to think that most shops use vanity sizing now, and a 10 is really an old 14

[GetOrfMoiiLand]

Are there any shops which use what I would call 'old' sizes.

I remember when a 10 was really small. When I was in my teens and a lot smaller than now, I was a 12 at most. I am now a 10.

My gran (on clearing out her wardrobe) was always a size 12-14 - on trying on some jackets from the 80s which were a 14 they were very tight.

Hardly any shops stocked 8s, and they were tiny. Now every shop stocks 6's, and they are not really that small. My local Asda stocks clothes in a 4.

Again? I don't think I've had a 22" waist since I was about 8!

bum is about 22 METRES so I shouldn't complain about waist

i was 9.5 stone in the 80s/90s and wore a size 10 or 12. a few years ago i was 7 stone and wore a size 4-6. i'm now 8.5 stone and wear a size 8.

it all seems quite normal to me. the only thing i do observe is that my mum who was about a size 12 when she was younger, had a 23 inch waist when she was younger, whereas mine is 30 inches... so i definitely think women, or at least me, have a very different shape than 30 years ago

Yes, waists are bigger, breasts are bigger and bottoms relatively smaller. It is because they ate lard and we eat hormones, or something along those lines.

MrsR - how do you manage to get into a size 8 with a 30" waist? I am currently 28 and fit a size 10 (which is supposed to be 26"). Do you buy REALLY expensive clothes?

I find warehouse the most true to size and am normally comfortable in an 8 or 10 from there.
Topshop seems small sizing, their size 8 is on the small side.
M&S are ridiculous, i have a size 8 trousers that hang off me, in real life id say they were closer to a 12
Also find surfy clothes very small, i have large jumpers from quiksilver and oneill even though i am a size 8-10 and can never fit into their swimwear EVER.

Darn it. For a while there I thought I was svelte - i appears maybe I am not. I am a size 8 currently. This is the first time in my life. I have spent 3 years being pregnant. What I want to know is, is this new body that I have actually a bit bigger than I originally thought?

Sorry, haven't read all the thread, but when I was in my late teens I was a size 10 which was 32, 22, 34. I was 5'6" and weighed 8.5 stones.

Those measurements are not a size 10 nowadays (and neither am I for sure [bgrin]).

If you are a size 8 currently you are probably a lovely size that is both slim and healthy. If you had been a size 8 in the 1950s you might have been unhealthily thin. I think you should be very contented.

YAdefNBU!!!!
This is really irritating- I'm actually small made, a size 6-8 generally. It is incredibly annoying that some shops continue to up their sizes but don't 'create' smaller ones (Topshop being the exception).
So it is hugely irritating when you try to shop in Reiss/ Coast/ Next/ M&S and the size 8's are too big!!
It's honestly not that I'm 'freakishly skinny' - but obviously if shops are using 'vanity sizing' someone is bound to be sized out!!

(also, this isn't a 'stealth boast'- it's just really, really irritating! If shops stuck to standard sizing or inches as suggested, at least we would all know where we stood!)

I remember when I was a teenager I worked in Alexon (high embarassing for a 17 year old) and I had to wear the 8's with some adjusting, to make even smaller, however a topshop 10 is tiny and always has been quite small. Shops geared at older people are much more "generous". Vanity sizing for sure.

yy My 10 now is the old 14.

Obviously not Mango.

Their 8 in trousers is really snug on me. Normally I swim in an 8.

Unless it all happened in the last 2 years, I haven't noticed any changes and my size and weight has always been the same.

Does it not have something to do with women's overall shapes changing over the years (and not necessarily just getting fatter...)? Sure I read that somewhere...

Interesting article here: [http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/the-shape-of-things-to-wear-scientists-identify-how-womens-figures-have-changed-in-50-years-516259.html]. A bit old but it does point out that the fashion/clothing industry doesn't cater to the changing shape of women.

Oooops. Link fail. Try again. www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/the-shape-of-things-to-wear-scientists-identify-how-womens-figures-have-changed-in-50-years-516259.html

I dabble in a bit of dressmaking. The first thing they always made new girls on our dressmaking course do was measure themselves properly and compare their sizes to the Vogue dress size chart. I normally buy size 10 or 12 clothes. But I'm a sobering size 16/18 for dressmaking! I think that the dressmaking charts were based on sizes from at least 40 years ago. People have grown in height and therefore also girth since then due to better nutrition. However, we're not as hourglassed or pear shaped as we used to be. You see a lot of young girls now that are fairly slim but have a huge waist. I think that's down to eating adequately, but not as healthily as they (and me) should!

Its booze. If I stop drinking beer/wine for a few weeks my waist size drops by about 3 inches!

i had an old size 14 skirt from chelsea girl when i was at my heaviest teen weight- 10 st. i am now a similar weight and always a size 10. i agree OP!

I agree. Way back in the 1970s, when I was a teenager, I had a 22" waist and was a size 10. I now have a 29" waist and have a size 8 skirt from M & S and a size 10 skirt from BHS - and can get into them comfortably.

Well I'm a tesco size ten, tho deep down I know it's really a twelve. Top shop I'm a 12 to 14, asda size 8. Which one is real? (oh and m&s don't even ask! Age 15 is fine there!)

I remember coming out of clothes shops crying when I was 21, because everything was too big. Not many shops did size eight, I bought my jeans from tammy girl, (age 14 jeans).

Now it really differs, im size 10 on bottom, size 12 on top but if I go to primark for example, im lucky to fit in 14/16 jammies.

I blame my huge norks.

I'm sitting here in a White Stuff size 10 skirt. It fits easily round my waist, which I think is about 32" (I don't like measuring my waist these days!)

Has anyone linked this yet?

1982 British standard sizes

Unfortunately, there is no requirement for manufacturers or stores to use the British Standard resulting in a range of size indications for the same size of garment from different sellers.

According to that, I should have been a size 10-12 in 1982. I generally wear a size 10 now. So your theory of clothes having shrunk only works if, in the 80s, clothes were made significantly smaller than the guidelines said they should be. Therefore YAB a bit U.

What kind of size 10, Ninja? Because I would also be a 10-12 from those sizes but I don't find any size 10s in the shops that fit me, bar Top Shop and similar teenager-oriented shops. Even there I am often a size 8. I really doubt that most size 10s now are aimed at someone with a hip measurement of less than 36" and a bust of less than 34"! I notice they don't give waist measurements in that chart which I think have changed even more than the hip and bust measurements.

Warehouse, Oasis, New Look, Dorothy Perkins, that kind of place.

Actually getting the tape measure out puts my hips as exactly in the middle of the range for size 10 in 1982 and my bust as being 10 or 12 depending on whether I breathe in or not (and presumably depending on the bra). In real life it's my lower half that is more likely to need a larger size, so maybe the proportions have changed a bit?