So last month, Myntra had its 8th and biggest End Of Reason Sale and purged lakhs of wardrobes in just 3 days. All the ads via different media and our forever free cookies started shooting at my eyes at such a frequency that I, the ‘love-the-feel-of-fabric’ sort of consumer also decided to a take a look. After all, not many phrases can be more enticing to us than a flat discount of XX%.
I logged in. I saw. And wham!
Every dress that appealed to my fancy and every dress that did not, had a very interesting story to tell about their sizes, which is precisely this:
“The model (5’8″) is wearing a size S.”
Come on Myntra! Talk about India! What is the average height of Indian women? Experience and a quick search revealed it is 152.6 centimetres, just about 5 over feet. I am 5 ft 1, and you may say that the grievance is coming from a quite personal place, but then, is this not the story of the majority here?
What are we supposed to do? The smallest size available is put on by a 5’8″ model and looks perfectly good on her. Are we to order customized sizes which do not exist yet? No, we just end up wearing those dresses and coaxing ourselves to satisfaction. So what if their crop tops look like short tops on us, and culottes like palazzo? Still, these were on sale on Myntra, and are trending too!
Moreover, the look of a garment greatly when worn by different body types and heights. So, why create a falsified impression only to shatter it later? I mean, there are easy alternatives available. Could you not get enough girls of 5’1″ to 5’3″ for testing the dresses and put their photos under product details? Or did you too think they hardly look catchy enough to endorse your products? Please don’t forget, those very people are at least 75% of your target customers.
Hello, India’s no.1 (height obsessed) fashion store! Things are a lot tougher on new customers like me who cannot even tag their old purchases to find the best fit.
While I really appreciate Myntra’s effort towards challenging body shaming by featuring plus-sized models on select dresses, I am seriously offended by their unrealistic approach to height. Don’t you think height is a factor over which we have lesser control? Even searches like ‘dress for short girls’ return inadequate and misdirected results. It literally seemed like the end of reason, end of sense.
Dear Myntra.com, spend some more reason on your next sale so that you don’t make fashion look like just a tall chick’s fiesta. India is full of short beauties who are dazzling with what they do and what they wear already. And if you don’t, they would still continue to be dazzling, just without the sassy Myntra dream.