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?

I'm sorry but who just assumed clothes would fit, even before this size inflation?! Even as a young teen I would try on several pairs of jeans to get the right fit. And you want to see how a dress hangs etc. The idea that, because you are a certain measurement at 2 or 3 specfic points on your body, you're going to fit a certain mould perfectly is bollocks. That may be roughly true for men's clothes, but women's clothes tend to fit more closely.

Is it really that arduous to pick up the 8 and the 12 as well as the 10 if you're already going to the changing room??

in answer to the question about what people wear who are definitely a size 8.

Dd wears my old 80s size 8 plus she is fortunate that dp goes to the US a few times per year so she orders on line and he collects.

Try getting pair of size 2 jeans with a 36" inside leg. Apparently they don't sell them in the Uk as it promotes anorexia.

Oliversmummy

I don't know about jeans with a 36 leg but asos do a UK size 2. It's slightly too small for me (arse doesn't fit) but I imagine when I was about 14/15 it would have been a good fit.

Interesting thread! To those who are saying that sizes haven't changed, I offer you proof that they have! I was helping my mum clear out her wardrobe recently and came across some M&S clothes that she's had for ages. I looked at the labels and, as with all St Michael (the previous brand name of M&S clothes) items, the body measurements are on the label.
The labels speak for themselves. There is a size 12 that says bust 34" and another size 12 from a few years later that is bust 35". Both are smaller than today's size 12 of 36.5". There is a size 16 that is labelled "to fit waist 30, hips 41". In comparison, today's size 16 is waist 34" and hips 43.25".

Here they are!

@Papafran "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?"

I beg to differ! As a teenager, I wore size 10 clothes in the 70s and they were definitely for a waist of 22 inches. The dress I wore to my sister's wedding in the 70s when I was 18 was a size 10, with a 22" waist. My boyfriend used to be able to get his hands around my waist, i.e. he could touch his thumb and fingertips around my waist. Hard to believe that I was ever that slim, but I was! A size 10 was usually the smallest available size in most shops and commonly was measured as bust 32", waist 22", hips 34". Most people I knew back then were size 12 or 14 (waist 24" or 26") but to be a 10 was not especially unusual.

Years ago my friend and I visited a new shop in our local town centre that had set up to sell jeans at I think about £5 a pair. (Very cheap for those days)

Friend and I who were both size 10 (32" 22"34") picked up pairs of size 10s to try on. The assistant stopped us and said we actually needed ones labelled size 16.

Friend and I tried the size 10 jeans on and barely got them over our knees as we were leaving friend commented that there was no way she would wear anything that said it was a size 16.

That was vanity sizing in reverse and I know we were not the only ones who refused to buy a pair of jeans that were labelled 16 when they were actually a 10

More fool you, then. Who's going to see the label when you're wearing the jeans, and if the 16 fitted, so what?

oliversmummy
Long Tall Sally sell jeans that will fit your Dd

And yes, FU jeans in the late 70's were cut for waifs
Mine were size 10 and I was scrawny back then.

That was vanity sizing in reverse

No, it was customer profiling. Though at £5 a pop, it's likely that the jeans were just really shitty quality and badly researched and measured, which might explain the particularly small sizing.

I do agree, though, that if they had fitted and looked good you really shouldn't care about the number on the label, especially as we're pretty much all in agreement that it doesn't mean much. Your friend would have been the same size leaving the shop as entering it, whatever the number on her clothes said.

a 22 inch waist . . . has never been a size 10

Yes it has! That's what it is meant to be!

But I'd say this was set down in the 50s or 60s.

Even in the 70s, when I was 6½ stone and everyone said I had a tiny waist, my waist was 24" and I wore a 10 which was often too big. I remember I bought a skirt from Martin Ford (anyone remember them?) which was a "24 waist" and it was enormous. It was clearly a 12 and I should have bought the "22 waist" which would have been the 10 even though the waist wasn't 22" and neither was mine.

I finally did something about my weight when the size 14's wouldn't fasten and in reality due to vanity sizing that was probably more like a size 16/18 @ 5ft 4 and 12 stone. My waist was 38in.
TalkInPeace makes some very valid points, they may be hard to stomach but it's all true. If you're a size 14 you might think well that's ok, national average I'll stick with that.

Vanity sizing skews what is a healthy size.

But as has been pointed out many times there is no such thing as vanity sizing. There is just sizing that manufacturers use to reflect the national averages. If you want to say that the response to changes in national averages by moving the sizes up for manufacturing ease is wrong and it's this 'Average sizing' that is making people feel okay about putting on weight, then yes, that is a valid point. But insisting it's done for purely vanity purposes and repeatedly using word vanity is just wrong.

I honestly thought that it was a vanity thing. And, I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't lend encouragement to the retailers to do that.

Look at the stick H&M have gotten for their sizing recently!

I's not wrong, as manufacturers openly admitted they did it in the 1990s, and we have the legacy of that now. I think it has stabilised somewhat recently, but it's not pegged to any form of national average (periodically reevaluated) as it was before deregulation.

So yes, since vanity-sizing, the concept of what is slim/average/large has been undermined.

I'm sure it doesn't hurt sales of course. But it isn't the reason it's done. A happy side effect for them tho maybe.

Ginger im proud to be a 14. Down from a 28 And men certainly seem to like it from the compliments i get.

Im starting to think that the real motive behind comments like yours is the hope other women will get upset and rush to the biscuit tin thus "eliminating the competition"

Comments like this appear so often that im starting to think thats the real modus operandi behind it.

Oh Helena no! I honestly didn't mean that at all, no way do I think someone at a size 14 is any less attractive than someone who is a size 10.
I meant it from a health pov but didn't put it well
Sorry

Go Helena. Be proud of your achievement.

Re your modus operandi theory: I was particularly entertained by the following:

• "me and my handspan waist!" Reminiscent of Scarlett O'Hara, whose only boast was 'fiddle de dee, I've got the littlest waist in three counties'.

• "my tiny 22 inch waist! Fancy that, everybody!" I am a bit confused by this story. It begins in the 1970s, when the poster attended her sister's wedding as a teenager, the emphasis being on her age and the accompanying waist size associated with being a teenager, and continues at a time when £5 for a pair of jeans was considered cheap, presumably some years later, at which point the poster still had a 22 inch waist, as did her friend. Somewhat contradicting the first story.

• "me and my super slim tall daughter who is size 0 to 2!" Take that, fatties! Not only are you vain, deluded and overweight, you're OLD too. You're welcome!

• "me and my morbidly obese period, when I was bursting out of a size 14!" And that really means an 18 so sucks to you, perfectly attractive and healthy size 14s. You might think you look OK but you are heffalumps. You're welcome!

Why are people so touchy about this thread? I don't get it.

Yanbu OP.

Because it's misogynistic?

Because it's mean spirited?

Because certain posters have belittled, intentionally or otherwise, the experiences of a recovering anorexic and a lady who has lost ten stone?

Because it's needlessly insulting, using the pejorative term 'vanity' to describe the logical evolution of dress sizing?

Because fake concern for the nation's health is being used as an excuse to poke other women with a stick and jeer at them for being, in some posters' opinion, fat, deluded and a drain on the NHS?

Because it's being used as a vehicle for stealth boasting, in order to make other women feel bad?

Take your pick.

Note, I haven't said a word on this thread about my own dimensions. It's irrelevant. What I dislike is women using a subject like this to have a dig at other women. Sisterhood in action, eh?

Because it's full of posts that are wrong, hateful and boring.

I find it so frustrating. I currently have in my wardrobe 3 new pairs of jeans from Gap in a size 28" waist, 30" waist, and 32" waist and they all fit perfectly.

But I had to go through several sets of returns in order to get the right size FFS.

Actually Scarlet O'Hara could also boast being shit hot at mental arithmetic and running 3 very successful sawmills.

Yeah, that was after escaping from Atlanta, delivering Melanie's baby, nicking her sister's boyfriend, saying "as God is my witness, I'll never go hungry again!" and becoming a woman of substance!