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

My feet went down half a size after pregnancy too.

The clothes sizes didnt 'have' to change at all, they chose to change. It doesnt matter that some people are bigger, taller whatever because also many are not. We also have a slowly and slightly changing ethnic demographic with more ME or Indian subcontinent populations which are on the whole smaller than the average western European physique.

The clothes sizes could have easily remained the same, people would simply buy the size they need but perhaps there would be a wider range. The range at the lower end is now disappearing.

The other thing as someone else has said is the height thing, I dont know who all the trousers are designed for because they're all too long, very difficult to find trousers that arent sweeping the floor

Of course sizing had to change. Overall, we are bigger now. Clothing, like cars and beds, had to adapt. Are you suggesting clothing sizing and patterns should never change? Should we still be using patterns from the 1600s?

The "wider range" is exactly what's happened. I truly don't follow your reasoning that sizing didn't need to change, it just needed to increase. That's what change is. And since patterns, sizing and cutting have to be based around a mode/median, from which everything else scales, that means everything changes. The world and customers are different now, of course goods have to adapt. The industry simply wouldn't survive if it didn't adjust to reality. Sure, slim and more petite people exist, but there's fewer of them than there used to be and so the industry adapts to the new average. Surely you can understand this?

Nobody wonders why cars, beds and chairs have got bigger. I know clothing and sizing are emotive subjects but they really are just following the same trend for the same reason. A lot of people, across the sizing spectrum, take it personally but, with the possible exception of a few very high end lines that are supposed to be exclusive (and even then, based more on money than size), it really isn't. Maybe with the rise of weight loss drugs we will start getting smaller and the industry will start to correct in that direction.

What you’re saying doesn’t make sense. If people are bigger overall then by all means introduce more sizes (24, 26, 28, 30, 32…)

But don’t make what used to be a size 8 bigger just so bigger people feel slim. Then the people who are a size 8 have nothing to wear!

I said in my first post that people don't like this. Nobody thinks they are a mechanic just because they drive a car, but everyone's an expert because they wear clothes...

Sizing, pattern cutting and costing are complicated. A lot of factors are at play. When brands create a sizing run, they have to base it around the size they sell the most of. That's the median size in the run (yes, I know the difference between mean and mode, but this is how it has to work) and the other sizes are scaled up and down from this one. Until the sizes get to a point where a size break is required and a new run created because otherwise the scaling starts going mad and you're making clothes for actual giants, not just plus sizes.

So that affects what each size turns out to be. The median size in the run gets bigger as people get bigger, but sizes are scaled from that. So yes the average and therefore everything else gets bigger. It's the nature of sizing and pattern cutting. You can't just keep everything the same and add more because there simply isn’t tha same demand for the smaller sizes and you can't produce those independently of everything else unless you make them a specialist line the way plus sizes usually used to be. Everything plays off each other too much. It's complicated. Perhaps in future we will get specialist shops for slimmer people.

But it simply isn't practical and cost effective to keep cutting and scaling around an outdated average. Sizing is really about scaling and customer profiling. It's inconsistent and largely meaningless.

If it helps, though, they do usually make the smaller sizes even if thdon't sell because there is enough fabric left over after cutting the larger ones. No, this doesn't mean you will always find what you want in your size in the sales. Sorry.

It happened with cars and furniture too, but nobody had an emotional investment in that and took it personally, so nobody argued that it was about vanity or didn't make sense or whatever.

As well as consumers expecting a mass produced item to fit them perfectly (I do usually get questions about "well why can't a size X be <insert my measurements>"), they do often also seem to think that it's only their size that's gone haywire and everyone else has no problems with fit these days. Do you know anyone of any size who finds it easy right now?

They didn’t need to change the numbering though? If an 8 was the standard they worked from they could have just changed it to a 10 or a 12?

you talk about people having increased in size but it’s not that dramatic a change height wise. People are talking as if all teenagers are roaming round at 6 foot.

And how does that work outside UK/US where sizes are based on cm

If I answer this, will it say something ominous yet undefined about me?

The numbering stays as it is because it's more a system of scale than anything else. Like I've said a few times, to keep all the old numbers and sizing the same, they'd have to operate totally independently of the current averages and proportions; in other words, a specialist line with all the costs and extras that requires (and I really can't be bothered to get into that now; let's just say that a lot of stuff has to happen before clothes reach the shop floor and there are some things that consumers do not like). You could do it but it's not cost effective on a grand scale and in a constantly adapting industry. Some vintage style places do have very fixed and unchanging sizing (often from the era they replicate) but they are specialist and generally quite slow moving in terms of style change (which is good for the planet); they tend to have the same styles reappearing in different prints, and, crucially, very loyal customers.

The industry also just doesn't really have the time for this. Don't underestimate the impact of fast fashion. Stores may cater to different markets but they don't operate in silos and the impact of Shein and all those changed the face and the benchmarks of the industry and there's probably no going back, sadly.

With things measured in inches and cm, it may depend on the style (where the waist is meant to sit) and allowing some give for movement or bloating etc. Sometimes, though, especially these days, it's just shoddy. I'm sure everyone has noticed quality dropping in many places along with size inconsistency. It is irritating, it is annoying, it is wasteful, but one thing it just isn't is a mass conspiracy to soothe and flatter fat people. I'm sorry but it just isn't!

The sizes and measurements didnt need to change at all, they would just have needed to ensure they had more 14s, 20s, 24s etc, they are the sizes that fit, so prodcuce more of them rather than simply renaming a 14 as a 10 for example, thats all they've done

Cars are bigger because of safety issues, beds arent bigger, its just that its now the norm to buy a king size instead of a standard double etc.

I dont know where you've got 'emotive' from, its just a fact and common sense, there is no emotion behind it. Perhaps you mean if someone needs to buy a 14 but they really want to buy a 10, the manufacturers have changed the size so that someone isnt upset about that, I dont know why someone would be upset about that, but thats essentially what has happened.

Its a dream buying clothes abroad, the measurements are actually accurate and you dont have to go into changing rooms or take a gamble on tons of different sizes

And again, others and I have said it in the thread, this doesnt apply to mens clothing at all. They havent pretended a 38 waist is a 34. So you go in, you find a 38 waist, bingo they fit. The neck sizes on shirts are accurate, they havent changed a 18 neck to a 16 neck.

Yup, size 14 now (in reality), but having to try on 10s/12s/14s. I’d never thought about it the other way- not great for teens to be aspiring to tinier numbers

The sizes and measurements didnt need to change at all, they would just have needed to ensure they had more 14s, 20s, 24s etc, they are the sizes that fit,

Urrrgh. You can't just produce more larger sizes in isolation without any commensurate effect on other sizes. The drafting, cutting and so on doesn't happen in silos. It's scaled around the most popular size, which becomes the standard middle size, and for every two of those, two commensurate larger and smaller sizes are made. That's one reason why plus size clothes used to cost more and therefore often wasn't made in that size run. Past a certain point, there wasn't enough fabric left to create a correspondingly small size and you'd just get wasted fabric. That's why you can't just make bigger sizes with no regard to what it does to the rest of the size run. Not unless you want to charge loads more.

I have to say, while people are usually resistant to hearing this, there's not usually this level of disingenuousness about it. People denying that clothing size is an emotive topic for women, or that women often define themselves or their health based on their dress size. We all know we shouldn't but I don't think I've seen people denying that it happens.

Anyway, I think that's about all I've got the energy for about it this weekend. I am sorry that people don't like it (they never do), but I didn't create the situation, I'm simply explaining it. Don't shoot the messenger and all that. I'd give my advice on what to do about it but I got into trouble when I did that. Bottom line: size inconsistency and inflation is down to a number of factors, but vanity is not among them. Sorry!

That’s probably the most interesting comparison - has the UK size changed vs the EU size. I would expect it has. Just shows that the UK/US clothing system has no reality behind it.

ultimately someone’s dress size is irrelevant without further context - height, bone structure, weight. And I don’t expect a top, say, on a certain size to have the exact same measurements as cut, style etc will influence that - but if there was a consistency around one measurement that would be great!

DH has size 12.5 feet. 20 years ago he struggled to find shoes (except in the US) but now has no problem. They’ve shifted what they produce but haven’t changed the numbering.

Exactly this about shoe sizes, bigger people yes, but shoe sizes havent changed a size 6 into a size 4. Ive always been a 4 except when I was overwight and then I was a 5, now Im a 4 again. It has never changed.

Mens clothes have not changed

Only womens clothes

Actually I think they have changed,I'm a 6.5 now and I always used to be a 7.5!

Have you been pregnant in between?

Inspired by this thread I dug out some old/vintage clothes from my wardrobe and tried them on.

'Size 12' evening dress in silk and velvet I bought in 1992 - I could only just get the zip done up at the back.

Vintage nylon (not stretchy) 'size 16' long evening dress from 1972 that I got from eBay about 12 years ago - fitted well.
Vintage European 'size 44' cotton day dress also from the early 70s, also bought from eBay - same fit as 1992 size 12, could just about do up chest buttons, too tight to wear as buttons gaped, though OK at the waist.

My modern dresses that fit me well are 10s or 8s. From experience I'd need to lose about 10lb for all my vintage clothes to fit me.

Thanks @ThatCyanCat I found your technical explanations about size grading really interesting. So many factors at play.