Vanity sizing

[Bruisername]

is it worse?

I’ve lost a bit of weight recently and back to my early 20s weight and more or less shape - 25 years on. Back then I was a 12/14

now I’m finding the sizing is haywire. In a lot of shops I’m a large but others a small for tops and bottoms 10/12 seem to fit

but today I had the weirdest which was a wool coat from John Lewis and the one that fitted was an 8. I’ve never been an 8 and in other brands I definitely wouldn’t have been

i look at my 15yo and she is a 4/6 and think in old money she’s an 8/10 but is it healthy to have the little numbers? Do teenagers aspire to be size 0 like they did in my teenage years?

and it makes ordering online hard because what do I pick size wise!

anyway rant over but I’d be interested to know if people think this has become more a thing and sizing is even less consistent across brands than even just 5 years ago

Definitely. I recently dug out my old size 12 Topshop jeans from 20 years ago and they're a good couple of inches smaller in the waistband than my current size 10s.
I'm the same weight at 40 as I was at 20 but now wear an 8-10 when back then I was comfortably a 12.

So I know it’s definitely a thing but I tested out my size 10s from 20 years ago and they fit me the same as todays. They are topshop too
Going back to when my mum was young though, so 80s then yeah no chance I’d get into a size 10 from then.

I found a skirt I bought with my first pay cheque and it fits -?size 14 from 25 years ago. And a black work dress - again size 14. Whereas now a 14 is noticeably too big

but then I tried a knit dress in Reserved today and it was L and it fit. To me L is 14-16?

I don't disagree re vanity sizing but clothes are also being cut looser at the moment

Obviously 'older' brands such as M&S/Next/JL are cut more generously too.

With the same measurements, I was a 12 on the bottom, now a 10 in most places, but sometimes even an 8 in M&S and Next

I noticed it with jeans as I’ve bought the same style ones for 30 years

but I take your point

Women's sizes have always been all over the place even 'back in the day.' Just got to try everything on and ignore the number.

COS has always done vanity sizing but their trousers and jeans were true to size. I'm a size 10/28" waist and have recently bought size 6 jeans and 26" waist trousers. It's ridiculous

This is the best advice

I think so because I just bought a vintage blazer in a size 16 and got truly humbled 🤣

The sizing for clothes has changed because the 'old' sizing ( 1970 and 80s) was the same sizing that was used in the 1940s etc and since then womens bodies ( and men's) have changed.
We have hormonal contraception, better maternal nutrition which means bigger babies, better nutrition, better living conditions etc which means people are bigger, taller, broader, stronger. The clothes sizes had to change!

We were watching a documentary about ww1 the other day and it was saying that when the men first joined up , lots of them were very slight- their chest measurements were what we would consider child's size and having access to better food made them gain a stone and even grow an inch in the first months.

Even things like foot size- I am a tall woman with broad shoulders snd big feet and in the 80s buying shoes was almost impossible.

Vanity sizing isn't always about vanity. It's about fitting people's real bodies.

I had reverse vanity sizing in a local boutique. I'm a size 12 on the bottom half but had to buy 3XL leggings in there!

@Bigearringsbigsmile that’s really interesting! It is noticeable that people are taller round where I am but there are still some very petite women

I guess I always think the size must have come from some form of measurement!

I did note in next that they have a new range of jeans/trousers aimed at women who have a smaller waist than the standard trousers give. I guess a lot of it is finding something that fits your body shape

Honestly, hang around near a 6th form at kicking out time ( don't really, it's weird!) And you'll see how tall and strong and healthy most of them look!

Have just looked it up. The average size of a man joining the east Yorkshire regiment in ww1 was 5 foot 4 with a 34 inch chest

I ordered some jeans from hollister, initially bought a 4 and a 6 (us sizing so that would be 8 and a 10). Both absolutely massive, I've ended up with size 0 jeans!

My dd is 5ft10 at 15 and has always been tallest in her year group - she has a lot of friends who are teeny tiny and she feels really self conscious round them as if she’s a giant!

will be interesting to see average height for her cohort as adults

The 90s dream 🤣

I'm glad the revival of 90s fashion hasn’t seemed to revive the super skinniness

It's definitely a thing and well remarked upon on here and on SM! I worked with a young woman a few years ago who always said she was a size 8, but looking at her, I'd have guessed a 10/12.

But sizing is all over the place really. I've had jeans in the same size and from the same shop where one pair is MASSIVE and the other pair is too tight.

Yes, I'm a stone heavier than in the heady days of my 20s (1990s) - back then I was a size 12 in pretty much everything. Now I often seem to fit into 10s and 8s. Sizes lack any consistency nowadays but on the whole seem to be larger.

The shoe size thing is really interesting. I'm a size 7 and back in the 90s loved shoe sales as I'd virtually have my pick! These days average sized people seem to a size 6 or 7!

Sizing is so inconsistent these days, I can go into a shop and be three different sizes in different garments! I am sick of having to take in 2 of everything into the changing rooms 🙄

I was saying exactly the same thing to my 17 year old DS the other day as he tried on a pair of size 12 boots. He was complaining that all the size 12’s were always sold out🤣 I’m a size 7 like you and had a great time in the sales as a teenager in the eighties. But now they’re always the first to go.

All of this!

It can get out of hand thou, my 90s 10s fit well, and I am usually a 6/8 now but last week a 6 hung off me in M&S and I had no where to go. I am small but not very small, I see a lot of women my size 😂

I don’t really get the issue with sizes being bigger than decades ago, what difference does it make. If you make the smaller sizes smaller then it goes all the way up, so a size 20 lady needs a 24 and so on, they make clothes to fit the population now and it’s not just size 8 10 or 12, it’s 24, 26 and so on.

I remember one of my uncles - a particularly unpleasant man - having a moan about women being bigger than they used to. He made some smug comment about his wife's feet only being a size 5 and at a 7 mine are outsize, cartoonish things. Also about his (overweight and shapeless) wife's dress size being probably smaller than mine (wrong, as it happens but I didn't want to shame her so I kept quiet and let him rant). What he neglected to balance with is that I was about 9 inches taller than her! My shoulders are also very broad and proportionally my legs are long - she was the opposite. Short, wide legs, wide waist, narrow shoulders. Why on Earth should I be expected to be the same size in anything as her?! Common sense dictates that she and I would be different sizes and that doesn't stand up as cultural statement on women's bodies changing over the years. I didn't bother to bite back about any of this, incidentally. However a few months later he made disparaging comments about my seven year old niece having 'a bit of a belly on her' (she didn't) and I didn't hold back then. He got both barrels.

I definitely believe in vanity sizing however I have some of my nan's old clothes from about the fifties. Looking back I remember her as tiny, I would guess maybe a size 8. The clothes I have of hers are labelled a 12 though and I am very surprised to find they fit me. I'm a 12 now (maybe a 10 on the bottom half in some places, sometimes a 14 on top because of broad shoulders, not big boobs) so vanity sizing should dictate that these old 12s shouldn't fit but they do.