Modern sizing

[PattyDuckface]

I recently got an 80's Windsmoor skirt and jacket set from a second hand shop, it's really lovely in a deep green colour.

I am a size 10 to 12 and I saw it was a 14 but thought the jacket would be ok even if the skirt was too big.
The skirt was so tight I couldn't even zip it up, it was a size 8 if I compare it to my other clothes.

It looks like I might be a size 16 if it was the 80's.
Not 10 - 12

What is happening with modern sizing. Have they just moved the goalposts?

Not this shit again! Yes, yes we're all Fatty McLardens and vanity sizing is the new plague oh how we've lost sight of what a normal arse looks like 🙄🙄🙄

I was a 12-14 in the 80s and am now a 16 and an awful lot bigger. I had the same in the 80s when I bought a 50s size 14 and couldn't do the waist up. At the time I had a tiny waist due to hourglass figure

Is there any chance the skirt was altered?

I have gone from a 12 to an 8 sinxe my teens 30 years ago, but I am slightly bigger. Yes it’s a thing!

The waist size is a lot larger now as people are bigger round the middle, size 14 used to be 26/27 waist, whereas now it's about 32. Middles have got a lot bigger over the years

🤣🤣🤣

Yes exactly. Vanity sizing/NHS on its knees under the enormous weight of obese people/lost sight of what a healthy weight is/a modern size 8 is at least a 20 in the old sizes, and plus size people just used to have to go to an outdoors shop and buy a tent to wear as actual shops didn't stock anything over a 14.
Thank goodness we have this thread to open our eyes to how HUGE clothes are now. I don't think I've ever read one before 🤔

That sounds about right to me OP. I think sizes have changed quite a lot. In the late 70s and early 80s models wore a size 12 I believe whereas now it’s a size 8 or 6 even.
At 5’6 at that time I could not have worn a 10 in jeans even if I’d had no flesh on my bones. The bizarre thing was that regular fashion shops only went up to size 14 and there seemed to be only ‘Evan’s the Outsize’ that did 16 plus. I presume there must have been brands that were for women over 25 that perhaps cut their clothes more generously.

Yes sizes have expanded along with the population. People would rather buy an expanded size 10 than a 14. Personally I have put on weight over the years but miraculously I'm the same size as ever.

Yes, it's definitely a thing, and has been for a long time. And you can even track the changes if you got hold of old M&S /St Michael clothing from the 60s-90s as they used to put waist and hip sizes alongside the 10/12/14 etc. And you can see the inches going up with the passing years.
The moral of the take is that women's sizing has always been a bit made up, wear the clothes that fit you.

Cut all your labels out. No need to keep them. And they can be itchy.....

Yes, this is what makes it doubly strange - I was probably a 12-14 in the 1990s, the modern equivalent to a 8/10 ish. But I can also remember Topshop only went up to a 14. So the 90s equivalent of a 10 was the biggest size you could buy in teeny bop shops (I recall M&S going up to an 18). Just seems crazy.

I'm even older. I kept my old PE skirt from when I was in 6th form in 1976. The label is size 14. It is so tiny I can barely pull it above my knees now, yet 90% of my wardrobe have labels stating size 10 or 12.

But so what? Sizes like 8, 10, 14 are meaningless, because the numbers don't relate to anything. It's not like a 36 Central European size where it has some rough relation to the size in the bust.

Sadly it’s true 😢

We ARE all Fatty McLardens

I’m a 12. I’ve been a 12 for thirty years. In that time I’ve put on at least a stone and a half.

I can remember in the 70s/80s needing a size smaller in Wallis compared with Chelsea Girl, Miss Selfridge and places like that

I've kept an old skirt I bought in the 70's from Etam: waist is 28" for a size 16, I thought I was embarrassingly fat then, and subsequently lost a couple of stone to have a 25" waist which was between a 12-14. I think a size 12 was 36-24-36.
It wasn't just women, almost all the men I knew in their late teens/20s had jeans no bigger than a 28, we all thought a 30/32 was too fat.
Most shop didn't go above a 14, I was very pleased when Etam did a 16! I think my Mum, who was an 18 ,used to buy from M&S, maybe BHS, and Selfridges.

That all sounds about right @DelphiniumBlue

Sizes have changed yes, but so have people. Not in a pearl-clutching everyone's so fat! way - the population as a whole is taller and bigger due to modern diets, and changes in the way women exercise (more muscular).

So what if dress sizes have shifted to reflect that? They're arbitrary numbers representing averages.

Average shoe size has gone up, plus we are taller. So I suppose our bodies in total must be slightly bigger.

I wear a size 12/14. I’m 5ft 10. I sometimes have this weird nightmare that I go back in time and all these short, thin women are staring and pointing at me because I’m this fat, giantess from the future 😕

Except it's true. I've kept some Laura Ashley pieces from the 1980s and 1990s. The label says 10. In modern sizing they're a 6 or even a 4

Er, that might be true if you were referring to pre war and post war but there's not the slightest doubt that sizes are increasing because people are fatter now.

Agreed. There's not the slightest doubt sizes are increasing because of vanity.

I found an old skirt of mine from when I was a teen (mid 40s now). It says size 10, but I can't get it past my hips let alone do it up. Size 8-10 now (but 1.5 stones heavier).

An old skirt of my mum's from the 60s - size 10 - looks like it's made for a doll!

Yep vanity sizing is very real. In the early 90s I more or less starved myself. I was 5 ft 8 and weighed just under 8 stone. I was a size 12. Now I'm still a size 12 but weigh over 10 stone so I can see that sizes have increased.