To think that vanity sizing has gotten ridiculous?

[Namila]

I recently bought a beautiful, vintage, evening gown for a formal event. The dress is from the '80s. When I saw the dress on the rack (a unique piece since it was second hand) and the label read "size 10", I was disappointed as usually size 10 is way too big for me.

I thought I would still try it on, thinking that perhaps a tailor could work on it and make it fit properly. Imagine my surprise when I realized that not only it was not too big, it was nearly too tight!!

When I shop in "modern" stores I need to buy an 8, and sometimes even a 6. I'd normally swim in a 10! I am short and petite, but definitely not extremely skinny.

AIBU to think that this vanity sizing thing has gotten a bit crazy and the current sizes have nothing to do with the way sizes were even just a couple of decades ago?

There is no such thing as vanity sizing.

I have been a size 8-10 all my life. I don't think that sizes have changed (my weight hasn't). However, it's true that a size 10 in M&S is very different to a size 10 in H&M, for example. I just stick with the latter.

You only have to look at the back of a sewing pattern packet to see how far shop sizing has drifted form tailor's sizing.

Pattern sizes haven't changed, although they have made adjustments for modern height ,arm sizing etc and the lack of corsetry; but the overall bust-waist-hip ratios haven't changed and unless you shop somewhere very traditional your off-the-peg size won't be your pattern/tailor-made size.

your off-the-peg size won't be your pattern/tailor-made size.

Quite. There's no reason it should be. If clothes are mass produced and relatively inexpensive, why do so many people (not you, Gerda) think that everything should fit them specifically as if it were tailor made?

This is why I hope they never do standardise sizes. I find it very difficult to find clothes that fit well, but I've found a few stores that obviously profile their customers to a shape like mine...so I can usually find what I need there. If sizes and cuts are standardised across the board, I won't be able to find anything anywhere. I need some wiggle room and so do women who are a similar size to me, but not a similar shape.

Interesting article
www.cornwalllive.com/news/cornwall-news/nspcc-body-perfect-girls-childline-576192

From the article I quoted earlier, relevant to the OP:

"Some people drag out vintage samples of old clothing as proof of vanity sizing too but I can’t see that proves anything except that consumers have gotten fatter but I don’t think consumers have gotten quite as fat as some people claim either based on their reference of comparison. Then as now, women have hoarded keep-sake garments. These are usually wedding gowns or fine dresses that one wore in their youth or peak of life and while I’m not saying we weren’t smaller in the past, I am saying that the garments that managed to survive the era were not representative of the population then anymore than the too-small keepsake garments are representative of women today."

I do think it is a bit delusional here - to some extent everyone feels that if they can get into the "good" sizes, then they're OK. Even though they might actually have a weight problem.

Also, people compare everyone relative to the average - so I have overweight women at work telling me I'm too thin and I need to put on weight, despite my BMI being 20 (healthy) and the fact that in China I'm positively chubby. Yes, I think people can delude themselves by looking at other very large people and thinking "It's OK, at least I'm not as big as that!" even though they may be overweight. I honestly feel less fat when I come back to England from a holiday abroad in a country where people are slimmer.

YADNBU, but manufacturers have been doing this for a couple of decades now & so it isn't going to change. I used to work with high st manufacturers & it could change by the season, it used to do my head in.

It's nothing new though. I collect vintage patterns. In the 1940s I would have been a size 22. I'm a size 12, often 10 in more expensive labels. No point in letting it wind you up, it's not going o change any time soon

So why not just make the clothes and call them the size they are.

If you make a skirt with a 22" waist then it should be a size 10. Then if people need a skirt with a 30" waist they buy a size 16 or a 38" waist they buy a size 24 etc

I think manufacturers are missing out on profits long term. If people thought they were actually a size 22 they would probably slim down and in the long term the manufacturers would be using less material so would make more profit.

Dd towers above me and is an old size 8/10 . She is slim not anorexic.

Yes people have got taller but just because you are taller doesn't mean that you are wider.
At school.I had parents call their children willowy because they were tall. They reasoned that as they were taller they would carry an extra stone for every inch over 5ft 2".

Dd weighs 5lb more than I did at her age. Dd is 5" taller

I want to stand up and applaud all the people on this thread (Portia, Helena et al) who have had, and dealt with, REAL issues with their size. And not the moaning minnies who think we could all be perfect if only we all tried a bit harder.

you shop somewhere very traditional your off-the-peg size won't be your pattern/tailor-made size.

We'd be screwed if they were. The thing about clothes pattern sizing, is that they are produced in the expectation that only someone who can sew, and sew well, is going to be using it. This capable Someone has the skills to say, "Hmmm, the measurements for size X are nearly a good fit, but Rhonda's a bit bustier than that so I'll add some fabric on the front panel" or "Cripes, Harley has narrow hips, that will swamp her. I'll change that".

The point is, tailoring sizes haven't drifted because they didn't need to. The middle(wo)man doing the sewing does that! And always has done.

On the other hand, High Street clothing on the rail has to fit as many potential customers as possible, without alteration, and is designed accordingly.

I'm sure if you compare yourself to the dresses from the 1600s at the Costume Museum in Bath you can castigate yourself for being a modern 'wobbly' size 6 til the cows come home (size 22 in very old money obvs).

Apparently not sleeping 8 hours a night could be causing dementia. I always get my 8 hours really easily (tinkly laugh) and I'm sure if other people just went to bed a bit earlier they'd be able to too. It's a dementia ticking timebomb for the NHS and people just need to take some responsibility. It's really simple and there are no other reasons other than being wilfully ignorant and lazy that stop other people from getting enough sleep. If you haven't ensured you've got 8 hours sleep a night regardless of anything else that is going on in your life you should have other people shame you about what a drain you will be on the public purse...

I think manufacturers are missing out on profits long term. If people thought they were actually a size 22 they would probably slim down and in the long term the manufacturers would be using less material so would make more profit.

Oh good God. Costing for mass produced clothing is a hugely complex issue that relies on many factors, several of which are constantly shifting. It is really not this simple!

Clothing seems to be a unique industry. Nobody thinks they are a mechanic because they drive a car and nobody thinks that car makers assign value judgements to the sizes of their tyres. Yet everyone is a clothing expert because they wear clothes!

Chin up. Everyone thinks they're a teacher because they went to school, too.

I bet!

And I'll add...not only will using higher size numbers not make profits for manufacturers who can then 'use less fabric', it also won't make people slimmer. As we've seen from personal accounts here, shaming people doesn't make them slim.

If all it took to make people thin was enough shame and self hatred, there'd be no overweight people.

I do have an issue with Ta1kinPeece's repeated reliance on the concept of an "average" - stating that 50% of the women who are below average height and a size 14 will be unhealthy is probably fairly defensible, in most cases. But what about the other 50% who are over the average height and a size 14, but dismissed in subsequent posts where all size 14s are blamed for the demise of the NHS? Not to mention all the research which suggests being at the top end of the healthy BMI (where many, but not all, size 14s will sit) range is actually protective against various health conditions... Counter-intuitive, but science often is.

I'd also suggest it's disgraceful and naive to dismiss Portia's comments about anorexia and associated conditions because "on average" we are spiraling towards obesity. This is a concern, certainly, however, it is of equal, or greater concern, if there is a significant proportion of the population who are on the extremes of the other end of the scale. Any effort to shame or berate people at one end of the scale, which risks causing a polarisation to the opposite end of the scale is dangerous and unhelpful. It amazes me that someone who obviously dwells on this issue a lot hasn't considered this. The average is not the only measure of data - you need to know how equally the data is spread around the average, before you dismiss concerns about the other end of the spectrum.

To benefit the NHS, in economic terms, we don't need the population to be thinner - we need the population to be following a healthy diet and exercising appropriately. Whilst personal responsibility is a part of this, there are many influencing factors which are beyond personal control - for example, exercise inequality is something which can be tackled at the town planning level, to facilitate healthier lifestyles which don't require significant economic input from those who can't afford it. It's a huge and complicated issue, and I'd put money on rebranding clothing sizes to their 80s idyll having very limited impact on the global obesity crisis.

If you make a skirt with a 22" waist then it should be a size 10. Then if people need a skirt with a 30" waist they buy a size 16 or a 38" waist they buy a size 24 etc

Why would you do that when a 22 inch waist (around what is expected of a healthy 7 year old girl, not an adult woman) has never been a size 10? How many people do you think can naturally diet down to a 22 inch waist without dying? Why would you want to do that?

Also, the average height has shot up. It used to be 5'3'' back in the 1950s that you love so much. I am 4 inches taller than that, so I would naturally weigh at least a stone more than an average healthy weight woman 4 inches shorter. And lo and behold, I might have a waist larger than a 7 year old child.

So much stupidity on one thread. Loved the one about the sleep though. Just get your 8 hours you lazy shits- you have no excuse not to. Might have a nap in a bit- yes I work from home so I can do that but you all know you could sleep if you wanted to. Won't somebody think of the NHS.

Of course clothing sizes have changes since the 1960/70s because people have changed. But I have no experience of it being as extreme as mn seem to claim. A lot of people focus on the waist size as if thats the only part of their body that clothes have to fit, in general the waist size of clothes has increased but the hip and bust measurements not so much, so clothes are basically more straight. There is also more Lycra in clothes so we can stretch them over parts that previously we couldn't, meaning we can go down a size to fit the smallest part of our body rather than the largest.
Marylyn Munroe had a 36inch bust, with no lycra she would be a size 12/14 today because it would have to fit over her bust, her waist is really irrelevent because the clothes still have to fit over her boobs. With Lycra etc. She could probably go down to an 8 because the clothes can now stretch over her bust.
In the last 20yrs tbh I haven't seen much change, I can wear my mums size 10 clothes from the 90s and 00s and I am a size 10. My mum weighs 81/2 stone and has done since she was in her 20s and has worn a size 10 with the odd discrepancy since the 80s, she always said she was a 14 as a teenager in the 70s but she weighed about a stone more, so i would say about a size smaller? But that was almost 50 years ago and if sizes cant change in half a century we would have a problem

Dd towers above me and is an old size 8/10 . She is slim not anorexic

How would you know? Sizes stopped being standardised in the 1980s. Have you made her try on 40 year old clothes just to make double sure? Because obviously if she was tall and a size 8-10 in current sizes, she would be an elephant, right?

One of the reasons waist sizes on clothes are bigger while hip and bust sizes havent changed much is because wearing some form of corsetry was still quite normal until relatively recently

Waist sizes have changed the most because that is where people gain excess fat. I'm 52, and the changes in clothes sizes from my 20's and 30's to now are huge - 6 inches or more in waistbands.
I would like to see clothing labelled with accurate waist and chest and ideally hip measurements, similar to some childrens brands. It would take away the guess work, and perhaps, make people realise that they are not necessarily fine/healthy just because they fit a particular dress size which is gradually expanding to accommodate them.

Waist sizes have changed the most because that is where people gain excess fat.

Blanket statement.

Actually, that is where some people gain excess fat. I myself have an acceptable waist and thighs that would adequately serve a small hippo.

Blanket statement??
really, how ignorant clothes manufacturers must be if they were making 12's with a 26in waist in the 70's to early 90's, and are turning out the "same" size with 32-34 in waists today.

Can't imagine why they are doing it!

Waist sizes have changed the most because that is where people gain excess fat

Agree with the pp that this is generalising. Actually, men tend to gain on their bellies. Women, especially younger women tend to gain on hips and thighs. The reason waist measurements have gone up has a lot to do with women no longer wearing corsets or girdles. Oh and having adequate nourishment with no rations and being several inches taller.