Is Mary Richards Still A "Size 7"?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I am always hearing about women’s sizes, for clothes and how they have changed over the years.

Anyway I was watching Mary Tyler Moore and in Rhoda’s flat there is a fire and all her clothes get burned up. Mary says “I told you Rhoda, take something out of my closet.” Then runs off to work

Rhoda then spends a few minutes bemoaning the fact that Mary is a “size 7,” and she hasn’t been a size 7 since she was a little girl.

So my question to women is would Mary still be a size 7 by today’s standards?

2

Thanks to vanity sizing, Mary’s size 7 is probably listed as a size 2 now.

3

And you remember how Rhoda was always “I’m so fat”? She was an 11 or a 12. She wasn’t “fat” at all–she just wasn’t rail thin like Mary.

4

Maybe from the ankles down. :wink:

5

I’m a size 4-8 going by the 21st century system and I am wider than Mary Richards. She’d be a 2, today, I betcha. Crazy 20th century clothing metrics.

6

The best evidence I can offer: My favorite pair of jeans is one that I “inherited” (stole) from my older brother in high school. Based on the inseam on these jeans, I know that the year must have been 1984. Levi’s 501s, men’s size 32 waist, 34 inch inseam. (My brother grew to a 36 inch inseam by the follow year, thus I’m able to narrow down the time frame.)

These jeans still fit me, all these years later. At the time I stole the jeans, I wore a size 12 in misses’ sizing. I now wear a size 6 or 8. (Size 4 in some really bizarre labels.) Rhoda would probably wear a 4 or so, maybe even a two, depending on “size creep” between the mid-seventies and mid-eighties.

And I suspect that Mary would be one of those silly made-up sizes now: Zero, or 00.

7

Not to mention that size 7 is now a Juniors size. Women’s sizes are even, Juniors odd. Hence that store that was called 5-7-9.

Not sure how it was “back then.”

Anecdote: I’ve always been thin. I remember when The Limited first opened. I didn’t really get the appeal, until I went in looking for vacation clothes, and while I was wearing 4-6 at the time, I was a 00 there. THEN I understood their success. (That was probably about 20 years ago)