To think vanity sizing is not just about people being fatter

[goddessoftheharvest]

Not really a taat- I've been thinking about this every time it pops up on MN

Any thread about weight, there's always comments about how vintage size 12s were tiny, and the equivalent today would be a size 16. This serves to point out how people are getting gradually fatter without really noticing.

Aibu to think that might be a bit simplistic?

People nowadays have access to almost unlimited junk, yes, but they also have access to affordable vitamins, milk etc

My great granny was tiny, but she was raised on bread and tea in a slum with 8 siblings, two of them had rickets, and she was riddled with arthritis from a relatively young age

My gran (her daughter) had a marginally better upbringing, but not much- less children, better housing, more to go round, but still a restricted diet, no heating etc. She is a little taller than my great granny, about 5'3. Much healthier too, as she has had access to better food and living conditions from young adulthood

My mum is 5'4, and although she's still small, she's not as noticeably tiny as the other women in the family. Was still very poor through her childhood at times

I have had access to better food and housing etc than any of them, and I am much bigger. I am 5'6 and even at 7 stone I couldn't fit into some of my mum's clothes because my shoulders are so broad

My dad's family were poor, but they were country people. They got fresh air, sunlight, grew their own vegetables, liberated the occasional pheasant. Anecdotally they all seemed a bit taller/longer lived than the town lot

Also I see loads of old photos where the women are short, but quite round/stocky. So not necessarily fat, but not sylph like size 8 either

So aibu to think it's probably down to better nutrition and lifestyle as well? I see similar with friends my age too. We are all taller than our older female relatives. One of my friends is a power lifter and she would never fit into vintage clothes, but she is super healthy and just pure muscle- that would have been unusual back then too

*Except this is EXACTLY vanity sizing

There are still plenty of slim women around without fat tummies who now struggle to buy trousers!

If they were just adapting to the increasing numbers of larger fatter people, they would have just made more larger sizes than previously

except no-one wants to discover they are a size 26, 30, 40*

No, this is not vanity sizing. Contrary to your claim, manufacturers are not increasing sizes so that consumers can pretend they are slimmer than they are. This is adapting sizes to the new normal and nothing to do with flattering people. Just like beds, housing and everything else made to fit people. Of course sizing has to change as people do. Should we be using surviving 500 year old patterns?

I shared a couple of links a couple of pages back, take a look. Definitely have a nose around Fashion Incubator. The author, a pattern cutter with nigh on 40 years of experience, writes about this at length. She also writes about how fit has gone into the toilet for everyone, not just slim or plus sized people, and why this is. (How many people do you know, of any size, who find it easy to get clothes that fit perfectly? And given the huge variation among individuals, and the demand for inexpensive, mass produced clothing, how reasonable is it to walk into a major chain store and expect everything to fit as if it were custom?)

And she also writes a lot about plus sizes, to answer your comment on extended size runs. Though going on personal experience, I think size runs have extended significantly in recent years. I am sure that in the 90s it was common for standard stores not to go past size 16, but nowadays it seems easy to get up to size 22 even in stores that are not specifically for plus sizes.

For some reason, many people seem to think wearing clothes makes them an expert on sizing, pricing, designing, manufacturing and selling them. Even though nobody thinks they are a mechanic just because they drive a car.

Clothes sizes are all just bollocks

Health wise
the waist / height ratio
adjuted BMI
are the key

size number is so variable (I am anything between 6 and 12) that its utterly meaningless

then again men;'s waist sizes ALL fail the tape measure test

then again men;'s waist sizes ALL fail the tape measure test

Very true, Talkin. I bought DH some jeans in Sainsburys recently. He's a 28" waist, so I bought a 28 - they barely stayed up. I thought a 28 was a 28 everywhere, but I was wrong!

Clothes sizes are all just bollocks

I have to agree. As I said earlier, taking from the fascinating Fashion Incubator blog, sizing is based around a retailer's target customer, who will differ from store to store (younger people tend to be thinner, as do richer people, for example). The medium size in any run will be based on the average target consumer and the sizes up and down are graded from that. The numbers themselves are a throwback to old scaling methods for pattern cutters based around the medium. We have got bigger overall, therefore the medium is bigger and everything is scaled from that. It's absolutely nothing to do with flattering consumers. If that were true, clothes for body conscious, weight obsessed teenage girls would come up massive. I'm a standard 12 in most places and I can't fit my fat bum into anything from Miss Selfridge or River Island. Why should I? I'm not their customer.

I'm aware that 40 years ago, or more recently, I'd have worn a size with a bigger number. I frequently do, since I wear a lot of vintage style clothing that is sized to old standards (for no reason that I can discern; the stuff was made a few months ago for a modern market. It's irritating in the extreme having to go to a completely different sizing system, especially when buying online. And if vanity sizing exists, why do vintage retailers pull this shit?). I really don't care. I don't give a toss what the number on the label says, as long as it fits and flatters.

And fit is shite for everyone. I've been a size 10 and a size 16 and fitting was always crap. I am tall but with short legs, my waist to hip ratio is unusual. Why would I be surprised that trousers are short or have gaping waists? It's annoying but it makes perfect sense given my shape. That's why I get most things made now. It's not as expensive as you might think.

Bah, I meant, if trousers are long.

Totally agree pleba..... If i buy a blouse from Peacocks its a size 18 because im a 32HH. But the room in the back of it is ridiculous and the sleeves are too big for my arms as well.

Here's the bonkers sizing thing I found
Asos dress from their standard range, size 14 and fits me perfectly
Asos dress from their curve range (I thought it may come up a little bigger in size?) - I had to send it back, as I needed a size 22
WTAF?!
(The blue is a 14, the spotty a 22)

hollinhurst

We need a face palm emoticon.

I wouldn't mind but both fit me perfectly

That is indeed madness. It probably comes from the fact that the Curve manufacturers likely have nothing to do with the standard size lines (just the same retailer), as plus size lines are basically an entirely different business (it's hard just to scale up existing lines because there comes a point where you need a size break and all new patterns, fit models etc, otherwise you are sizing for giants, not plus sized people with normal heights and limb lengths. One reason why plus sizes often cost more.). Perhaps the Curve producers have severely misunderstood their market. They wouldn't be the first or last. Fit is crap everywhere.

I have a different problem with dd's clothes, especially jeans or trousers. She has a 36" inside leg and is a size 4, sometimes a UK size 2, if you could get a proper size 2 in trousers. All extra small size trousers are made for people who are around the 5ft 2". Apparently not doing smaller sizes is to stop promoting anorexin but surely they by there own logic should stop producing larger sizes to stop obesity

I don't think clothing manufacturers in general are on a moral crusade to police anorexia or obesity, the odd mad upmarket designer aside. Most of them are in it to make money and there is a demand for inexpensive, mass produced clothing. (Everyone says they'd rather pay more to own fewer items of higher quality but the huge success of fast fashion suggests otherwise.) The further you deviate from the average, the harder it will be to find a good fit. Your daughter is clearly much taller and slimmer than most people, so it's not surprising that she has that problem. Most people that slim would be shorter. It's frustrating for her but it's not personal.

I agree Sheba. The further one deviates from a particular manufacturer's normal customer, the worse the fit will be. It doesn't matter if you are fatter, thinner, taller, shorter, or just an unusual waist to hip/bust ratio. There is no moral heirarchy about it.

Statistically most women are pear shaped, and if you look at traditional patterns, they are designed for women with hips 2" bigger than their full bust measurement and a waist measurement 10" smaller than their hips.

Statistically women are less curvy now on average (that is, waists have thickened.) Most ready to wear is fixed accordingly. Women who still have hips 10" greater than their hips moan about not being able to buy trousers that fit. They aren't the norm anymore, at all size points and patterns have changed accordingly.

Greater than their waists that is!

That's why I struggle with dresses - my bust is maybe 4 inches bigger than my hips but I'm a definite 11 inches different between waist and hips
I have to buy to fit my bust and shoulders then get about 8 inches taken in at the waist and 4 at the hips!

Sounds like you have an amazing figure hollinghurst.

I think having clothes altered is all you can do, if you don't want everything to be made out of stretch fabric.

Women with very full busts, but small frames have a nightmare getting jackets to fit. If the jacket fits the shoulders, then it won't bottom over the chest. If it fits the chest, it looks swamps them I the shoulders. Getting the shoulders to fit is crucial, and s very difficult alteration to make.

I'm quite broad, big shoulders too
This sort of shows my figure, I'm all boobs

Oliversmummy
This shop may be what you need
www.longtallsally.com/tall-essentials/c
They used to have a shop in Winchester

Elly i have that problem. Big boobs but small shoulders and slim arms and a small waist I can get into fitted size 12 skirts. But a blouse has to be an 18 or wont do up over my bust. Im then left with the blouse being too big on the arms shoulders and around the back.

I may have to buy another black blouse soon.

Try Pepperberry.

Hollin you look great.

Too bad you don't see. Some comments were made up thread about seeing being for "fat" people who want to delude themselves, but almost no one USA perfectly standard size, especially as we age.

If you were sewing a shirt, you would choose the size that would fit your shoulders (usually measuring your high bust rather than full bust) and then do a full bust adjustment. Or just get a pattern with cup sizes. For example:

voguepatterns.mccall.com/v8689

Wearing clothes that fit well can make you look a stone slimmer.

See = sew
Seeing= sewing

USA = is a

Good grief! I'm no good on a phone.

I run a business selling 'plus size' vintage clothing, starting from approximately a modern size 14 (bust 40") upwards. Any vintage lover will tell you it's extremely difficult to find really nice clothes in these sizes. I actually can't keep up with demand, and about half of my sales are to customers in the USA and Australia. Most of my sales are in modern sizes 16-20.

I sell my clothes based on their actual measurements and ignore any existing size labels. It is completely true to say that people are taller and broader with larger hands and feet than they were even 30 years ago, although we are fatter as well. Sometimes I will 'size down' a dress because although the bust measurement is 44" (modern size 18) the waist is only 32" (modern size 14) , or the shoulder width is only 13". Sleeves and cuffs and collars are often very tight.

So much of the fit of clothing depends on the underpinnings too. Women routinely wore corsets until the 1960s, when panti-girdles became fashionable. Tights instead of stockings and suspender-belts change the line and look of clothing.

Something which is undeniable about plus-size vintage clothing is that before the 1980s, these ranges were almost exclusively designed for older women - I have a collection of relevant vintage brochures and clothing catalogues, mostly featuring stout-but-soignee 40-50-something models. A poster commented upthread that weight gain used to be associated with ageing and this is certainly borne out by my experience in sourcing my stock.

And boy, did big girls SUFFER back then! So many of the clothes in large sizes were just indescribably vile. Polyester sacks in sludgy colours with dreary patterns and nasty little 'features' (I LOATHE pussycat bows) to draw attention away from what's underneath. A lot of my nicest stock is bespoke or handmade - larger ladies would simply get something made up in the latest styles, because it would be impossible to find anything really fashionable off the peg. And of course most women knew how to make clothes back then - I had compulsory needlework lessons at school for 3 years even in the 1970s!