To ask do you think a pair of size 12” jeans in River Island in 1991 would be different in actual size from River Island size 12 jeans today ?

[SizingUpHappily]

Nothing much to add than what’s in the title - but I’m grateful for all your responses ! 🙌

Sorry Size 12 - there was no need for the “ !!

I wore 30" jeans but in the 70's. They were 30" waist as they were men's fit generally. You couldn't get women's fit then. I was about a size 12 then. The jeans fit my hips but were big-ish on my waist.

Sizing is so inconsistent now across all brands.and shops I have no idea what a true size 12 or 10 looks like anymore. Even at the same retailer, I can be three different clothes sizes, it is so frustrating having to order multiple sizes. I really don't care what the number is anymore, I buy what looks and feels the best.

Of course they would. I’m currently a size 6-8. I was also a 6-8 when I was 16. I am 9st right now, I was 8st then.

It's vanity sizing. It feels better to say I'm a size 14 when in the past you would have been a 18
An American size 14 is the equivalent to a British size 18 I believe

Many clothes stocked a 10 as their smallest size though, sometimes an 8. Nothing smaller. So everything has sort of shuffled up.

Any vintage stuff I've owned has really tight arm holes. Have arms really got that much bigger or did people love to feel like their circulation was being cut off?

Funnily enough, I still have a pair of size 12 River Island jeans from about 1995 (in purple velvet haha)

They're a little too small for me and I'm currently fitting into size 10 jeans.

But also - the label says they're a EU size 38, whereas now UK 12s are usually equated to EU size 40.

What is a size 12 in river island in jeans now? Every pair is different depending on the denim, the cut or just how they were feeling that day. You can't even say that you are x size in y shop these days because sizes vary so wildly. I don't think that sizes are anything other than a rough guide these days.

My size 12 90s jeans still fit so I don't think they have changed much since then. However I have some size 10 and 12 clothes from the 70s and they are tiny in comparison.

I was about to post that I recently found a pair of size 10 Jane Norman bootcut jeans that I had at uni 24 years ago. They still fit like a 10 does today.

I am exactly the weight I was in 6th form. Over the years I’ve gone from a 12/14 to 8/10. I’ve even (in an expensive brand) been a 6. Vanity sizing as I’m firmly a 21+ BMI and 170cm

Absolutely. A12 back then would be 24-26" waist.

I bought a size 12 BHS skirt from Vinted which is 1980s vintage and has a 24 inch waist.

Yes. I'm 5 ft 2. Was sub 7 stone on my 21st birthday in the late 90s. I was a solid size 8-10.

Put on a lot of weight since. Lost 2 stone in 2013. That still brought me nowhere near my 6.5 - 7 stone hey day of the late 90s. More like 8.5 - 9 stone. This time around however, I was falling out of a size 8-10.

God knows what the situation would be like in 2025 if I manage to lose weight again.

Yes - short answer.

In the early 1980’s I was size 14, and I sewed - a lot, and also worked in a very popular ladies boutique. The patterns I used were Simplicity and Vogue, and the sizing on those patterns matched what was on sale in the boutique (I checked, because people used to argue about sizes back then, too, so measuring the clothes when they came into the shop would give you ideas about which styles would fit people who didn’t fit into the clothes in “their” size)

• UK Size 14 in 1984
• Bust: 36 inches
• Waist: 28 inches
• Hips: 38 inches (these were the max sizes)
• UK Size 12 in 1984 - all measurements were 2” smaller
• Bust: 34 inches
• Waist: 26 inches
• Hips: 36 inches (again, max sizes)

• UK Size 12 now
• Bust: ~36-38 inches
• Waist: ~29-31 inches
• Hips: ~40-42 inches (varies)

…so not only have the measurements increased, but so has the proportion between them, with waist and hips measurement being fuller in proportion to bust measurement.

Based on these changes, the largest named measurements of size 12 now, is a 1984 size 16 bust, with a size 17 (i.e. in-between size) waist and hip.

As I recall, one brand of jeans back then (I think Falmers) used to send us their jeans in sizes 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 & 14. We didn’t stock anything larger than a 14😱. They were the jeans that had white piping down the seams!

I have an old skirt from M&S which has the old St Michael label, I probably bought it in the 90s. It's from when they put the waist measurements in skirts as well as the size.
It's size 12, waist 26".

When I was in my early 20s ( in the mid 80s) and weighed under 7 stones I was an M&S size 8, I had a 22 inch waist.

If you make your own clothes it's so obvious that vanity sizing means clothes sizes are at least 2 sizes lower than they used to be. With dressmaking the patterns have body measurements as well as size.

Definitely, I’m back to the weight I was in my late teens/early twenties and I’m now a size 6, I was an 8-10 back then. It’s a bit annoying as quite a few shops don’t sell anything smaller than an 8 now.

I was a 10 in the 90s and am still a 10 now.
I’m definitely not the same size!

@Worralorra -yes I remember falmers jeans. I liked the fact you could get a 9

No I don’t. The 10’s that fit me 25 years ago still fit me now and I certainly haven’t lost weight

I recently bought a pair of jeans in my usual size, from the shop that I buy most of my clothes from, and they wouldn't go anywhere near me. I was really peed off, but then I realised that it was probably because they had zero stretch in them, just the way jeans used to be when I was young and a size 10😄

I was terrified that non-stretch jeans were becoming a thing!

Yes, I found a vacuum pack of old 90s clothes the other day. DD is a size 10 and has happily adopted the Next size 12 low-ish waist jeans.

My current measurements are 28 bust, 24 waist, 33 hips.

A size 14 dress from the 1930’s is just slightly too big now 🤷‍♀️ (my favourite dress, been wearing it all the way through for the last 3 stone loss)

Yes, they would be smaller. I wear lots of vintage clothes and I work on the basis of clothes from 80s & 90s being one size smaller than their modern day equivalent and clothes from the 60s & 70s being two sizes smaller than their modern day equivalent.

So, I am a current UK size 10 and I'm a size 12 in the 80s & 90s and a size 14 in 60s & 70s. Obviously not an exact science, but that is roughly what it equates to - for me anyway.

Definitely. I was a size 10 teen in the 90s and now a size 10 in my mid-40s despite being at least a stone heavier!

Not when I was young! Size 10 in the 1970s was 32" bust, 22" waist and 34" hip. I just about squeezed into a size 10 dress for my sister's wedding, in 1976. I don't have that dress any more, but I do still have a size 12 dress that I bought in 1975 and a Laura Ashley size 10 from 1976. I tried them on a few weeks ago and couldn't do up the zip!

Nowadays I'm usually either a size 8 or 10, sometimes a 12 depending on the brand. I'm about the same weight as when I was 17, but my waist and hips are about 5 inches bigger. I'm 68.

I don’t understand. French sizing is completely different, so is US, Italian, Swedish etc. How can you look to another country when they use a different scale? A 10 in the UK is a 38 in France, a 36 in Sweden, and a 42 in Italy. If anything I find French sizes quite generous as a 38 fits and I’m between a 10/12.

Unless you’re suggesting that the French have kept their sizes consistent, which is not the case. They have definitely got bigger, along with most countries. My 38s from the 90s and 2000s don’t fit now, but current ones do. My size 10s from 2000s are also more like a size 8 now.