Are clothes getting smaller or is it me?

[Fortiesandfatter]

So I’ve been a size 14 on bottom/12 on top forever. Have recently been looking to buy new work trousers and jeans and finding I’m not fitting into like Asda’s size 18 jeggings and size 16 T-shirts. However, am still fitting my next size 14 jeggings and my usual size 12 tops. However, struggling with new next size 16 jeggings! I will admit I’ve put on a few pounds and blame menopause but I honestly don’t think I’ve gone up the 3 potential
sizes that some shops are having me believe! Not when I can still wear quite a lot of my old clothes. I’m fairly tall so probably don’t look like what my perception of a size 18 may have been or maybe I do, At the end of the day does a size 18 look different depending on height? I don’t know! How can it?!
But then I see articles in magazine re weight loss and photographs of women with their supposed size and I feel like it just a doesn’t add up. They appear a lot bigger but claim to be smaller than I ever was and I’m thinking they honestly don’t look like a size 12.
Has anyone noticed such a phenomenon or am I just deluded? AIBU to think clothes are getting smaller while I’m maybe just slightly bigger? Because honestly thinking it’s time for something drastic and I feel like this is one big ramble but just so stuck. Should also add, exercise is difficult due to a chronic condition and extreme fatigue. Would just like to know it’s maybe not just me that feels this way about clothes!

That label on clothes that says 10/12/14/16/18 or S M L means eff all….if it fits it fits…labels are just a rough guide!

I think sizing is just constantly all over the place. I have clothes from a 14 to a 24 and they all fit
i find trousers longer though recently, I can often wear regular at 5ft 10

I have been wondering this as I have been trying to replace a pair of jeans but all the ones I’ve tried in my usual size don’t fit, even though my old ones do. But I went to a big shopping centre a few weeks ago and tried on multiple pairs and there was a three size range in what fitted. I tried on one pair that were a maybe then went back later and picked up the same size to try on again and the second pair wouldn’t do up even though it was the exact same size and style. I think sizes are just all over the place!

In my 20’s I was a size 10, I’m now almost 2 stones heavier, in most stores I’m still a size 10, occasionally an 8, in supermarkets and primark. Madness.

I think they're getting bigger in general. Vanity sizing. Brand counts too though. I can be anything from an XS to a XL, depending. I am definitely not an XS or even an S.

The only way to know for sure is to get on the scales. Sorry OP! Mid life weight gain is not fun.

Sizes vary immensely across brands. Also everything nowadsys is made as cheaply as possible in factories with poor quality control, so you can buy (as I did recently) two identically labelled pairs of jeans (same size, fabric, colour, cut, style, everything) from M&S, and one pair fitted beautifully, the other was miles too small and had to be returned. Ignore labels and try everything on.

I think you need to brave the scales…

Er, it's you. Clothes are getting bigger. I have size 10 jeans from years ago which are tiny compared to size my 10 more recently bought jeans. M&S is one of the worst offenders, their clothes are huge.

Be careful about weight on its own as a measure. As we hit perimenopause we tend to lose muscle, its heavier than the fat which replaces it, so the number on the scales might not move but our bodies get bigger.

If anything clothes are getting bigger with vanity sizing.

Sizing & cuts are all over the place, in a way that's a good thing as of they all stuck to a rigid measurement system then unless you were the 'average' 8,10,12 with average height etc then you'd never find anything to wear.

Most people find a brand that just seems more cut to their shape.

Your older clothes have probably just stretched with wear.

Worth doing measurements as well as weight as in menopause you can gain a significant amount around the middle with little weight gain & it's that fat gain you need to watch out for.

What measurements are you, 14 is about 32" waist and 41 inch hip.

I'm tall and find that clothes especially tops and knitwear are becoming shorter and wider so can't buy much at all unless it's in the tall section or a long length style like a tunic or long shirt

I gave up buying clothes by size and now just try stuff on to see if it fits. In M&S I am, apparently, a size 8 which, at 5'6 and just under 9 stone is ridiculous. I was the same weight (and height, obviously) before I got pregnant with my son in 1989 and I was a size 12 then.

So I'd forget about sizes - they vary so much from store to store - and just try clothes on. I agree with the 'shape changing' too, I'm 66 and bits of my body have moved about rather a lot...

I’m not a dissimilar age, same height and weight 4-5lbs less. In most places I am a small or size 10. M&S I need a 8, although I do have the odd pair of jeans/trousers in a 6.

I an finding, generally, that adult's clothes are smaller (but I am also fatter so, as you say, it's hard to be sure). Children's clothes have definitely shrunk. They are all slim fit now, whereas they used to just be normal.

Im normally a size smaller in next than other shops. I’m also quite small so a 2-3kg weight gain or loss makes quite a big difference for me!

My BMI is a size 22 so bang in the middle of the healthy zone. I could literally lose a stone and a half before being underweight.

And all M and S clothes in women’s sizes are now too big for me, now wearing M and S kids pants/clothes in age 10-11 😂

M and S is particularly huge on me.

There is virtually no consistency between sizing across clothes retailers. However I don’t think any of them are getting smaller, at all. The opposite is true across them all, even ones like H+M who do cut “smaller” than some others.

Putting on “a few pounds” suggests you don’t actually know how much weight you’ve gained and it’s always more than you think! Get on the scales, measure yourself and then decide where you go from there.

Yea @LaurieFairyCake M and S vanity sizing is ridiculous. I’m a 6 in their vests. I have 32ff boobs! I won’t even be a 6 when I’m dead 🤣

I got married in 1979 and weighed 8st 2lbs and was 5'4" - a definite size 10 at the time.

I am now much older 😁, 9st 10lbs and 5'3" - thanks to my scoliosis - size 10 top and mostly 12 bottom, (10 if slightly stretchy), due to my old caesarean belly ☹️

I am increasingly finding - especially with tops - that 10 is too baggy and now have a wardrobe full of 8s which I would have given my right arm for in 1979. 😂

Speaks for itself really.

I'm finding clothes sizing, even within the same store, more inconsistent than ever. Zara, which I always found true to size, seems to have increased their waist bands ridiculously, Mango, which I always found reliable, seem to be running smaller this season and M&S is all over the place. I haven't tried Next recently, but I agree, they are known to run large.

I think they are getting bigger if anything. I’m a stone heavier than I was 20 years ago and am wearing the same size or smaller.

Next sizes are very big. Definitely weigh and measure yourself and see.

Also if you are going through menopause, you could be the same weight but it is on different places. So your wrists and bum could be getting thinner and your belly bigger. It happens.

Good luck x

I find loads of clothes too big. For example White Stuff, the sizing is ridiculous

Menopausal weight gain is utterly shit, op. I have a tendency to put on weight evenly across my figure (hourglass) which means that nothing really looks disproportionately large. But the weight gain is definitely there and clothes no longer fit me as they used to. Unless you're blessed with being naturally thin, you need to eat about half the calories you used to and exercise almost every day to make a shred of difference.

That being said, cheap brands never fit well and you're better paying more for a better cut. It has always been this way.