Name: 000.
Age: Brand new.
AKA: XXXS.
Appearance: Really small.
How small? If it were a person, it would have a 58cm (23in) waist.
Is it a person? Allegedly.
If it's not a person, then what is it? It's clothing. Or, more specifically, it's a clothing size. Or, even more specifically, it's a women's clothing size recently introduced by US retailer J Crew.
Who the hell is supposed to fit it? Officially, J Crew is making 000 clothing to appeal to the "smaller-boned" woman. But it has been accused of taking "size vanity" to preposterous extremes.
Size vanity? It means creating the illusion of thinness in your customer by resorting to number deflation. The notorious American "size zero", for example, equates to a UK size 4. A little later, the 00 size (UK 2) was introduced, now followed by 000.
Doesn't that simply help to perpetuate a warped public perception of what constitutes a normal human body? It certainly does. A 58cm waist is considered a healthy measurement for a girl aged six to eight.
It's both dangerous and sickening! Your outrage is noted, although size vanity is generally for the benefit of the larger customer, ie the size 24s who have been flatteringly downgraded to a 20.
Is that J Crew's explanation? Oh no. A spokesman for J Crew said the 000 innovation was "simply addressing the demand coming from Asia for smaller sizes than what we had carried. Our sizes typically run big and the Asia market tends to run small."
Now I don't know what to think. Or what to wear. Mail Online, alternatively, attributed the demand for the new sizing to a trend on the part of female celebrities of posting skeletal selfies, which are seen by impressionable young girls.
I've never seen any such selfies. Don't worry, Mail Online reprinted loads of them so you can get the idea.
What next? Zero-zero-hours contracts? Treble-zero tolerance? Don't give anyone any ideas.
Do say: "It doesn't even make mathematical sense – zero times zero times zero is still zero. Zero to three decimals places is still zero. YOU CAN'T HAVE SMALLER THAN ZERO."
Don't say: "Hey, skinny! The children's department is on the second floor."
