Seems like size 10 these days is considered 'large'?

[Echobelly]

Caveat: Yes, I know actual clothes sizes are all over the place and not necessarily a guide to weight/shape.

I'm in my mid 40s and I'd swear when I was a kid, 10 was considered 'slim', yet it often seems to be talked about now as though it's the porky side.

I don't think that all that many women naturally fall into being a size 8 - I'd consider 10 a normal 'slim' size, I don't think anyone who is a size 10 would ever be medically overweight, even really short women like me.

Older people like me - do you think attitudes have changed? Younger women - have you grown up with 10 talked about as though it was an undesirable size to be?

This very much depends on height and build. I literally cannot be a size 10. My hips are very wide and a size 14 would mean I was skinny. I'm 6ft and I am made to feel huge by most of the clothes available. Nothing is long enoug.

You must have tiny hips.

I am 5'7" and am a 12, sometimes a 14 because I have hips and a waist. I am not overweight (BMI 21), and don't even look overweight.

I still think of a size 10 as slim.

Reading about the slim / mental problems comments.
I love my body. It’s not fat at all; I’m a size 6ish and just over 8 stone (5’ 4”). I don’t think about it other than to flex and walk and love what it can do. I feel healthy and energetic and no other way to describe it, lithe. I’m 54. Why would I have mental problems? 30 years ago most humans were like me.

Good luck to those of you not like this; not my issue/story.

I have hips and a waist, just my chest and hip measurements are the same, 34-25-34.

I notice a lot of size 4's in my branch of Primark! I thought who the hell can wear that?

Well, the hot weather has brought out all the size 4 wearers! There were loads of them! Get away from me! (size 20)!

Your figure sounds fantastic @Svara. Sadly I am a pear shape, and without breast augmentaion surgery I always will be. My bone structure has given me wider hips than I would like. Having small boobs doesn't help either.

I haven’t found such a change in sizes. My daughter has a load of clothes of mine from the 90s. She’s size 10, I was a size 10, the only difference as we both have generous hips is that I was 4 inches taller.. They’re only a tiny bit tighter on her than me. I would allow a size different but not the huge jumps others have found.

Me too. 5ft 11 massive hips an thighs far smaller waist. I got called slim the other day by the dressmaker. In person I don’t seem large (except tall) but shopping makes me feel mahoosive.

I think the hip thing is quite interesting. We all used to buy men's jeans in the 90s, but none of us had hips then. I remember buying my first pair of women's work trousers at 21, from new look, andhating the extra material for hips cos it looked stupid. But then they widened. And 10 years later I had kids and I got padding on them.

Yes, jeans cut for women didn't exist when I was a teenager in the 1970s, so I always had to wear a belt. Having a 12" difference between waist and hips meant that they never flattered me.

Now I can find jeans to fit everywhere.

I think the hip thing is quite interesting. We all used to buy men's jeans in the 90s, but none of us had hips then

I hated the womens jeans pre-90’s. high waist, straight leg, boring.

i loved it when the fashion for mens jeans came in in the madchester years. I was hour glass 25-35 and mens Jeans which sat above my hips rather than on my waist were so much comfier. For my shape, mens jeans fit far better.

I'd say that a size 10 is and was considered slim, both in my youth and now (I'm 42). Where did you get this impression from? Just curious !

I think size 10 is slim, 12 is average I think, 14 is the very start of slightly on the overweight side for me. I’m 30 and a size 16

Some of the shitty things fatter women say on here about slimmer women is horrendous.

I think it's the same across the board tbh. If you criticise the appearance of a chubby it's deemed much more offensive than telling somebody they need a sandwich. I'm guessing it's because being slim is seen as a good thing by many.

I used to get called a 'skinny minnie' a lot and sometimes felt like countering with a 'fatty watty' tbh lol. Not that I was insecure about my appearance but more that people felt entitled to comment on it. I'm defo not too skinny. Can deadlift 140kg which makes me strong as fuck for a woman.

Try Asos.

Agreed. I’m an 80’s 16 (or even 18 depending on bust cut), but a modern 10-12. I’m 5’6” & could do to lose a couple of stone so I’m not ‘slim’.

In the '70s a size 10 was usually the smallest adult size available and the measurements for it were, as a rule, bust 32 inches, waist 22 inches, hips 34 inches. I actually just about fitted into size 10s back then!

Interestingly, nearly 50 years later I still mostly wear size 10, but my waist is 7 inches bigger and my hips are 4 inches bigger than they were. My bust is still resolutely stuck at 32!

I think a modern size 10 is probably roughly equivalent to a '70s size 14, although the body proportions are different now. As a teenager, I didn't know anyone who was bigger than size 12, which I guess would be a size 8 now.
We were all much smaller, in every dimension, 50 years ago. The tallest girl in my class when we were 16 was 5' 6".

In about 1992 I went to see a customer who made women's clothes. He always gave me some samples. He looked at me and said you're a size 12. He was right. I always wore size 12 in any shop in those days, although I'd been a 14 in the 80s

Now, several decades later, a different shape but roughly the same weight, I wear 8-10

a size 8 used to be 24 waist 34 hips. Size 10 I think 26/36 Current size guide from Zara- a size 8 is 29/40, a 10- 31/42

In the '70s a 24-inch waist would have been a size 12 and 34-inch hips would have been size 10. A 12 was 34-24-36 and a 10 was 32-22-34. A 14 was 36-26-38.

Well I hope no one took my comments as mean.

The slim/thin women I saw were in proportion and looked healthy. I am just wondering where they go to in the cold weather but I guess they are swaddled in layers!

People talk about size 10 etc not being as small as it was - but is that not due to the creation of bigger sizes? The then size 10/12/14 clothes have been knocked backwards to single figure sizes to accommodate the existence of size 18+ Clothes? If a modern size 8 is equivalent to a 70’s 12, modern size 24 would be something like a 28/30.

I'm 5'8, with a BMI of 21 and body fat levels at the low end of the normal range, and I wear 8-10. I'm slim but not skinny.

But size 10s have gotten bigger. I suspect 10 years ago I'd be a 10-12, and 20 years ago a size 12.

I haven't shopped at Zara since overhearing a young and slim woman ask an assistant what their equivalent to a size 12 would be, only to be given a disparaging look and told "that would be a large"! 😡

Wasn't a size 10 the perfect size, once? The sweet valley high twins were a size 6, which I remember corresponding to a British size 10.

I 5'9 by the time I was 11. I remember wearing one of my mum's size 10 skirts for high school. She was about 5 inches shorter than me. I felt absolutely massive, but if I look back at photos, I'm just tall. All thin shoulders and arms, but wider shoulders than the boys in the photos.

Back to day though, I wear between a 10 and 12 dress and 12 trouser. I'm seen as slim, but I could definitely lose up to a stone and not look terrible. I think of slim in terms of my mum and gran's generations, but I think they'd be seen as thin today. I think if I were shorter and wearing a 10, I wouldn't seem quite as slim. But then, having a 5'4 and 5'9 woman wear the same size clothes is ridiculous anyway.

There's a The Beautiful South song called 'Perfect 10' from the early 90s.

I've got an 80s 'Jackie' annual with a feature 'None of these girls is a perfect size 12'. It's about how to dress for your shape. The example of a girl who feels she is too thin is 'a very slim size 10'. The others are a very tall girl and a size 16. Obviously anecdotal but it suggests an attitude back then that a size 10 might have fewer curves than ideal.