To say vanity sizes should be rolled back?

Really interesting @fc123 - so the change in sizes is essentially business models adapting.

I hope your daughter's business goes well. What a talented bunch of women the fc family are.

Something needs doing.

probably the best solution would be to label everything by cm or inches, e.g. a 28" waist trousers/skirts but then again, everything seems to be stretch material now or come with a horrible elasticated/gathered waist.

Every time I look online for trousers, coulottes or a skirt, I see something nice with a flat (seemingly) waistband but lo and behold, you check the back view and there it is - a horrible, bunched-up elasticated waistband.

Back to sizing, I remember in the 80s when people used to refer to 'the average size 10 girl.' A size 10 was a 32" bust, 24" waist and 34" hip. I was enormous by all accounts as a size 14 - that's the point at which all clothes in shops and dress patterns stoped being produced. Now that size 14 is a size 8 in some shops. Madness.

Yes 🙂. And the average has changed over the decades so our base size blocks changed to reflect that.
as an aside, I'm now helping in my daughters business which is baby wear NBorn up to age 4.
I've just helped her create a new set of size blocks for her factory to base the patterns on.
babies/ toddlers are bigger now too so we regraded everything to suit her 'average ' customer ( mostly UK based) based on her experience ( and her own 2 children plus all her mates babies/toddlers).
theyre definitely a bit more generous than cheaper high st brands baby wear but they fit well and proportions are perfect ( I think!!)

@fc123 really interesting, thanks.

It's abit like weather then, when meteorologists talk about the weather and new 'highs' when they compare the weather to the average they are comparing it to the last 30 years average, so we are in the 1991-2020 section now opposed to comparing to early so the average shifts upwards as the years increase.

Thank you.

Maybe people will believe you, because Lord knows they never believe me. I don't know why, but some people absolutely must believe that it's all a huge conspiracy to flatter fat women into thinking they're thin and absolutely nothing to do with the mere practicalities of clothing needing to get bigger and sizing being about scale, based around the most popular size.

It would be good if hip meant hip wouldn’t it, then we’d all know where we are. Lots of measuring instructions say to measure your widest part, which in my case is just below my hip.

really interesting thank you - so its based on the premise that a 12 is what the average woman would wear. I never knew that.

I'm also 5'8 and wear an M&S 12. Broad shoulders and bust so occasionally take a 14 on top! 😱 I'm around 13 stone though so my BMI is closer to 30 than 20 so I'm basically crippling the NHS single handedly with my big obese body. If it was the 1980s I'd probably have to head to an outdoor shop and buy a tent.

It didn't occur to me that 'hip' might mean arse and thighs - my hips are the widest part of my lower body (a comparatively smaller arse and much smaller waist means I don't buy trousers, basically, because they aren't gonna fit unless the store makes a curvy/hourglass fit, and that;s been the case regardless of dress sizes I've been) and if I'm taking a hip measurement in something I'm checking the bit where, well, my actual hips are going to go.

Same here - I'm 5ft 8 and weigh around ten stone. BMI around 22. I wear a size 12 in M and S and wouldn't say I'm very large.

I have a vintage Bus Stop suit from the ‘60s that belonged to my mum. It says size 10 on the label but is probably the equivalent to a size 6 today.
The waist is so tiny I doubt it would fit around my thigh

Ex designer/ clothing industry / pattern cutter here
The reason sizes changed is this:
People have got larger over the decades ( a whole other thread /topic), not just weight wise but height too.
I create a dress and wish to manufacture 1000 over 5 sizes.
I decide a cutting ratio to ensure that I sell as many as possible and the 'average' sized body , therefore the one you sold the most of, was always labelled a 12.

My graded sizes for this style would be 8,10,12,14,16.
In this imaginary business ( for the purpose of the thread) I know my target customer and so I also know the sizes I'll likely sell the most of.
A typical cutting docket would be this ratio: 1/3/4/2/1

I was trading and manufacturing throughout the period whereby sizes needed to change as I recall dockets going into production and larger sizes selling out with too many smaller sizes leftover.
I also traded in vintage clothing during the early 80's and 1950's high st stuff was tiny even compared to then.

I remember changing my base size blocks twice, once just shifting it up 1 (so the 10's became 6's) then again in about 2010 but by a half size. This was just to make the 10/12 the most average high volume size ( in the types of ranges I created).
It was the 90's that size 6 really became more used ( previously it didn't really exist and the 80's was all very loose fit anyway). Very petite women used to have to buy teenage sizes ( which were more common then as a separate range).

It was called vanity sizing but all it was really keeping the size 12 as the size for Ms Majority and the size that would outsell all others in a standard range.

I should have said we have peaked in hand and foot growth, not sizing. I agree that manufacturers are lagging behind in terms of shoe size. I had the same problem with my sons, who didn’t want to wear basketball footwear just because it’s what was available to them.

By hip I was referring to the widest part of a woman’s lower body. Manufacturers say hip, we know they mean arse and thighs. Definitely not the bony bits.

Well they are both related.
clothing sizes are getting bigger and bigger in competition with other shops. Some people want to feel good and are not willing to go up a size. So they would rather go to another store than fits than buy a larger size.
I needed a size 8 in Oliver Bonas recently. I’m a 12!

Interesting but not my experience at all.

The problem with standardised sizing across the board is that it makes it impossible to cater for people with long legs, big boobs, wide hips, broad shoulders or whatever. If you think of the feature you have difficulty fitting because it doesn't fit the average for your height/size very well, you probably did have somewhere back in the day that catered to it better than other places, because back then companies know who their customer was. With Shein et al pulling out shite faster than we can feed back on it, places no longer know who their customer is and end up fitting nobody.

Like I said, what's needed is a massive mindset shift but I actually think it's impossible now. Even if you avoid fast fashion (and I know I named Shein but there are plenty of more expensive brands with more genteel marketing that are kist as bad), its impact has been so wide reaching, it's changed everything.

I am an M&S 12 and have a healthy BMI.

as hypercritical of my body as I am, I wouldn’t describe myself as “very large”.

Well they were smaller years ago.
i found a bag of clothes from the 90’s last week. All size 12 from m&S, Topshop etc. I’m a size 12 now and they were 2-3 sizes to small!

but that's not vanity sizing, that's inconsistent sizing

This wouldn't work, because

a) different garments have different amounts of ease, a boxy jacket would be a completely different size to a fitted top and that wouldn't really tell you how it is supposed to fit and it would be a nightmare to search for the right size online for different fits and shapes

b) different stores have different customer bases in mind and use different proportions accordingly so, say, Marks and Spencer would have completely different sizing to Topshop at Asos; Boden dresses would end up being the equivalent of a size 14 on the waist and a 12 on the chest because they don't understand that boobs exist

c) clothing is made by multiple different suppliers in multiple different factories and the measurements vary from factory to factory and, in the case of mass cutting, can vary depending on which part of the stack your garment pieces are cut from, so your 86cm sized top might actually be an 84cm or 88cm top in reality - it would be no more standardised than numerical sizing

d) it would cause confusion amongst customers on the level of bringing in decimalisation in the early 70s

I am tall and a big size.

What we need is consistent sizing end of. In some shops you could fit three different sizes in a skirt or trousers which doesn’t make any sense.

If you buy vintage op please readjust the size you buy. No need for a look how slim I am post on here.