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?

Nobody sane thinks 10 is a big size. You're on the wrong websites. Different body shapes also exist.

But yes, of course vanity sizing is a thing and of course in general the population has got a major obesity issue, plus appalling core strength due to too many of us sitting down looking at screens for hours.

When I was 21 and in serious sport training, I couldn't zip up a 12 as im 5'9" and my back was so broad. I looked and felt great. I'm a modern 20 now. Tbh women my size back in the day would have expected to make their own clothes and not many of them. Being able to buy lots of things in shops is very recent - and something I'm delighted about as I loathe sewing.

Places like Vinted have Size 10 listed as equivalent of a medium (M) too.

This is a prime example of someone with serious body issues.

Completely agree

I hate people trotting out the old "vanity sizing" thing. People are bigger these days - taller and broader. Sizes have to change to reflect that.

Here’s me at a size 10. Because I’m short. 9stone 10

Sizes aren’t even the same in Cm. Someone is measuring terribly.

I have been a size 8 all my life. Recently bought a wedding dress, size 0. What’s that all about? I know it’s American but converted it said size 2-4, which was too big.

Ds is a small child (2) . I had been buying 104cm in most as the others too small ( which is a uk age 4 approx). Now the last few things I have bought in 104cm have been massive on him, miles too long. He’s been in size 25 shoes a while, ordered size 25 wellingtons, again miles too big. Makes it impossible to buy

I watch many historical dress people on you tube- and they often note in past it was usually and expected to use optical illusions and padding to get the require/fashionable silhouette.

Now it all people trying to force their bodies - though diets and plastic surgery into it.

it's hard to work out and find clothes that fit well - even in the same shop and even same style the size can seem to vary these days on line I have to rely heavily on the reviews.

I don't consume the media pushing size 10 as big - but I assume if it's social media a lot of that will be USA sizing which is larger and vanity sizing which has pushed sizes up - there a huge difference with older clothes patterns IME which can be very depressing.

When I grew up 10 was considered slim
12 was average
14 was curvy

I don’t remember ever seeing a size 6!
I don’t remember anyone being very large either
We weee all about the same give or take a few inches here or there.

Do people really think measurements would make sizes easier to buy? Telling me a pair of jeans has a 34 inch waist doesn't tell me they'll fit my bum, hips or thighs in. I bet most of us would still be trying a million different sizes and styles to work out which had the best ratios between waist/hips and the distance between everything. I want to go back to having a dressmaker who can make to measure!

I'm 37 and a size 12 bottom, 14 top due to my boobs. I had to buy a 3xl t-shirt the other day.

A lot of stuff comes from China and the sizing is anyone guess and does not correlate at all with western standards

It’s partly vanity sizing, but also fashion is marketed to a significantly younger demographic than in the 80’s and 90’s. If BooHoo/Pretty Little Thing are aiming at 16-18 year olds, odds are those customers will be smaller than a woman in her 30s. I’m 40 and I vaguely remember the fuss over size zero fashion around the turn of the millennium, and it coincided with the shift in models being teens instead of in their twenties.

Not large going by all the porkers walking down the high st I work in. Most are size 20+ by the looks of it.

I am a 16.

I was recently looking to buy a vintage dress making pattern. My now size 10 measurements would indeed have had me in a size 16 then. It was a 70’s pattern.

Evolution hasn’t made peoples sizes change that drastically in the space of 20 years!

Even if in general people do have taller and wider frames than they used to because of bone structure, that doesn’t explain how an adult who is the same height and weight as they were 20 years ago has gone from being a size 10 when they were younger to being a size 8 in their forties.

Vanity sizing happens, what’s there to hate about people commenting on it?

This is true. I've been the same weight all my adult life except for my pregnancies. In the 80s/early 90s I was a 10. Now an 8 or even sometimes a 6.

This is true and it is worrying. I'm tall and slim with quite a 'boyish' figure and basically no bum/boobs. My body has been out of fashion for a while now, with the aspirational aesthetic being for a big bum and exaggerated hourglass figure.

Now though, my small boobs are coming back in fashion so yay for me, but what about the hourglass women? Are they supposed to get a boob reduction? Diet their lovely bums away? It's ridiculous.

My daughter is built like me and in some ways I'm glad, I'm tall and have never been overweight so I think I'm pretty lucky, genetically. But I'm in my 40s and social media wasn't around when I was young and impressionable like she is/will be. My neice has is a teen is is already obsessed with her legs being 'too big' and her beautiful skin being 'bad' because what she sees is photoshopped images or people who have airbrushed every imperfection away from their face.

Where will it end?

Back in the 60s - the days when Twiggy was the aspirational model - a size 10 was 32/22/34, size 12 was 34/24/36 etc. I’ve just looked up the size guide in M and S and a size 10 is 34/27/37 (Tesco F & F similar and Next) so it seems that not only have the sizes changed but our shape has changed as well!

I was worried the first time I fit into a size 6 skirt (I only have a couple I'm 8 in majority of shops) but it was just the larger sizing of those particular shops. I'm not petite or a true size 6!

You've just described vanity sizing 😂😂

I have a lot of vintage clothes, the labels in them are 10-12 but the waistbands are between 23 & 25 inches, mostly 24 inch.

If I lay a vintage size 10 skirt over a Next size 6 bought recently, the Next size 6 skirt is bigger.

In modern day sizing I wear a 6 to 8 & to be honest growing up in the 1990s it was rare to see clothes with a 6 label, it’s only really been since early 2000s that you could buy a 0,2,4,6 and I think a modern day 6 is pretty much the same as a 1980s size 10, and a 1980s size 14 is probably a modern day 10.

A modern 10 is still not chunky though, I’m 5’6” & I don’t think I looked overweight when I was wearing a 12-14, I felt skinny buying a size 10 dress for my sisters wedding a couple of years ago. I’m smaller now from food intolerances & having to stop eating anything that’s nice basically, but I remember feeling flipping ecstatic million dollars fitting into a high street size 10 dress.

Nice. You know they're human too?

Of course it's not huge but at 5'3" when I was a 10 I had a slightly overweight BMI. I definitely had weight I could afford to lose. If you're happy and healthy I don't know why size and BMI matter and I say that as a very unhealthy size 0, due to a medical issue. I am ill and I look it.

Just wondering, are sizes slowly shifting and becoming aligned to the size 00-0-2-4-6-8 etc seen one Northern America? 20+ years ago there was approximately a 4 size difference so UK 10 = US 6 (or 4 depending on the cut). Have UK sizes shifted, and eventually the majority of clothing, often made in foreign-based factories, will be more of a standard western sizing?