Vanity sizing needs to be stopped

[SemperIdem]

I appreciate this isn’t shiny new subject matter but it’s been really niggling at me the last few days.

I’ve relatively recently had a baby, back in my pre-maternity clothes if not quite at pre-maternity shape (granted I felt I was out of shape at the point of falling pregnant).

I bought a pair of jeans from Pull and Bear, size 10. They are absolutely enormous. There is not a chance I’m a size 8 at the weight I am. I then reflected how as a 5’6, barely 8 stone teenager, I was a size 10 in Topshop jeans. How am I, at a significantly heavier weight, still a size 10 anywhere let alone smaller than a size 10?

Am I being unreasonable to think that there must be a way to get shops to end vanity sizing, the variance between shop sizes is also ridiculous.

Are you saying that you want stores to adopt the sizings they used 50 years ago?

I agree. My mum was always a size 12-14 when I was growing up. That became a 10 and then an 8. It is pandering to overweight people.

Even tops of the same style, but different colour can vary. Have two TU basic tops where I'm 18 in one colour and size 16 in another. My DM thinks the wrong size label is in one of them.

What about clothes that are eg Spanish ? We know that these clothes are cut in a different way.

Perhaps I didn’t articulate myself well in my opening post. My irritation is with the lack of consistency. Sizing simply doesn’t make sense. I don’t particularly care what size I wear let alone anybody else.

So no, it’s not a “fat bashing” thread. HTH.

My DH has this because he is a 12 UK. Lots of shoes marked 12 in the shops are actually a US 12 which is only an 11 UK. He finds the EU sizing a better guide to use.

Just don't worry about it.

If you advertise a drinks bottle as 330ml, you have 330ml regardless of flavour. If you provide less, a trading standards issue.

There should be a standard size for a size 10 or any other size, by law. At least for waist measurements.

@Troubleclef seems to have interpreted it as one with this lovely comment though. I agree. My mum was always a size 12-14 when I was growing up. That became a 10 and then an 8. It is pandering to overweight people.
thats pretty fat bashy and unnecessary don’t you think?
Calling it ‘vanity sizing’ in your OP sounds as though you think the same way.

Yes! 42 Euro size is me. That's why some 8s are a little tight as 41.5.

It does, it also isn’t a comment I posted.

Vanity sizing is a generally understood term, one I thought referred more to manufacturers than women who actually buy the clothes. We all know they do it, they seem to think we don’t though.

I think it's more to do with the stretch and fit of the clothing than "vanity sizing".

I have both P&B jeans and Topshop jeans. I'm a 10 in both - both have high viscose in them so they size up smaller but could stretch to someone much bigger.

You do know you could've just started a thread about how you're back in your pre-baby clothes and proud of yourself? You would've got support and kindness instead of people telling you that you're wrong about the post you tried to shoehorn it into.

I didn’t say you had said it - I was pointing out that people on both sides of this thought it’s what you meant.
Vanity sizing is indeed a well known term. It means manufacturers size clothes to flatter people and make them feel thinner than they are. It’s obviously nonsense. Firstly there isn’t a clear increase in sizes across brands, secondly women aren’t that stupid and thirdly there are good reasons why sizes might have changed over 50 years anyway (to do with frame shape, height etc changes). Using the term definitely 8mp,it’s you think women want to be told the6 are a smaller size. Had you said you were irritated by size inconsistency (which your later posts suggest is the case, although the OP is pretty clear it’s about clothes getting bigger) then you would have got different responses.

🤷‍♀️ I weigh the same as I did 22 years ago and I wear the same size. People who start threads about vanity sizing just want an excuse to hate on fat people imo.

@ConfusedSloth I would have done, if I needed external validation for that. Actually though, the detail was added more for context as I’m obviously particularly aware of my body, and how clothes fit, with it having gone through significant changes recently.

I’m not sure that would work. How would it cope with low rise trousers, for example, where the waistband is a few inches below your actual waist?

Just giving the actual garment waistband measurement would be better. There is no need try and bend a dress size to fit.

I just want consistency. Why can’t we have actual measurements like men?

@cardi I take your point.

I suspect most of them are just fed up with ordering clothes online that don’t fit when they get them.

I can't say as I am too bothered about sizing moving to reflect the reality of the average sizes of people today. What I would like is for sizing to be consistent, or done by measurements not random numbers which mean something in one shop and something else in another.

I'm finally getting back into a size 10 at around just into normal BMI (as quite a fit/muscular person at just into normal BMI). I know that I'm not as light as I was aged 20, a stone lighter and a size 10/12, at age 49, but I'm slim enough as a size 10 and would not go lower than an 8, and it doesn't matter whether that would have been a size 12/14 30 years ago. And actually, when I was the weight I am now aged 15/16 and found it hard to find a pair of 501 jeans to fit (at probably all of a size 14 then, it just made me feel fucking dreadful about myself and want to eat a load of chocolate and crisps, which made matters worse, obviously). I also remember living in France in the 1990s when I was a size 10/12 then and feeling absolutely massive because they would have to search in the warehouse for a C cup bra or size 6.5 shoes, and the clothes I was buying were often the biggest size in the shop. Not a nice feeling when you are a perfectly fit, slim and tall person.

If clothes size were the same as the 1950s then hardly anything would fit me as a healthy and above average height woman of today with a rather muscular athletic small frame, as women just weren't often my shape then.

Also DDs are 20 and 16, one is a size 6/8 and 5'4", one is a size 10 and 5'10"- how would it help them to be made to feel bigger when they have a range of nice clothes that fit them as it is, are very slim and fit and in the middle of the healthy weight range?

Returning to older sizing ranges now would just make healthy people feel fat and larger people so outsize that why should they bother with their appearance or health?

I never want to go back to that time in the 1990s and 2000s when it was fashionable to be so tiny and thin. I love my food and was usually quite sensible and was into eating disorder territory/gym obsession at one point in my early 20s trying to make my legs thin and gazelle like. Let's go forward not back.

Ok. With kindness, I don't believe that.

If you look at size charts for each you will see that the numbers are meaningless and you have to go by the stated dimensions. There has never been a standard for women’s clothing. In some ways this is good because you can find companies that tend to match your ratios better.

tldr: look up the size charts and use your measurements to pick sizes

Nah, most retailers have a sizing chart where they specify the waist size etc. It’s perfectly possible to check plus it’s always been the case that there has been variation between stores. It’s always phrased as “I used to be a size 16 but now I’m apparently an 8 and I’m so fat/ we have lost sight of a healthy weight/ I tried on my mum’s old size 12s and they are minuscule”. Never seems to be any complaints about the stores that size small such as H&M or Zara. It’s always about someone complaining about gigantic clothes and how it’s done so that fatties don’t feel bad and why should we all have to suffer as a result. It’s so transparent.

I think if this is all you have to worry about at the moment then you’re fortunate 🤣

Why don’t they say that then, instead of implying it’s all the fault of people bigger than them being so vain and stupid they want their clothes to say size 12 when they are the size of a heifer?