Dear Euric, I think that the clothing industry worldwide is still struggling with metric conversion. Of course some companies and some nations are better than others.
Here in Australia, most mass produced clothing is sourced from Asia, so it is designed and made using centimetres. Individually made garments, however, still use inches, but often give these a veneer of centimetres. On a personal level, clothing patterns often are sourced from the UK and the USA, so these are all still solidly written using old inch measures. I sometimes worry about mothers who sew (in inches) and then have to help their daughters with their metric homework; these mothers know that their daughters need to learn about inches so that they can make their own clothes (assuming continuing UK and USA dress patterns). I think that, as mothers are a prime source of cultural values, this transmission of the value of inches from generation to generation can be a major impediment to smooth and rapid metrication. Clothing shop assistants find themselves living in this nether world between centimetres and inches and constantly translate between the two. Their culture values inches more highly of course, because the 'better' garments are still made in inches. It's all quite odd really. My guess is that the metric transition in the clothing industry (using centimetres as their small metric unit) will take about 100 years, and that the writing of metric clothing standards, both national and international, (also using centimetres) will make little difference to this time frame. Cheers, Pat Naughtin LCAMS Geelong, Australia -- on 2004-05-23 23.07, MightyChimp at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > A few weeks back, a poster to the metric sucks site mentioned being fitted by > a tailor and having it done in inches. The person later referred to the new > labelling standard and mentioned October. Since, to my knowledge, no actual > date was ever given I was wondering if this person may have come across some > other news source giving this date as official. Does anyone here have > knowledge of this? > > Now, I have suspected it would be introduced with a seasonal clothing change, > such as the introduction of either fall or winter clothes. I would also > suspect the labels would appear on the new clothes and clothes already > labelled would not change. > > How is the UK preparing for this change? Or are they going to ignore it to > the last minute and surprise the consumer and allow them to whine up a storm > claiming confusion and metrickery? If this change is going to be successful, > the people must be educated ahead of time. > > The conversion of scales would have been a lot more successful in the UK if a > better education/advertising effort was made. If people would have been shown > how to buy and smart shop in metric there would have been less resistance to > it. > > Is there any reason why the UKMA does not involve itself in the education of > the public prior to a major conversion event or at least insist through their > contacts and channels that some sort of education be conducted? If not, why > not? > > > Euric > > >
