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| Sizing up the shape of the nation Men and women of all shapes and sizes are baring nearly all to help create a blueprint of the changing form shape of the nation. Volunteers are being asked to step into a state-of-the-art 3D body scanner to take part in the first national sizing survey. The initiative, funded by the Department of Trade and Industry and 18 major high-street retailers, aims to solve complaints about the difficulty of finding clothes that fit. Using 5,000 male and 5,000 female volunteers, the sizing survey is the first undertaken in the UK since 1951. The first volunteer to step forward for measurement at the London College of Fashion was 25-year-old Jo Plumley, a fashion assistant at BHs. As she prepared to step into the scanner, she said: "I think I'm a size 12 but, I'm not expecting any nasty surprises." Volunteers have to strip to their underwear before entering the scanner where a grid of white light rays are projected onto the body. The grid distorts as it falls upon the body instantly compiling over 130 measurements using a virtual tape measure. Key body size and shape measurements are then extracted and logged onto the Size UK database. Head-girth and hand measurements still have to be compiled manually because the scanners are not yet advanced enough to make out these body parts in enough detail. Professor Philip Treleaven, head of computing at UCL, reckons that it will be about 18 months before the scanners begin appearing in high-street fashion outlets. 20th August 2001 |
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