To say vanity sizes should be rolled back?

[amoreoamicizia]

I bought some vintage St. Michael shorts this weekend in a size 12 which fitted me perfectly. In current sizes I'm an 8 or sometimes- incredibly- a 6 (looking at you, Boden).

As flattering as it is to think of myself as a size 8, it's simply not the truth or a reflection of reality. A small size 12 does seem about right, as that was my size as a slim-ish teenager in the 90s.

Who is this vanity sizing really helping? Who does it serve? Isn't it about time clothing manufacturers were held to account and forced to roll back sizes to what they were in the early 00s, at least?

You Ishtar notice from old clothes? Of course you would, unless you change all your clothes every month. I buy very few clothes. I know exactly what my size is doing as a result. I also weigh most weeks. What it’s doing at the moment is coming down, but the variation in sizes I have to buy is massive (and naturally I’m buying more than usual because the old ones are too big).

it’s possible for your weight to creep up and not know it because unless you weigh yourself - I don’t - you wouldn’t know from clothing sizes.

If you want to keep an eye on your weight, weighing yourself is exactly what you should be doing. It's silly to use one marker as a measure for something else. If it's size you're concerned about, use a tape measure.

Her whole skeleton will be bigger, both longer and broader. Her muscles will be bigger. Weight charts tend to allow 4lbs more for every inch in height. She is 10 inches taller than the shortest woman, therefore this would amount to 40 lbs. Clothes sizing is difficult. People have different shapes and clothes are cut to the average. Clothes size doesn’t necessarily reflect whether someone is overweight. The average is catered for, very petite, very tall, very hourglass tend to find buying clothes difficult

Yes this all makes sense - are you disagreeing with me somehow?

I misunderstood and thought you were saying that the body fat percentage would be similar for all of them

@Butterworths You're right they probably have similar amounts of fat just spread differently. So weird how different our bodies are! I was classed as anorexic and ill at a size 10 because of how my weight distributes and the size of my shoulders and hips etc.

Funny how men don't analyse their bodies so much..

They may have a similar amount of fat carried differently but I doubt that their body fat percentage would be similar

@Anonymouseposter Don't those 2 statements mean the same thing?

I don’t think so. If you’re taller and more muscular the same amount of body fat would make up a smaller percentage of your overall body than if you had a petite bone structure and little muscle

I haven't found M&S chinos to be large- had to buy a 14 when I usually get a 12 in all other shops (and recently). What was particularly infuriating though is that one pair in a 14 in khaki was an inch larger all over than the cream coloured pair. They are both fine but the inconsistency is still annoying.

It's not any better for those of us who are petite. Even the petite trousers are often too long these days and I have to take them up or buy cropped and pretend they are full length (or 7/8 as I call it!!)

Yeah, I suspect the purpose of threads like this is to allow people to say, "A size 12 nowadays can only be worn by the morbidly obese! We should go back to old sizes, so that only 1950s women can wear a size ten, and everyone else can just feel terrible about themselves whilst wearing a tent. That'll show 'em!"

I understand what you mean however, makers can do what they want and mostly they do it right for their particular product and target customer.
Say there was a universal size guide (which I think is impossible in a global market anyway as in a previous post I did comment about human sizes across continents being very different) who is going to police it?
proprtions and fit across all ages varies too.

my size M/12 may not fit you (as an Individual if that's your size) but I could be following the guidelines purely based on the design and cut I chose to create. That doesn't make it wrong, it just means that my patterns / 'fit' is how I choose to create my garments.
we lived or died by our customer base being happy so we're not being difficult when we create a design that cannot fit every single permutation of a size 12/M. It's just how it is as we're all different shapes and heights.

To get enough sell through on a style, it would be cut to fit the majority and then graded into a set of sizes that then fits the majority in each group.

The decline of personal dress making means most of us are beholden to purchasing ready made items and mass production just cannot cater to each and every individual body quirk ( or preference for that matter).

Thank you 🙂
i never considered my role ( as designer/patter cutter/retailer) to make garments that helped people work out if they had gained a few pounds or not.
The best way to use clothing as a weight bench mark ( if that's what you prefer rather than scales or a mirror) is to have an ancient pair of jeans or dress kept at the back of the wardrobe and try it on once a year.

The industry could have responded differently 30 /40 odd years ago and just kept adding numbers and dropping the smaller numbers .
therefore ranges now would start at, say size 10 rather than size 6 now and the most common size for Ms average could now be a size 16?

I would like to add that in young fashion 25 /30 years ago it was noted that girls aged 12-14 really wanted to purchase clothes in the 'cool' high et stores and not from 'teen departments' so the tiny size 6 that appeared around that time was to actually cater for young teens, not full grown women. There was a high st brand called. Tammy Girl that went bust due this strategy

I don't understand why you would take people being frustrated that they can't find clothes that fit them in major retailers as a sign of spiteful intentions towards you.

If clothes fit you, that's fantastic for you. But they don't fit me and it's irritating. There's no malice in my frustration. I just want a size 8 to fit me because that's my size. There's no way I'm a size 4.

This thread is so fucked up. So many posters unable to comprehend or accept that some women might simply be frustrated that they can’t get clothes to fit them. They must somehow mean it as a deliberate slight against women who are larger than them.

Posters are even persisting in accusing OP of sneering at bigger women after she’s said that she’s lost weight because she’s ill and would rather be back to her old self. Fucked up.

Some people can be very bitter.

If that’s what you seriously suspect, that that is the OP’s intention, may I please invite you to read her sodding posts, where she has said that she is ill and that’s why she has lost weight, and preferred to be bigger (and no doubt not ill). HTH.

I am confused about the EU sizing. I'm an 8.5 in Canadian sizes, and that size reliably fits. If I order something in EU sizing, the size that is said to be equivalent to a North American 8.5 varies quite a bit. If I use foot measurements to determine my size, it's actually equivalent to a 39 or 40, which is supposed to be a 6. So I'm thinking that a a British 6 must be bigger than a North American six. That may be what's throwing me off.

Yep. The size acceptance police are hot on the trail of an offender once again. 🙄

I remember having some sz 16 jeans from m and s in the mid 90s. I could only just do them up as a relatively trim 18 year old. I thought I was on the chubby side then but oh god how I'd love to have that body back now!

It would be equivalent to a 10 now for sure

Well, I didn't suggest it was aimed at me. It's just that these threads crop up a lot, and they always seem to tip over into people taking aim at normal-sized women and denouncing them as elephantine.

On the other hand, I can understand the frustration of anyone who struggles to find clothes that fit properly, including smaller, slimmer people. The solution would seem to be for more shops to carry size four and two, rather than to return to 1950s sizing (which was still in force until the 1990s), where the average modern woman (29"-30" waist or thereabouts, and a current size 12) has to buy a size 16.

that's the problem with these threads, someone always get offended for the sake of being offended and try to stop all discussion.

If you feel terrible about your size and are horrified by 1950s sizing, it's your problem.

I understand the comments from the professional on here, I don't agree with the reasoning and the reason why sizes keep changing and vanity sizing encouraged.

It's getting impossible to find bottoms for kids, shorts and trousers have bigger and bigger waist. Trousers that fit at the waist end up ridiculously short. It's a very common complaint about parents, having perfectly normal and average children.

Wow!!

Obviously we are taller and wider than others throughout history as nutrition has improved, and now we are going too far the other way with UPFs.

But commercial clothes sizes haven't been around for that long in the human history have they? Most people made their own clothes or had hand me downs and whilst the elite have likely always been tiny with corsets and your average women - fisherwife / bakers wife etc who had had 12 children/pregnancys, buxom/matronly women probably were quite wide too.