I am currently elbow-deep in the hydraulic fluid of a rotating pivot on a 1975 Ferris wheel, a machine that is honest about its limitations in a way that modern marketing rarely is. If the bolt doesn’t seat, the ride doesn’t move. If the weight distribution is off by 15 percent, the alarm sounds. There is no ‘suitable for all load types’ in the world of carnival maintenance; there is only precision or catastrophe. Yet, I stepped off the platform this morning, wiped the grease onto my thigh, and looked at a promotional email for a dress that claimed to be ‘suitable for all body types.’ It is a phrase that has become the white noise of the fashion industry, a gentle hum of inclusivity that, upon any structural inspection, reveals itself to be a total fabrication. We are being sold a software update for a hardware reality that hasn’t changed since humans first draped wool over their shoulders.

The Language of Exaggerated Bowls

The frustration begins with the assumption that a body is a static variable. As a ride inspector, I know that 125 pounds of human weight behaves differently depending on whether it is carried in the torso or the legs. A dress, much like a safety harness, is a piece of engineering designed to manage tension and gravity. When a brand tells you a garment fits everyone, they are usually admitting that it fits no one particularly well. They are leaning on the stretch of spandex-the ‘hyper-bowl’ of textile engineering. Wait, I just realized three days ago that ‘hyperbole’ is not pronounced ‘hyper-bowl.’ I have been saying it that way for at least 25 years, likely during safety briefings where I was trying to sound authoritative about structural stress. I said it to a regional manager once, and he just blinked at me. I thought he was impressed by my vocabulary. It turns out I was just a man with grease under his fingernails shouting about exaggerated bowls.

“On one woman, the hem is a graceful sweep; on another, it is a chaotic pile of fabric that looks like a structural collapse. We see the heroic safety pin holding together a bust gap that was never meant to exist.”

The Burden of the Fit Error

I’ve spent 45 minutes today staring at a tension spring that had lost its ‘springiness.’ It looked fine to the naked eye, but it couldn’t hold the weight of the car. Many garments are built with that same lack of internal integrity. They rely on the wearer to provide the shape, rather than the garment providing a framework for the wearer. When a brand uses ‘universal’ language, they are shifting the burden of fit from the designer to the customer. If it doesn’t look like the photo, the implication is that your body is the ‘error’ in the equation, not the pattern. This is a technical limitation rebranded as a messaging benefit.

There is a specific kind of honesty in acknowledging that a garment was made for a specific person or a specific silhouette. We crave specificity. We want to know that someone considered the 25-degree arc of a shoulder or the way a hip moves when walking up a flight of stairs. When you look for something like Wedding Guest Dresses, you are often looking for that intersection of occasion and actual construction, where the dress isn’t just a generic tube of fabric but a considered response to an event. In those moments, the ‘all body types’ lie feels particularly hollow because an event requires a presence, and presence requires a fit that doesn’t feel like a compromise.

Safety is Exclusive by Necessity

Safety, like fit, is exclusive by necessity. To be safe for a toddler, a harness must be too small for an adult. To be truly flattering for a pear shape, a garment must be constructed differently than it would be for an inverted triangle. By pretending these differences don’t exist, fashion brands are essentially saying that our unique physical histories-the 5 surgeries, the 3 pregnancies, the 25 years of heavy lifting-don’t matter. They want us to be a ‘software update’ that can be universally supported by their latest ‘version’ of a midi-skirt.

The Mathematical Ghost of Standard Sizing

I once tried to explain this to my niece, who was crying over a pair of jeans that didn’t fit despite being her ‘size.’ I told her about the 1975 coaster. I told her that if I tried to force a 5-inch pin into a 4-inch hole, the pin isn’t ‘wrong’ and the hole isn’t ‘broken’-they just weren’t designed for each other. She didn’t find it particularly comforting at the time, probably because she was 15 and wanted the jeans, not a lecture on mechanical engineering. But the older I get, the more I realize that most of our frustrations with the world come from these ‘universal’ promises that ignore the granular reality of existing.

The Value of Specific Recognition

I’m looking at the Ferris wheel now, the sun catching the 255 light bulbs that ring its circumference. It is a beautiful, specific machine. It does one thing very well: it lifts people up and brings them back down. It doesn’t pretend to be a roller coaster. It doesn’t claim to be suitable for those with severe vertigo. It is honest. There is a deep, resonant value in that kind of honesty. We want clothes that recognize we have knees that creek and backs that arch and lives that don’t fit into a one-size-fits-most box. We want the truth, even if the truth is that a certain cut isn’t for us. Because when we find the one that is, the fit is so perfect it feels like physics.

Now, I have to go finish this inspection; there’s a 15-year-old nut that needs tightening, and I’m the only one with the specific wrench to do it.