to think Marilyn Monroe probably WAS a size 16 after all?

[MsWetherwax]

I have spent the last 2 days clearing out DM's attic, and found loads of old clothes up there (the house has been in the family a long time and has a large attic) including my great aunts wedding dress. She got married in 1960.

My dgm often referred to this aunt as being quite stout, and her wedding dress was a 16. I tried it on, as you do. I am a size 12, bmi of 25, 5'6". It was too small. By quite a margin. :( I am nearly 40, and have been aware that vanity sizing was on the generous side, but this has really shocked me.

Having spent the rest of the evening "investigating" this by trying on more motheaten vintage clothing we discovered a size 10 in 1960 was about a size 6 now. (Dsis is a 10 and needed at least 3 more inches around the waist, although the wedding dress fitted beautifully) and that it wasn't just the wedding dress that didn't fit me, there were 3 more dresses in there, all size 16, and all too small. :(

According to articles I've read about MM and her costumes, I have exactly the same measurements as her and I'm a UK size 6. (I'm 5ft 4.5')
Clothing sizes are ridiculous. Like MM, I'm busty but with a small back and more often than not, some size 6s are too big across the chest, which is laughable.

My mother was very slight, and I recently found a pair of her YSL shorts from the 80s and they're an Italian size 36, which technically should fit me as that's the Italian size I wear. But they don't, they're far too small. I remember when I was little, size 8s suddenly appeared in the shops as before then size 10 was the smallest size you could buy. (And why I think my mother bought her clothes from European designers.)

I think as diets have got better, food more plentiful and the way people live their lives, so have our bodies changed. Amongst my friends, I'm easily the most petite, yet in my family, I'm easily the biggest.

My SIS was always very competitive especially with me. I remember her boasting how she could pull in her waist to 18" with a belt, and of course, when young, there was no overhanging or under protruding bulge. Her normal waist measurement was 21" and mine was 22" - not pulled in. We were both tiny hipped and waisted. 16" I cannot believe, unless a young skinny teen.

As we got older the waist became wider and no way could it be pulled in without discomfort and bulging above and below. Only a full body corset could make that possible and then you can't sit down or even breathe.
So we now let everything hang out naturally, as comfort is now our priority.

We are now still in size 8s, but have a 28-29" waist. < unpulled in>
< and much larger when sitting/slumping.>

My mother was 5ft 6" and always weighed just a couple of pounds under 9 stone. She wore a size 12 or 14 in the 70s. And she was considered to be a perfectly average size, not particularly slim.

I can tell from vintage knitting patterns that women where smaller a generation ago. 36 inches was a plus size bust.

This is a bit different but I did a course with lovely Ruth Goodman some while backk and she said that in Tudor times most women would be considered absolutely minute by our standards - not just the poor, malnourished ones. And Victorian dresses tend to be teeny - Charlotte Bronte's looks like a child's dress to me. We're so much better nourished that we have larger, thicker bones which add both mass and weight, no matter how fit and slim we are. obesity crisis aside, it can't be a bad thing as our life expectancy is so much better than our ancestors'.although I'd love to be a bit thinner

strike through fail, pah!

Scalett O'Hara's waistline was 16" before she had Bonny (and, if you read the book, Beau) - the scene in the film is Mammy getting her into a 17" or 18" waist with the corset. But, its worth remembering (and I know its fiction) that Scarlett has to be really forced into the corset, and doesn't eat so that she can fit.

zebra nice to see you have such a positive attitude to different sizes.

I think it comes down to petiteness rather than fatness - if you ever meet any women from TV even today, they are resolutely tiny. Not in a skinny/catwalk model sort of tiny, but that really really small frame that (if you're 5'9" and a healthy 24.9 BMI) seems just absurd that they can be the same species.

Also, body shapes do seem to have changed - as I'm sure they have done over the centuries - now I think women seem to have larger waists and busts, but skinnier hips? Maybe intervention in the birthing process means that a good set of child-bearing hips is not a pre-requisite to surviving labour .

Hairdressers always make me feel ENORMOUS, like another species.

I think YABU to have an opinion on it at all, really.

I expect that the "size 16" thing was entirely made up out of someone's head.

Marilyn Monroe probably wore tailor-made clothes, because she's an unusual shape.

Any reports we have of her weight are pretty useless, because her weight changed over her life, the reports may not be accurate, and weight is not always a useful proxy for what size clothes you wear (see any MN thread on "if you are 5'6 how much do you weighh and what size clothes do you wear?")

Apparently part of the reason Audrey Hepburn was so thin is because of suffering from malnutrition growing up during the war.

Audrey Hepburn had a beautiful face, but her body looked unhealthily skinny to me.
For a tiny framed healthy-looking body and face, Natalie Wood always looked beautiful to me in her films. But think she too had her waist cinched in to give those so admired curves.

Why on earth are curves undesirable now- except for enhanced boobs?
Ridiculous.

you have to remember that MM changed shape alot, there are scenes in "Gentleman prefer blondes" where she does look more like a modern size 12/14 with some strong shaping underwear (so a then size 16) - it's just more that in other years she's very thin, most woman fluctuate over the course of a decade (which is when most of her hit films were made).

Modern clothes are more generously proportioned, but also not just scaled up, the ratios have changed.

And wearing shapewear all the time does change your body shape, the victorian corsets pushed internal organs into different places as ours now naturally are and less protein in the diets of children made people smaller and more willowy.

Delicate -that's the word I'm looking for! A lot of people who grew up in 30s/40s by the time they were in their 20s/30s look more delicate than now, regardless of how much fat they've got on that frame.

So Monroe was a UK 20? Excellent.

I have a fitted skirt from C&A that I wore in the late 70's/early 80's. I was a size 16, and took a lot of stick for being overweight which until I met my DH led to some very low self esteem. I was having a clear out of the loft a while back and came across it. I was really surprised to see that next the the size 16 on the label it also said 28" waist, which I believe is a size 12 today. It made me so mad for being made to feel like I was a big fat lump back then.

I'm confused now. Bear with me:

Throughout my teens and for most of my 20s I was about 8.5 stone and a size 6 (which didn't exist in the late 80s/early 90s so I wore 10s and then 8s when they became available). I am now 39, just over 9 stone and in most shops a size 12! (at least on the bottom - hips are 37, waist 28 and boobs 36B). If it's true about vanity sizing how can I have gone up 2 or 3 sizes when I've only gained just over half a stone?

I am rubbish with numbers though.

Erm, minesa, can I politely point you to the bra threads....with a 28" waist you are almost certainly not a 36 ;)

I though the comments about us generally being bigger in terms of bones, structure, height etc. At 5'6 I am taller than all of both my and dh's mums/aunts.

Confession time - I don't often wear a bra (despite what I think is my size, they are firm and still point north...for now) so I have no real idea what my bra size is I'm probably more likely a C or D cup I guess given the size of my waist and ribcage (small).

I do have a couple of dresses from the 1920s which I got in the US and the labels say size 20!!!!!!! - sizing was totally different in the US back then, clearly!!! According to ads from around the same time, US dress sizes went up to 40 which from what I can gather would be about a UK 14-16 today.

Lucky girl re firm and pointy! You are probably a much smaller back, more like a 30, and therefore quite a few cups bigger too.

I live vintage style but would never fit me I suspect so reproductions it is :-(

minesa I'm 37 and your stats are not far off mine - I have a 29/30in waist (I'm dieting at the mo so it fluctuates) - and I take a 12 in mumsy shops and a 14 in trendy shops. I'm a 42 in Italian clothes.

I think if you were size 6 in your 20s your shape must have changed considerably even if your weight hasn't. Even at my thinnest, in the late 1990s, (9.5 stone with a bmi of 18) I was still an 8-10. I am tall and broad shouldered though with small bones, classic ectomorph.

Rapunzel that's fascinating, it makes sense. I automatically pick up a size larger in TopShop, and a size smaller in Matalan.

The good thing about 20s dresses is they are designed to hide skim curves

You are all-round thinner than me though

Panpiper I have definitely got larger around the hips, and a bit curvier overall. I think I was more straight up and down iyswim when I was in my 20s, I am more of an hourglass now although not much of one. I take a 12 in Topshop and a 10 in mumsy shops, as far as designer clothes go it depends on the designer, some of them definitely cut large and call it a medium!

M&S used to be notorious for vanity sizing. I think its less so nowadays compared to other shops

Plenty of people wear a 22 inch waist. Thing is its not often found in shops these days. I have a dress thats made for a size 10 or thereabouts with a 22 inch waist and it fits very well. Its from about 1970 though and i cant find a lot of modern clothing to fit my measurements.

Im not even thin really just small. Im only 5ft 1 and have a 26/27 chest and 29 hips.