to think that deeming a size 12 to be "LARGE" is rather insulting?

[ShirakawaKaede]

Was looking at dresses for DH to buy me for xmas. Found one I liked, chose my size: "UK Size 12 - LARGE". And just thought, 'Well, fuck you, then!'

Size 12 is not large, fashion-twats. Could they not just have put 'size 12'? Did they HAVE to add the extra shame?

Perhaps I am more sensitive about this than most as I was anorexic. I finally started eating normally & put on more weight than I had lost. I completely lost my confidence even to go out, see friends, attend college etc. It took YEARS to rebuild it.

And then you see this bullshit.

Enjoy your flipping quality street lady!
I have learnt that label sizes are ridonkulous.if you look in proportion then if who cares if it says 12,14,16 inside your garment?its all about appreciating your figure at the end of the day,if youre happy with your body you wont care.

If you compare men and women clothes sizes I would say 12 would convert to a male large size.

When one shop has me at a 6, another an 8 and them I'm too big for anything under a 12 in another I cba getting annoyed about modern dress sizes, it's so random!

Agree about the proportions issue. I'm a little concerned by the comment up thread where someone says they are feeling like a hippo despite being 6 foot and only size 12. I say only, because in most sizing systems that say something sensible, 12 is absolutely the perfect size if you are that tall and slim with it. My sister was a good example of that for many years.

If I lost weight down to minimum normal range BMI, I'd still be a 12 on top and 14 on the hips, that's just my shape. Can't currently buy clothes sadly as a bit overweight.

I recently bought my daughter some new jeans. She has only just turned 11 and is tall and very slim. Size 8 fitted her perfectly. I told her, that although I know she doesn't care about such things now, she needed to remember for the future that size 8 was the size she was at 11; I expect she'll end up a natural size 12 in future - if and only if she remains as slim as she is now.

I remember having to get a size 16 school swimsuit at the age of 10 or 11 - nothing smaller would stretch long enough for my body length. Twas all a bit crazy.

Hmm

I think you may be wrong.

Although what you write makes sense 6-8= sm, 10-12=med, 14-16=large.

I'm a size 10 but I wear size med and large. I don't actually see much difference between the med and large sizes to be honest so I think clothing manufacturers are making them smaller.

It is annoying though especially as they don't seem to many many x-large sizes.

Also don't get upset about it, it is just a size/number. Wear the clothes you like and cut out the size label if you dont want to see it.

I thinks a 12 would equate a medium really in mens,although this has no bearing on anything really.i fit in my fellas stuff with room....a large would be too big.Anyway lets not bring mens sizing in,even more confusing!!

I sometimes buy stuff in a 12. I often buy jumpers in size 14, 16 etc cos I like them to be baggy.

I wouldn't give a polished shit if someone called me large.
One because I know I'm not, and two because so? large isn't an insult, is it?
It's about trusting your view of yourself, I think, and also having a good attitude towards body image. E.g. fat not being a trigger word for all kinds of negative links and feelings. Another way of putting it.....if I had a suspicion that what I saw in the mirror was not actually what I looked like (that I saw myself as thinner than I was), then I'd hope it wouldn't bother me and it wouldn't take over my thoughts until I'd sorted out in my mind exactly what I looked like. I think probably a lot of people are consumed by this in-between stage of body dysmorphia.

we are so obsessed by looks it's unreal. It's not just the making sure you look good, it's this huge uncertainty which is engineered to make people constantly reevaluate themselves and so erode away their confidence (which they would supposedly get from looking good). I know everyone says this and you can probs find this sentence paraphrased on about ten threads and in ten newspapers and ten people around you will probably say it today. But it's true and just because it's a cliche doesn't mean we shouldn't sit up and feel bad about it every time we realise cos that's how we'll do something about it.
AARGH.

too much for 7am!

I am quite prepared to be flamed. But if you are average height (like me 5ft, 5) and a healthy BMI your dress size (in UK shops) will be 8-10, so it makes sense to call that a medium e.g.: a woman of average height of a normal healthy weight). If you are taller and/or heavier then you need a bigger size e.g.:a large. Frankly the fact that most women in the UK are over weight and need a 14-16 is irrelevant.

Shit OP I hadn't read that you were anorexic before. I hope you're okay, don't let it spoil anything for you. Don't give it permission to. Find someone IRL to give you a hug and tell you that the fashion people are bonkers, I bet you look great.

Oh and by the way if you like the dress, do buy it. Don't avoid it now cos of the silly website people. Be proud when you wear it.

I'm short (5' 3" ish) and currently a 12-14 depending on cut.

I would say I'm definitely a large. I know BMI isn't the best indicator, but I come out as overweight. I can grab rolls of fat around my middle.

It amazes me the way every woman I speak to about weight reassures me that I'm not overweight etc.

When I was a size 8-10 (smack in the middle of healthy weight range for my height) everyone used to say I was too skinny. The doctors confirmed that this was a healthy weight for me, so it's not me having a distorted body image.

I really do think we, as a whole, have lost sight of what a healthy weight should look like.

8-10 Small
12-14 Medium
16-18 Large

Size 6 = a child's age 12!

No way is being DD2 size natural and healthy for an adult woman, rather than a not quite bra wearing tween, unless you are tiny!

My Dcousin is probably a 6, but she is under 5ft and just built in miniature and absolutely beautiful. Her DM is too.

When I was a teen, my aunt and I had the same age 14 C&A dress. Back then petite didn't exist.

I don't find it insulting as such, but I do find it very annoying. 5ft10 and the last time I was a size 12 I weighed 11stone, which is towards the low end of normal weight for my height. I have only ever been a size 10 once as an adult, when I had been in hospital several weeks with meningitis, you could see every rib, backbone and the top of my pelvis at the back, I was very thin, too thin in fact.
I find it annoying because a lot of clothing manufacturers think that large is the biggest they need to make, I'd say only about 50% bother with extra large, so what happens to the large percentage of the population who are bigger than a size 12? Oh that's right, we have to go shop in places like Evans where the clothes all seem to have had a style bypass!

Comfort yourself with the thought that a recent long-term study in Canada concluded that slightly overweight people lived longer and had better overall health than everyone else. Makes you think..

Sizes are crazy now anyway. I'm 2 stone 3 stone heavier AT LEAST than I was at 16 and yet I'm the same size. I have 34DD boobs but a size 12 in Tu can drown me.

I live in Spain, and Spanish women are NOT minisclue slips of things. I hate seeing that paraded as an excuse for mango. There is a big protest going round here, I received this email from charge.org yesterday:

"Para Mango la talla 40 es una talla grande.considerer la talla 40 como talla grande es tener una visión totalmente distorsionada de la realidad."

For mango size 12 = large! considering 12 as large is having a totally distorted vision of reality.

They go on to talk about the new fashion range in mango for "larger women" which starts at a size 12 and how damaging it is, especially for young girls.

OP, YANBU. It is especially damaging for vulnerable people, sufferers of disorders included.

Today's vanity sized 12's probably are a 'large' though, they're ceratinly not the same as a size 12 from ten years ago. And I say that as a current size 12 - I could by no means be described as a small woman!

I have size 10's in my wardrobe from ten years ago that are bigger than some of my current size 14's.

That doesn't make sense, TheMuppetsSingChristmas.

If you're saying that vanity sizing means clothes have got much bigger (which is true and I agree with) - then how can an old size 10 be bigger than a new size 14?

By rights, size 10s from years ago should be even smaller than today's size 10s, and definitely not bigger than a modern size 14...?!

Am I missing something?

I once asked for a S12 in Morgan (many years ago) and got a snooty look from the twiglet of an assistant who said "We don't really carry a lot of plus sizes"

Cow.

I wondered if it was mango... went into their shop in Spain, tried on a beautiful dress but 12 was too small (just) the model looking assistant sniffed & said it didn't come in xxl

Wouldn't it be great if we could all look at a piece of clothing and judge whether it will fit, more or less, without having to look at the label.

I dont even understand why they need to label it S, M, L, XL or whatever when we have a numbered (less offensive) sizing system in place already

Yes I think absolute cloth sizes probably are one bigger than when I was a teen.

My 25 year old size 12 going away dress, won't quite do up on my size 12 DD1(15).

Modern clothes have been adjusted to the fact that we tend to have bigger waists (less exercise, central heating??)

However, it is possible to have 10-12 tops from years ago that are 10-12 which are easily 14-16 today. I have an ancient size 10 cardigan I can do up round my size 16 middle.

Jumpers in the 80's early 90's were huge. I went into labour with DD1 wearing one!

Agree, Argy.

I'm 5"10' and a size 10 (which basically means a size 8-12 depending on the shop).

Right now I'm in a pair of size 14 skinnies which are admittedly a little loose around the waist (nothing a belt can't fix), but otherwise are extremely flattering, especially on the 'leg' and 'hip' [/overuse of wanky fashion singular]

Bugger the size, if they look good on.

Is the fact that it says 'UK size' not an indication that its a foreign made dress for different markets? And that the large reference is an overlap of that, because in virtually all other countries in rmthe world, a UK 12 would be a large? Is its what a UK size 14 or even 16 used to be 20 years ago?

British sizing does tend towards the huge. I find myself buying a size 36 over here, which is a small. 34 would be extra small. 38 would be medium and 40 large.

Large isn't, or shouldn't be, a heinous insult

This.

Don't let it bother you - all stores have completely different sizes for their own purposes. I'm too small (on top) for a size 6 in Next but am comfortably a size 10/12 in Topshop (who I swear are trying to encourage body dysmorphia in teenage girls...)

The most mortifying hilarious eventually clothes experience I had was trying to find clothes in Vietnam - apparently I had "big man feet" "BIIIIIG boobies" (I really don't - I'm a 28C / 30B) and had too large a bum to fit their seats on public transport, never mind a pair of trousers!

It is all relative - just remember that if you are a typical British woman you are likely to be a giant to people from Vietnam, and a skinny minny to people from the Midwest.

6-8 XS
10-12 S
14-16 M