hey, squeaky wheel gets the food

Listen up, American Apparel: I think it's rad that you're American-made and sweatshop-free. (Is that redundant? God, I hope so...) But Eddie Bauer, the Gap, LL Bean, Land's End, and the company that made the red t-shirt I bought from Target five years ago, Cherokee, all agree that I am a Medium. My height and weight are just about spot-on average American woman. When I try on Larges and Extra Larges at the aforementioned places (oh, and J Crew although I haven't gotten anything from them in a long time), they are baggy, and the shoulders, you know, the seams where the arms meet the shoulders, are literally too wide for me.

So why, American Apparel, do you call me an Extra Large? Do you think that I am extra large? What population sample are you basing this on? I mean, I've *been* extra large in my life. I've got nothing *against* extra large. But right now, I am medium. Why do your mediums fit people the size of me as a 12-year-old? I was a 12-year-old who would have found your mediums repulsively tight, in that onlookers would have been able to tell that my body was body-shaped, God forbid.

What puzzles me about this is that I would expect this sort of insane sizing from Forever 21, or Charlotte Russo, or whatever, but not a company that prides itself on having admirable values. Oh, we don't use sweatshops, you say. We pay a living wage in the heart of Los Angeles. And we think you're really, really huge. Fatty.