What is happening with dress sizes ??????

[mollymole]

Now I know I am not the smallest of size - size 12/14 top, and size 12 bottom
but I just bought 2 new dresses yesterday from our small independant boutique and guess what size i was ???? EXTRA LARGE - measured both dresses and armpit to armpit they measure 36"

I can't believe that you think being a size 14/16 is not alright! I should obviously be indoors flagellating myself on an hourly basis, rather than leaving the house ever. Wow. People who are 14/16 and less than 6ft do not necessarily have rolls of fat. I have an ample bosom, nowt but surgery could get me into a size 12. That's just the way some people's bodies are. Maybe you were unhealthy and looked fat at that size. I do think some people wear clothes that look awful, and yes, extra wobbly bits on display is not a good look, but some slim people look like they have got dressed in the dark too. You don't have to be fat to look horrible. I'm really knocked for 6 by those comments! Agree with op about clothes labelling btw.

I bought some clothes for work in a size 10 at the end of maternity leave, by which time I'd lost most of my baby weight. I found I was constantly having to pull it up or around me to avoid flashing my boobs. I thought it was the style and carried on buying size 10 stuff.

Then I had a eureka moment. The sizes had got bigger. Last time I went shopping, I bought everything in a size 8. It fits. Some of it is still quite loose. I am however, if anything, slightly bigger than I was before I got pregnant.

BTW, I'm 5'6" and 9.5 stone. Not the just over 7 stone (albeit she's 5'2") my mum weighed when she was a size 8 up until she hit the menopause at the end of the 90s.

I agree with you hyssopblue, being chubby and overweight has become normalised partly to do with the big is beautiful crew and people like Gok Wan celebrating unhealthiness.

FWIW i think a size 12-14 even a 16 sometimes can be healthy, it's all about proportions. My friend is a 12-14 with a flat stomach and tones arms and thighs, she looks great. What's awful is a great roll of flab round the middle stuffed into too small clothes with a too small bra underneath and a pasty, grey pallid complexion all too often found on teenage girls. I work with them, I see it every day. they are singularly unhealthy.

I know if I'm a size 12 I'm unhealthy, I feel untoned and flabby. Size 8-10 looks good on me. Smaller than that looks skeletal.

I do think a size 14/16 is quite large for most women, don't mean to offend anyone (I'm not skinny myself) but I think we have lost the sense of what a 'normal' healthy weight looks like, especially with vanity sizing. And it is interesting to think how we'd have been perceived by previous generations.

I wear a size 10 in most brands, sometimes a 12 in trousers, which doesn't sound terribly big, but looking at myself honestly I know I am too fat. Not obese, but enough that it's not really healthy and doesn't look nice. Clothes have got so big now that it's easy to delude yourself. To be fair I am quite short (5'2") which makes a difference - I know I would have to be very seriously overweight to need a 16, but it's hard to me to visualise what it means for someone taller or with a larger frame.

Women's shape does seem to have changed as well - I see so many young women and teenage girls now who have a big roll of fat around their middle, which used to be something associated with middle-aged men with a 'beer belly', certainly not young ladies! I think clothes are changing to suit that as well, trousers and skirts now all seem to have enormous waistbands, and dresses are usually shapeless and smock/tunic-style with no defined waist. The hourglass figure seems to be becoming a thing of the past...

I agree with you in general Hyssopblue. I think KM looks great, ok she did get a tad bit bony leading up to the wedding (and had I been in her or any similar position, I wouldn't have been able to eat at all thru nerves so I can understand how that happened!) but in general, she looks good. Remember she also has quite a tiny frame.
People have definitely on average gained lots of weight around the midsection especially, which is reflected in stores now imo. And yes people want vanity sizing. Let's face it, stores will sell a lot more by calling an actual size 16 a 12 or whatever. Stands to reason......

Sorry, meant to say, there's nothing wrong with being a 14/16. You can be that size and more and have large bones and be in proportion. Nowt wrong with that imo...

But there is an obesity epidemic and it has to be recognised for what it is and not dressed up as something else.

Kate Middleton does have a trim, athletic frame, but her frame is also tiny.

I couldn't and wouldn't aspire to look like Kate Middleton - I have a large frame, I'm only 5 foot 6 but my skeleton is large.

When I weighed 9 stone you could see every bone in my chest and my breasts literally disappeared. I think it's unrealistic to say that that's what people should aspire to - I looked fricking horrible and looked far nicer a stone heavier with breasts in proportion to collar bone, shoulder blades, shoulders etc etc.

I have a friend who is only 3 inches shorter than me and weighs about 7 stone. She is very slim but she also has a TINY frame. We were laughing about it once and she held her hand up to mine - her entire hand outstretched literally fits into the size of my palm.

Fine for her to aspire to look like Kate Middleton, not for me.

I think that the point being made was that everyone can aspire to look as slim and toned as that for their own frame. I'm 5ft 6.5in and 9st 12lbs, there's no way I could ever weigh the same as KM cos let's face it, I'd be 6 feet under if I did. But I can certainly aspire to looking slim and toned for the frame I have... so can everyone, barring any major factor that would prevent them doing that.

Agree we all have different body types and shapes so not good to be too rigid about what everyone 'should' look like. I'd never look like Kate Middleton either, I'm just not the same shape. Even when I was really quite slim, I had sturdy calves and wide (compared to my waist) hips, that's just my bone and muscle structure, nothing to do with fat.

But - it's possible to go to far the other way, and kid yourself that you've just got a 'large frame' etc when actually you're just a bit fat! Especially now with clothing sizes sneakily increasing along with our actual size...

Sorry, I was responding to this "Her physique isn't too slim for the average woman to aspire to. It's what women should aspire to" when I said that about my frame.

I can't aspire to it, and if I'd have to make myself seriously ill even attempting it. That's what I was trying to say.

hyssopblue it's really quite sad about teenage girls, I see a lot of them, they sit in my office wearing leggings with tiny vests everything on show, rolls and rolls of unsightly fat, it's awful. And they always say "I wish i was slim like you", it wouldn't be so bad if they covered up a bit, I don't care what anyone says acres of fatty flesh is unsightly and looks awful. I worry about being mutton dressed as lamb in vest tops, I'm 5'8" 8stone 11 pounds and fairly toned (size 8) but I'm conscious of how a vest might not look great.

It's true about things changing too, there were only a handful of overweight girls in my year at school, the rest of us were slim or v skinny. I'm lucky with my build and genetics that I'm naturally slim but post dcs i was 2 dress sizes bigger and looked and felt awful. Whole swathes of my wardrobe were out, anything clingy round the tummy for example. I grafted my ass off at the gym to get my figure back and be fit again and hopefully will be doing a sprint triathlon next year .

And yes Beth Ditto is grotesque and obese and a bad role model...reinforced by idiots like Gok Wan making out it's ok

Another one here who has been the same dress size since age 17 despite putting on just under two stone...........

I bet if you timewarped me back to the mid 70s I'd be a size 16. I currently wear a 10 or 12 depending on the store.

However, people were actually smaller in height in those days so it's not all about us getting fat (altho I totally agree about the teenage girls and about the acceptance of being more overweight)

"Unless you happen to be well over 6 feet tall being a size 16/18 means you are unhealthily overweight and skimpy clothes look awful on you. You don't look like a confident, emancipated woman who is proud of her body, you just look fat and unhealthy."

This is utter bollocks. I'm 5ft 10, and I am overweight, but I exercise and wear clothing that fits (difficult with a large bust mind - I measure 43-33-43) and I look fucking great. I would only be a size 12 if I was underweight (I have been and I was - and that's the only time I've ever fitted into Top Shop size 14 jeans - because I wasn't well enough to eat properly for months.) Sizing is a number, and suggeting an arbitrary number is too fat or too thin doesn't make sense - people are different heights, shapes and bone structures. I am working at losing weight at the moment, but this is for purely health reasons and not because I heavily dislike the way I look.

I won't say it isn't large, but all of me is 'large' - I have size 9 feet, I'm taller than most women, larger busted than most women (and I have a properly-fitting bra, ta). Exercise will bear this out but I do feel like this is the size I'm designed to be - if I do lose a ton of weight, I'm prepared to be proven wrong, but I'm never going to be petite.

I measure up as an 18 in 1960s dress sizes, but in the past the 'standard figure' was also smaller (not to say vanity sizing doesn't exist!) as people are generally taller as well as larger now.

I agree with all the vanity sizing comments- I'm a 12/14 despite being much heavier than I was 20 years ago, when I was a 14/16! But I don't agree to aspiring to look like KM - she is very slightly built, imagine Kelly Brook, at that low level of body fat she would still have wide womanly hips, or Kim Kardassian, who is slim and curvy, but I wouldn't say carrying excess weight.

I'm now genuinely wondering where you all live with all these massively overweight teenage girls running around in leggings?

Honestly, I never see that. The vast majority of teenage girls round here are skinny.