To think that vanity sizing is getting a bit ridiculous

[BearsBeetsBattlestarGalactica]

I am in the process of losing weight (coming up to 40kg loss, about 5/6 to go).

So I have obviously had to buy new clothes.

The size 10's are now hanging off me.

I have never, ever been a size 8. Size 8 to me is quite tiny. I was slimmer than I am now 10 years ago and was a size 12, barely fitting into a 10.

Even though I am relatively slim now I am still wobbly in places and have a muffin top. I didn't 10 years ago. So it would stand to reason that I should be a 12 now

Oh and this is NOT meant to be a stealth boast of any kind. I just think that sizing in clothes now is erm...a little skewed?

Maybe I have a skewed perception of myself? But I have pictures of me 10 years ago (during an ed I should add) and I was definitely slimmer then than I am now.

Australian sizes are even bigger than the new vanity size here OP. I have a size 8 skirt from Portman that I have a room in. Need a 12 in new look and H&M here.

Agree about Next too, I can nearly get in an 8 there.

I am the same size as I was 15 years ago and was a size 12 in all shop then!

Some of them are a bit silly. I tend to go with measurements to see if I'm putting on weight as I fluctuate in weight massively. I usually measure 38-28-38 and wear a 12 in most places.

Topshop is now generous though - I wouldn't have even tried jeans on in there before but bought a pair of 12s at Christmas time.

Next will always be big, always has been IME.

I just don't think of myself as a particular size because I have clothes that range over three different sizes in my wardrobe that all fit. I am always bewildered when people say 'I'm a size 12' or whatever. How do you know? Children's sizes are all over the place as well, my 3yo is in all sorts of different age clothes. I wish it was standardized across shops or at least within the same fecking shop!

I agree it's got silly OP

I used to measure 38-28-38 in 97. That was a 16 then

it would now mean being a 10/12 in gap and 12 in the vast majority.

YY Jelly - DS is currently wearing a 9-12 month top and 18-24 jeans (he is 20 mo)

and in 94 when I was a skinny teen measuring 36 - 24- 36 that was a 10 and size 8's were tiny tiny like size 4's are now. Sizes 6 and 4 didn't exist

Lubey saying that I'm actually a 16 is depressing! Well, the diet does actually start on Monday (after half term!)

Just about to take a pair of next size 10 relaxed skinny jeans back as they are too big. Bigger in fact than the size 12 next jeans I am wearing, same style but different colour. Annoying. No way are my thunder thighs a size 8.

Are you sure you were a 16 looby? My arse has always been around 35 inches, which made me a 10 in in the nineties. Now I'm usually an 8. I would have thought 38 was more of an old 12 than old 16.

I think we should do clothes the bloke way - by actual measurement rather than some weird sizing system.

So if I've consistently been wearing Next size 12L jeans and trousers for over a decade and finding them a good fit, does that mean I've been getting bigger the whole time without realising? I'm not in the habit of weighing myself, so it's not impossible!

I don't think it's changed that much - I was a 12 in the 80's but vintage 12's are a bit too tight - I suspect an 80's 12 is now a 10 but not less in most shops

I vary between a 12 and 14 due to my boobs which seem to be abnormally large in every shop (only a 32dd) meaning I have to go a size up!

It does annoy me that every shop doesn't stick to a standard sizing. It would be so helpful when shopping.

I have a really old H&M suit, size 12. It's the same size as their 8 now.

And yes, Next is ridiculous, got a size 12 sweater recently and I swear you could fit 2 size 12 people in it. As I'm also abroad and order a lot online, it's especially annoying.

H&M trousers have gone the other way. I'm easily a 16 in there when a 12 elsewhere. Tops are still fine-generous though.

In the eighties standard sizes (with a little variation) were: 10 - 32.5,25,34.5; size 12 was 34, 26.5, 36 and a size 14 was 36,28,38. These are the measurements that are still used on sewing patterns.

So a perfect 10 would be really quite slim in the 80s?

I wonder whether this depends a bit on your height. I am a size 12 (5' 7). I've always been a size 12. I still have clothes I bought 10 or 15 years ago and they fit me fine. So it is not that I have got bigger.

I do agree that 70s and 80s sizings were smaller, but I haven't noticed a change over the last decade.

I think you are probably right but I don't want to hear it

At 5'3" and 11 stone I have worn size 8s from Peacocks (combat trousers) and M&S (pencil skirt). When my mother was 5'" and 8 stone 10lb in the 1970's she was always a size 14.

I live in the arse end of nowhere, I don't have the biggest selection of shops around so I order a lot online and find the mad sizing very frustrating

I thought I was around a size 10, I'm slim but bits are starting to head south and wobble and my stomach isn't what it used to be, but I'm now in 8s, sometimes 6. I'm no smaller, if anything I'm a bit heavier and my waist is certainly bigger now

The exception being H&M and their sizing isn't even standard across single items of clothing, let alone across the store - I tried on some trousers in there the other day, I tried an 8 and a 10, the 8 was actually bigger than the 10

Higgle, your mum was the same height and weight as my mum in the 70's, she was a size 14 too back then. Now she's a size 10, even though she's a bit heavier!

Vanity sizing is ridiculous. I'm 5'2, 9st 11, yet in most shops I'm a size 10.

I was last a size 10 approx 15years ago, and was 8st.

Yanbu! I'm 26 and ten years ago I wore a size 8 trousers, I'm still the same size I was back then but now I wear a 6, there are shops I can't actually shop in because their clothes don't go small enough and some size sixes are falling off me. I measure 36, 23, 34 so I don't think I'm freakishly small.

YANBU. I wear a size 10 but am bigger than I am when I was a size 10 years ago. MIL gave me a fitted blouse which she got from M&S in the 90s which is a size 14 and it just about fits me.

I think it's becoming much more the norm, and therefore socially acceptable, to be fat, and the changing sizes reflect that. It certainly isn't a good thing, and I say that as someone who's been fat and in denial about my size and the need to do something about it.

I agree with you OP. Having recently done some de-cluttering of my Mum's clothing, she had skirts spanning decades. She has been ill over the last few years and come down from a size 18 to a present day size 12. Some of the size 12 clothes that she had in her wardrobe from M&S years ago wouldn't go anywhere near her (or me - I'm a 12 too) now.

When I was a size 12 as a teenager I suspect that my waist size was considerably smaller that it is now at almost 50 49 and having had 2 children.

Clothes retailers are indeed guilty of 'vanity sizing' and partly therefore to blame for the current obesity epidemic IMO prepares to get flamed