the start of a new collection, and look at men's shirts for a given type:
- there's 10 XS, 10 M, 10 XXL versions
I go towards end of the season:
- there's like 1 M remaining, but 8 XS, 8 XXL.
Like if they were surprised and had no data that most population is M.
I had subscribed to clearance sale newsletters from quite a few retailers but unsubscribed when I noticed they put stuff in the outlet section only when they run out of sizes S to L.
My impression is that at the end of the season, there's like 0 XXL, and 8XS, and 8Ms, but maybe that's just a perception problem.
As far as I can tell, this is a key driver of why the EU implemented anti-waste provisions for clothing starting in a couple years: because retailers will just order arbitrary amounts of clothes and shred (!) whatever is unsold, which since they made their profit, doesn’t cost them anything and saturates the planet in formerly-wearable clothes that have been destroyed out of wasteful sloppiness. If they actually had to put in effort to design production runs — or else see their clothes sold at the bargain store — then they may well start acting less “why bother, we got our money, next”. One hopes, anyways.