When did vanity sizing start?

[GeorgeMichaelsEspadrille]

I distinctly remember wearing wearing particular dress to a party in 1990 - it was a size 10. Would it still be a size 10 or would it now be an 8?

I'm not sure when sizes started to change? Any ideas?

Thanks for the responses. Sounds my size 10 1990 dress would most likely be an 8 now.

I do remember getting a skirt for work experience from C&A when I was about 16 (80s) and being horrified that it was a 14, but I doubt it would do up on my 'size 12' waist these days.

I wear a size 10, but when I buy vintage I fit a 12 or 14. I remember my mum telling me she was a 10 in her twenties and seeing old pictures from then she would have been a modern day 6 or 8.

Vanity sizing has been proven. It's not really a matter of opinion like some people are making out. You can research it.

Put it this way, I was a size 10 in the 70s. Forty-odd years later, I'm a stone and a half heavier and a size 8-10. I reckon I'd be a 14 now in old money.

I don't think there's an actual watershed year but I would say the creep intensified in the 90s. It coincides with clothes manufacturing moving overseas although I don't know if there's a direct connection.

Definitely the 90s.

As a teenager in the north in the 80s I was very slim and I could never find anything smaller than an 8 in the mainstream shops - C&A for example. Below size 8 there were the teen sizes like 11-12, 13-14 which I was desperate to get out of because they seemed babyish I never saw sizes 4 and 6 til the last five or ten years.