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

I wish I’d called the thread something different now!!

I am wearing a slightly too big Baukjen tank top in size 10. I'm a size 12.

Yes, some brands - usually high end designer stuff - have very limited sizing. But that's the opposite of vanity sizing!

People always think I'm denying that we've got bigger or that sizing has changed. I'm not. Both have happened. It's just that clothes sizing has changed to adapt to us being bigger. What else was it supposed to do? Other stuff has got bigger too. Are we supposed to use patterns and sizing from the 1700s?

Of course it's happened. It just isn't happening to kid and flatter fat people!

It is likely the style.

It depends on cut apart from anything. I have a pair of new cords from Next, they’re a 16 and they fit.

I also have 23 year old cords from M&S Per Una in a 16 which are a smidge smaller but also fit. And Per Una always used to design slightly smaller than other M&S lines.

It might be the case for some designs but not across the board for all brands and all designs!

Time was that stores could profile their customers and size accordingly. A shop for teenage girls, for example, would probably run smaller than one for middle aged women because teenagers tend to be slimmer.

With the explosion of online shopping, international shopping (online enables it), larger sizes and fast fashion behemoths like Shein just pumping stuff out day and night, stores just don't know who their customer is any more. Profiling is getting harder and harder. Couple that with intense price competition (again, thanks Shein et al; even if you don't shop at these places, they inevitably affect the market) and you get the current mess that we're in. Size is just a number (it's originally based around scaling from a median actually, so it never really told you anything except where you stood on this particular size run). Don't let it define you. Use bathroom scales, a tape measure and blood test results if you want to know dimensions and health information. Clothing size has never been a diagnosis; it's been a long time since it meant much at all.

I don’t think anyone is claiming your dress size is your identity or an indicator of health 🤔

it’s just really irritating to have no consistency over time or place and with the rise in online shopping it can’t be good for the environment that people are either ordering multiple sizes or sending things back so they can get another size

I am the same height as you and I would say yes. The girl at school (late'80s) who was an 8 ( 22" waist 32" bust) was obviously very thin, very likely underweight.

I was an 8 in the 80s and didn’t have a 22 inch waist.

Yeah i bought a new coat size 16 and its about 3 sizes too big, its unwearable. I got some size 16 trousers and they literally fell over my hips! This has happend loads lately, not just a bit bigger but lots bigger.

This is from the '40s to be fair but I think some of those sizes were still being used

I don’t think anyone is claiming your dress size is your identity or an indicator of health

Possibly not on this thread, but it usually does come up. 🤔 "BMI says I'm obese but I'm a size X", "I want to be healthy so I need to be a size Y..."

And actually we have had posts from people saying the discussion makes them feel bad about themselves and so on, which is close enough to an identity matter for what I'm saying. I get it, clothes are emotive. But sizing is largely meaningless these days, that's the point I'm trying to make. It is annoying. All I can suggest is shop around, throw money at the place that works for you and, well, don't let it define you or your health. Oops, I did it again. Come on, you know it's the obvious next step for the discussion. I'm pre-empting.

From a vintage site to be fair they haven't shown size 8, I think it was fairly unusual. I am 5'5" have weighed between 81/2 and 91/2 stone for 30 years, I was a 12 in 1990 '( I had a 24.5 inch waist) now an 8-10 ( with a 26.5 inch waist).

I feel your pre-empting says more about you to be honest

I don’t think the conversation was turning that way at all and the most interesting ones on the thread were about manufacturing issues/fast fashion/shape changing over time etc

I feel your pre-empting says more about you to be honest

What?

Are you suggesting that it was a moral failing, a stain on my character, to mention in a thread about clothes sizing that people should not define themselves or their health based on clothing size?

That is the sizing I am familiar with from the 80s & 90s. I had a 24 inch waist and was size 8-10. I definitely don’t have a 24 inch waist now - more like 26/27 inch and I am size 6-8. I accept the population as a whole has got bigger so it makes sense on a societal level, but it can still be irksome on an individual level. Never mind the inconsistency.

I believe shoe sizes are way different now, I’ve always had big plates of meat (😂) but suddenly I’m a 7 when I’ve always been an 8?! And no, I haven’t shrunk…..

I’ve got some size 6 pieces from the late 90s and they are tiny tiny tiny. I think size 6 now is more like an old 10.

I haven't found this - I've consistently been a size 6 shoe since 1988. I have very wide feet, so sometimes need a 7 and sometimes find a 5 fits if the shoe is very round at the front, but again, that's always been the case.

I’ve always been a 6 but my feet seemed to grow a bit in pregnancy and now I sometimes need a 6.5

but I’ve not noticed a change over the last 30 years

I've gone down a shoe size since the 90s!

Was coming on to say this. Every generation is on average taller, broader and stronger than the last and sizes have to reflect this. My grandmother was 5ft 6 and the tallest girl in her school. Fast forward to my dd and at 5ft 7 she was called titch by her friend group as she was the smallest. My younger dd loves vintage clothes and ive had to explain to her that sizes were smaller and insist on measurements on sites like depop before I'll buy for her.

Although they were saying on the radio this morning that the signs are that that increase in height etc is going backwards

But shoe sizes are the same 😁. I have shoes and boots from the 90s onwards and they all still fit perfectly.

Yes I'm pretty sure they're the same - I've gone down a shoe size but my feet are actually smaller. It happened after my pregnancy no idea why!

The problem comes when you were always a size 8 in ‘old money’. I now have to get a 6 or a 4, and some shops are completely out of bounds (Mint Velvet, Jigsaw, Whistles, Me & Em etc) as their smallest size is too big.

I’m slim but not exactly minuscule. Really annoying.