Size 6 trousers with 28.5 waist?

[ViolaCello]

Is this possible? It's at Me&Em.
I am after some cords and the fit guide says this, and yet the model wears the UK8.
Not sure how, since I imagine it would drown her.

Am I missing something, or are most brands just playing with the fairies at this point?

Anyway if you can put up with a jeans type button fastening the Per Una ones (see eBay link I linked earlier) are as the M&S size chart. I've had mine a year and they wear well, still like new.

Online retailers need to provide photos of items laid flat with a tape measure on top à la eBay.

It’s not you it’s them!!
I bought some Me&em trousers in the summer size 8 fit like a dream (I’m not a size 8 btw, I’m usually a 10 most places).
Bought a winter version of the trousers size 8 - and they fall off me! Returned ordered size 6- fit. Except I’d really like them a tiny bit looser so I guess I’m a 7. I’m definitely larger than the model who is apparently wearing an 8.

There’s absolutely no way I’m a 6 it’s madness.

True. I don't know what to think anymore!
And ultimately i didn't purchase the trousers. I suppose it's their loss.

Women's sizing is a random number generator at this point, and has been for some time. I absolutely have "size 6s" that are bigger than some of my "size 8s". My friend and I were actually holding up trousers in the same shop with the same numbers on the label on Saturday and comparing the 2-3in difference in some of them. Nowadays we ignore the numbers, we just pick what we think will fit and try it on if we've got time.

Though to be honest I'm failing to see how vanity sizing can work when you can hold up two sizes against each other and SEE that the one with the smaller number on is bigger. I mean.....??? That's some serious logical disconnect going on if its actually selling clothes.

I love Me&Em but at their prices you certainly don't want to be ordering 2-3 pairs to check sizing!! They are definitely generous in size!

Exactly! They aren’t very fast to refund either

Due to vanity sizing there are now no standards for clothes sizes. If you look at vintage clothes patterns from the 50s and 60s a size 14 is tiny compared with today. Western humans are now much larger but no one wants to admit they are a 16/18 so clothing companies just made the sizes bigger.

The waist sizes on clothes are much bigger nowadays, I'm sure in the 70s when I was a teen size 12 was 24-25 waist and 14 was 26-27, it wasn't around 30-32 like it is now

In the late 80s, as a teen, I was usually a size 10. I am still the same size but now wear 6 or 8, but it’s totally random. Also, some of the higher end brands like Me and Em only appear to cater to incredibly tall women.

That's good to know, I'm 5'10"

It isn't "vanity" sizing, it's customer profiling. They figure out what their average customer looks like and work around that. Average customers vary from place to place so the sizing does too. The number is based on a scaling method rather than an industry template and very few things are made where they're sold anyway. And with fast fashion being produced so quickly and at such low quality, lack of standardisation even within the same maker comes as no surprise.

It has gone completely mad in the last few years or so, though, I guess from the absolute explosion of online sellers from everywhere so that businesses no longer know who their customers are. Sizing is more of a random number than it's ever been.

My waist is 27-28 and I am not size 6.

It’s completely random and I have no idea how you are supposed to determine your size any more. I’m not prepared to order several sizes of something, only to send them back again.

Maybe this will be what saves the high street.

Bizarre. In my long lost youth I wore a size 10, as the smallest mainstream size generally available. The only affordable source of smaller clothing was in children's departments. My waist size was 22''. I don't know what to pick up these days, though sadly even a modern 10 is a distant memory.

Yes, you could sometimes get a size 8, but not often. I’m a size 10 now, but my waist is 5 inches bigger than it was then.

I’d like to think that the annoyance of sending things back will mean that we return to the high street. In reality, I don’t think it will. My high street has lost so many shops in the last few years and all that’s left is H&M, New Look, TK Maxx, Mint Velvet, Phase 8 and Oliver Bonas. The first two are poor quality, the last three, too expensive, unless in the sale.

I used to browse through Next, Oasis, H of F, LK Bennett and several independents. All gone.

I’m flabbergasted at this sizing. Back in the eighties, a 26” waist, 38” hips was a standard size 14. l remember it well because in those days (alas, a very long ago memory) I wore a size 10 top (32”), size 12 skirt (24”) and size 14 jeans (38”). I have always been very pear shaped, which I now know is because of lipoedema. I knew sizing had changed but this is incredible.

There's a lot of vanity sizing these days with shops giving something a lower number because they know we like to get in something with that number on, regardless of the actual size of the garment.

Also maybe you have a more delicate sized bum so it works out that you need the smaller size. I'm the opposite in that my waist size is a lot smaller than round the bum so if it's a skirt that flares out for instance, I take a smaller size than I otherwise would. Same goes for tops/flared dresses as I have a relatively small top half.

Agree but with the addition of rise length too.

As an hourglass with a high up natural waist, the length of the rise is the most important factor for wether trousers will fit me or not.

There's a lot of vanity sizing these days with shops giving something a lower number because they know we like to get in something with that number on, regardless of the actual size of the garment.

No, this isn't why. I wish this rumour would die.

We have got fatter overall, yes. As a result, everything that needs to accommodate our bodies has got bigger. Look at old beds and doorways. Clothes have had to adjust as well. The explosion in providers and especially in low quality disposable fast fashion has contributed to the utter shitshow that is sizing and fit right now but honestly, the garment industry is not trying to lie to plus size people. It's not a conspiracy. Sizing numbers are based on old systems of scaling and so as the median reconfigured to adapt to change, so did all the dependencies.

I don't know why people resist this so much, though. There seems to be a need to believe that clothing manufacturers are conspiring to tell fat people they're thin. They're not.

@NonPlayerCharacter,

Sizing numbers are based on old systems of scaling and so as the median reconfigured to adapt to change, so did all the dependencies.

It's the changing standards that confuse people though. It would be more easy to understand if the sizes remained the same and shops stocked the most popular. Which they do to an extent (I often have to order online being a small size for someone of my age and tastes- do want teenage fashion). However, when the standards change from year to year in line with the population's waist line, if we then remain the same we will need a different size (label)! That is confusing!

So actually there is an element of vanity sizing otherwise the measurements of each size label would remain the same and the size label would just have a bigger number on.

I notice the model has got a fairly thick looking jumper tucked in OP.

don't want teenage fashion.

It probably why a lot of stores started with the XS, S, M, L, X-L business. Less pretence as size does not directly relate to a numerical value any more. Except it is no more easy to find your size than it is with the old style labels.

It would be more easy to understand if the sizes remained the same and shops stocked the most popular.

They profile their customers, so this is indeed what they do, but the further you are from their standard customer, the harder it is to find a fit. It doesn't help when a store sells lots of different makers who all have a different core customer.

But it also isn't as simple as "keep the sizes the same and sell more of the mode". Creating a run doesn't work in that kind of isolation. You need to work out your median (which must always be your most popular size) and work out the scaling up and down from that and how it fits into efficient cutting and piecing. You don't want swathes of wasted fabric. The sizes all work as proportions of each other for the whole process from design to cutting to costing. Some sizes are in such small demand that for some makers, it simply isn't feasible to make them. Once it was plus size customers who got the brunt of this, now it appears to be smaller people.

But they can't just stay the same and not change when the customer demands have changed so much! It's a very complicated process.

And it's got worse by the fact that businesses are really struggling to know who their core customers even are right now.

I know how annoying it is and how bad it's become, but they're not doing it to kid a large woman into thinking she's really slim. They're not! But like I said, for some reason people don't want to believe this.