To not understand why (and be against) “improved sizing”

[SchrodingersMeowth]

So, I don’t know if this is just in Primark or everywhere will be taking it on but I’m a bit shocked that the sizing for clothes is being re-marked. For example a 10-12 which was previously medium will now be small, 8-10 XS etc.

This feels like an excuse to ignore true sizing and doesn’t seem healthy! Tbh it reminds me of the people who try to push the “Marilyn monroe was a size 16 and perfectly healthy”. But she wasn’t was she, not a size 16 now anyway!!!

I feel like sizing is already generous and changing it to make people appear even smaller when they haven’t changed isn’t good for accountability for the fact that obesity is an ever growing crisis.

I don’t agree that my “new” size reflects my actual size and I’m sure this is going to be the same for many people.

I just don’t see what the point was in doing it!

I just wish there would be standard sizing in every shop so a size ten is a size ten. I hate having to try things on. Like others have said a size 8 in one shop is a 14 in another.

Another one here who is size 10 at M&S and size 14 at Next🙄.

So, having noticed that I don’t know what the bloody hell size I am anymore, I have decided to use my BMI chart instead, and I haven’t looked back since!

Tectonic makes me chuckle as I have the opposite feeling when trying to buy clothes! So frustrating that every top expects me to have a bigger bust and all trousers expect me to have 'womanly hips'. I guess they don't please anyone!

I decided, not* have decided.

Children’s clothes are the same my bang on adverage 50th centile children need elasticated waisted trousers as their ages are way to big and will just fall down length ways they need their ages but waist wise they need a good year or two lower down. My sils nearly year old is still in 3-6 but his not a tiny baby his again normal size etc according to his red book.

Argh, didn’t work.

“I decided to use my BMI chart” that should have said. It’s the official NHS UK BMI chart.

So I use my actual weight instead of my (whatever it is)size.

typicallynorthern but they're not, the number is arbitrary. They are telling you you fit these jeans, you are a size 8. A size 8 might mean something different now to what it meant 50 years ago but the 8 is literally a completely random number.

I always find on MN that there are hundreds of women who are a 4-6, I am 23 and have lots of slim friends and they are all 8-10. Bmis of 18-20 probably. I am a size 10, bmi 21. Literally the only person I know who is a size 4 is my v. Small housemate, as I said I am a perfectly healthy weight but no chance of fitting into her clothes. A size 4 is still pretty small, i know literally no one who is smaller than a size 4 apart from maybe anther anorexic friend. I think people in general are just getting taller and bigger, obviously as a population we are getting fatter but none of my friends are overweight and most of them are 8-10 because we are all 5'6-5'10. If you are 5'8ish then your bone structure is going to be such that you might never get below an 8.

I really only shop in Primark and if I was to wake up tomorrow a size 18 I’d be confident that I’d be able to go and buy some clothes. At least at our primarks, lots and lots of the bigger sizes and a total lack of anything under a 14 in just about anything.

I think Primark probably isn't a good indication of what is available on the UK high street. I'm a size 18-20 and I would love to buy some of the cute tops in Primark but whenever I've tried them on they either really short or really tight or drown me. I sometimes wonder if they just sew in the sizing label they fancy at the time! My experience is the opposite of yours - I only ever see size 8's and 10's in Primark!

I'm a size 14 in all shops. Must be some kind of freak of nature.

Maybe the rally slim then could, once they realise that there are no longer any clothes left which are small enough take themselves in hand and eat extra portions of battered sausage.

Fortunately, there are still shops originating in countries where obesity isn't the statistical standard as it's in the UK. And it doesn't have to be Chinese online shops as they normally send low quality knock-offs of European brands.
Sorry Madge, but your posts made me laugh. The OP raised a valid point where she says that there is a rather disconcerting trend to adjust the clothes sizes to the increasing waistlines of the customers to create the "feel good" factor where someone who would otherwise have been an M suddenly find themselves an XS. Trivial as it may sound, this could indeed push the availability of small sizes down as shops prefer to cater for the statistical average rather than marginal groups (I am a shoe size 2 so when I'm looking for high heels, I am pretty much screwed), however, what's even more worrying, it normalises obesity. And that's a great win for the food industry who, of course, want you to eat more and more and have this snack and the other snack because surely, you deserved it but it's a loss for the health of the people as obesity causes lots of health issues (diabetes B, joint problems etc.).
I know it's easy to sit in the corner and scream discrimination and be embarrassingly sarcastic about people with lower clothes sizes instead of recognising that rebranding of sizes is a marketing strategy to make people feel good about themselves and buy more clothes because surely, now they are size 8, it's all good and normal.

I agree with the op. It's just vanity sizing. A 12 today bears no resemblance to the 12 of 30 years ago.
The same is happening with bra sizing. All this 'oh I'm a 30FF not a 36C' or whatever is just vanity sizing by the manufacturer.
I'll stick with the old fashioned measurements for as long as possible - Debenhams and M&S it is for me!

"The same is happening with bra sizing. All this 'oh I'm a 30FF not a 36C' or whatever is just vanity sizing by the manufacturer."

That's not quite the same! That's a different way of measuring, which, but the sister size of a 36C would be a 30DD (both have the same volume). The manufacturers have not altered the actual sizing - sometimes different styles fit differently, and there might be tiny differences between manufacturers, but a 36C is still a 36C.

Do read the many bra intervention threads if you want more info on this, or this blog (on the MN network). It's how to measure without adding four inches to your ribcage (you don't add 4 inches to your waist, do you?) and then making the changes to cup size so the volume is the same.

thebetterbracampaign.blogspot.com/p/fitting-advice.html

I have read just about every thread there is. The only thing that has happened is the back size has gone down 4" and the cup size up two letters. Everything else remains the same. M&S and Debenhams still fit perfectly under the old system.
It is pure vanity sizing.
And my bust is not a size 30, it's a 34 so to call it 30anything is just weird.

If you measure 34, then of course you're a 34!!

And yes, the M&S approach does produce bras which 'fit' and if you like a looser band than you need (and therefore shallower cups) then that's your choice. What I think of as the 'Rigby and Peller' way (how I was fitted back int he 1980s) acknowledged that the support of a bra comes from a snugly fitting band, and then the different cup size to produce a different kind of support in a sister size which is -the same size but differently proportioned-

It's not a recent change. It has, to my direct experience been around for over 30 years. In exactly th same form and with no change to the sizes as they are labelled. A 36C is still a 36C, just as a 30DD is still a 30DD, whichever one you choose.

They have not given a 36C bra a different size (e.g. maybe a size/shape of 36B relabelled) which is what happens with vanity sizing, where an XS might have been a chest 32, but is now chest 35.

The same is happening with bra sizing. All this 'oh I'm a 30FF not a 36C' or whatever is just vanity sizing by the manufacturer.

But it's not really. The bulk of shops just sell 32A-D to 38A-D and for those of us who don't fit into that set of sizes you end up wearing bras that don't fit or paying more to go to a specialist shop to find something that does fit and is comfortable. And a 30FF is not equivalent to a 36C, it has the same cup volume as a 36D but with a different ratio of back to boob.

After a period of losing weight recently, I'm now the exact same size and weight I was 15 years ago. Then, I was a comfortable 16 and couldn't get a 14 done up. Now, I can easily fit into a 14.
Re: height, I'm 5'8" and often find trousers way too long! Who the hell is wearing them, as there are fewer women taller than me than shorter.

The same is happening with bra sizing. All this 'oh I'm a 30FF not a 36C' or whatever is just vanity sizing by the manufacturer.

Actually this is the opposite of vanity sizing. Vanity sizing just uses an arbitrary number to has no real meaning to make you feel smaller - the new, more popular bra sizings (which high end specialist stores have been doing for years) recommends bras that fit snugly (your actual size) to you have the correct support.

I certainly no longer have backaches since my fitting has changed to the right size and I’m properly supported for exercise in a way I wasn’t when places like M&S fit me in the past.

I'm a size 8/10 in today's sizing.
I recently found a couple of pairs of jeans 20+ years old when clearing out the loft. One was an 8 and one a 10. Couldn't get the 8 over my hips and if I fastened the button on the 10 I couldn't breathe.
I would imagine I would need what would have been a size 14 in those jeans now.
I don't think vanity sizing has done us any favours tbh.

The same is happening with bra sizing. All this 'oh I'm a 30FF not a 36C' or whatever is just vanity sizing by the manufacturer.
No, it isn’t. I’d rather be a 36C than a 30G, because I’d have a chance of finding a pretty cheap bra in every shop.

Tbh it reminds me of the people who try to push the “Marilyn monroe was a size 16 and perfectly healthy”. But she wasn’t was she, not a size 16 now anyway!!!

I went to an exhibition of Marilyn Monroe paraphernalia a couple of year ago and it had some of the dresses she wore on screen. She was tiny. I reckoned a size 10 of the kind I was in the 80s, i.e. real size 10. I had a look round the back of the costumes and they hadn't been pinned.

Okay, definitely don’t agree with the bra sizing! I came from a 34HH and definitely measured right! Confirmed in bravissimo and Debenhams. I’m no longer anywhere near that size and the only think I’ve noticed is that an A and B sports bras I have come across have been more what I’d have though a C or D to be. Apart from that I think bras are pretty much as they’ve always been.

I’ve found a shop that is cheap and everything seems to be sized properly hurrah! It seems to be European though and has taken the place of what was an H&M.

Yeah, I just find it hard to grasp that the smaller sizes are going to keep being pushed down for larger sizes (at least where I am). People might think I’m being judgy but I’m not, just pissed off with my own personal situation in being able (or not) to find appropriately fitting clothes.

Had to step away from the thread for a bit as even I was starting to think I was being unreasonable but no, I don’t think so.

So. Both of my children have had their weight flagged as an issue, the older one has lost the weight and the younger one is losing it but what is the point in being pushed towards being a healthy weight and then essentially forgotten about in the future because you’re outsized but actually, you’re the size the nhs tells you you should be, or if you’re smaller then I know putting weight on can also be an issue. And no, slimmer people shouldn’t have to be eating more to make themselves overweight in order to fit in bigger clothes and I don’t think suggestions of using the kids section is that great either, it’s pretty embarrassing! Although is cheaper and is an option it shouldn’t be expected.

If you are 5'8ish then your bone structure is going to be such that you might never get below an 8.
It is also possible to be short without being slightly built. I am 5ft 2in and definitely sturdy. Big hands and feet, wide shoulders, long muscly legs. BMI 23.5. My dress size varies from shop to shop between 8 10 and 12 but never have to go outside that range.

Another vote here for don’t care what they call sizes, as long as there is consistency between all the stores. Would also make online clothes shopping massively easier!

So is 6-8 xxs or just doesn't exist? Because that wipes out a whole shop for me then

Queen isn't it better to try stuff on when you are going past anyway and check? Also, they are known for having fit vary drastically bwithin sizes, so it may still be the case.

The bra sizing stuff seemed to explain a lot to me about my confusion in my teens of being a 34A who clearly wasn't flat or bee-sting, same as my mum. When I much later realised that I would have been a 24 or 26 DD+ (sizes which still are hardly made) that made sense of it. A lot of women and girls of different sizes were probably wearing 34As back then because that was the smallest that was available in many shops, and using different styles to get a slightly better fit. 32s were only available in twee pastel teen ranges and plain white 'first bras' so I just went straight for the 34 adults ones where you could get something cream that wouldn't look grubby after a few washes without being 'ooh, she's wearing a black bra' when changing for PE. I viewed 32 as an embarrassing sort of kids size I didn't want to wear if I could fit the adult ones.

It would be great if clothing sizes could be regulated like weights and measures, but even if done according to the measurements of the clothes themselves, which would be the best way to achieve exactitude, the different stretchiness of the fabrics would make it impossible.