Comments in the thread seeking garter belts and hose relative to the “large size” of models on a linked lingerie site prompted me to dig up this item that I’ve shared with a few girlfriends in my age group (60’s). When I was in college, my measurements were 34-26-36, and I weighed 120 @ 5’6". I worked for a department store and never got into anything smaller than a size 10. Today a 10 is considered, in some circles, a “plus size.” This leaves me scratching my head… Here are the numbers:
Pffft. You’re just now noticing this? This idiotic vanity sizing has been going on for years. “I can still fit into a 10!!” she screams with delight. :rolleyes: Except that she weighs 50 pounds more than she did when she fit into an actual 10, 20 years ago.
I wouldn’t say it’s idiotic. With improved nutrition and medical care, people are somewhat bigger than they were generations ago. Years ago I went to the military museum at West Point and was shocked to see how small the Revolutionary War uniforms were; it was like they were for miniature soldiers who were around 5’5", but they were authentic uniforms. (Just did some research–the average American man at that time was about 5’6".) At another exhibit of antique women’s clothing it looked like most of not all of the dresses were tinier and for shorter women than are common now. When I was young, at 5’8" I was the tallest person, male or female, in my class, but now I see many more taller young people. Size ranges should change to accommodate the actual people who are wearing the clothes. After all, they’re just numbers.
While I agree that it has shifted significantly over the last 30 or 40 years, I think with the more recent (1999 vs. 2010) it needs to be within the same clothing line. I wear anywhere between a size 6 and 12 depending on the designer.
When I was in high school, I weighed 115 and wore a size 8. 20 years and 5 pounds more, I can’t find pants that fit because some of my favorite stores don’t bother to carry anything smaller than a 4. I’m an actual person who’s kind of pissed off about this.
Has anyone noticed shoe sizes going the same way? I’ve worn an 8.5 for years, but now as I try on shoes, the 8.5s are mostly too big and I have to wear an 8. I’ve lost a little weight in the past couple of months, but not nearly enough to make my feet shrink!
Yes, I have. I wore a 10 in high school (graduated almost 20 years ago) and a 9 today. Shoes are also a LOT wider these days – I wear an AA width, hard to find in regular stores, and most cute styles don’t work for me.
I weigh about 20 lbs more than I did in high school and am the same size to a size smaller in clothing.
Several years ago the women’s fashion industry made a deliberate sleight-of-hand change to women sizes. The industry decided to downsize rename clothes by one size because American women were getting larger on average. So a size 12 was renamed a size 10, and so on. That way, women could continue to wear, and proclaim, that they still wear the same size for years and years. In reality, women got bigger but the size name switch satisfied fragile and denying egos.
To be fair, comparing pattern sizes to clothing sizes is like comparing apples to oranges. When I was a size 8 in clothes (about 10 years ago), I took a size 12 pattern. Now that I’m a 10 to 12 in clothes, I take something like a 14 or 16. Or did sewing patterns keep the same sizes while clothing sizes shifted?
Your feet do change size from time to time depending on your activities, weight, and the types of shoes you wear (or don’t wear) regularly. Also, American shoe sizing, and for that matter, the lasts manufacturers use, is notoriously varied and significantly imprecise.
As to clothing vanity sizing, why isn’t this in the pit? I just lost a bunch of weight and had to replace my jeans. I bought size 8 because well, I’ve never been less than an 8 (and that was in my teens and 20s) and I’m still 15 lbs away from my goal weight. They are already feeling lose. WTH? I am not a size 6. Never have been. I think it’s just a ruse to make me buy more clothes. Bastages.
I’m a guy, but it’s nice to see women’s shoes getting wider. Now some of the widest are actually getting close to being as wide as the narrowest of women’s actual, you know, feet.
Why do I care, you ask?? Because I have to listen to my wife’s rants on this every time she gets new shoes. She’s not a shoe nut, but every few months it’s time for a new pair. She’s darn tired of wearing shoes styled for 12 year old boys. 'Cause that’s about all that fits the shape of her (pretty normal looking for a human) feet.
And, if you have a kid, sometimes your feet grow a half size or a whole size due to the hormone that makes ligaments stretchy in preparation for birth.
Oh, yeah. Over the last two years, I’ve lost about 45 pounds. I now fit in a size 18, which I haven’t worn since college.
Of course, when I was in college, I was 20 pounds lighter. Uh huh. Yep, my ego feels so very stroked. sigh
And I honestly don’t care about the size number so much, but could we have a little standardization? One pair of size 18 jeans from Avenue fits like a glove. Another pair of 18s from Target slides off me as soon as I start moving around. A third pair, a designer hand-down from my mom, gives me the Camel Toe of Death. I realize there’s a lot of variability in women’s shapes, but geeze Lou-eeze, if we can standardize parts for the space shuttle, can’t we make some progress in women’s clothes?
When I was in high school (1987), I weighed about 105 and was a size 5/6. (5 in juniors, 6 in women’s). In college, I gained about ten pounds, but was still a size 5/6 in general. So let’s mark that moment in time: 20 years ago, when I was a senior in college, I weighed 115 at 5’ 2" and wore size 6.
Over the past five years, I have dropped about 35 pounds. Last year, I was amazed (after having only dropped about 15-20 pounds) to find myself in a size 6 – I’ve spent most of the last ten years wearing about a size 8. Six months later, as I dropped more weight and even the bitty little 6s were getting droopy, I found myself in a size 4. Never wore a size 4 in my life, even though I’ve always been tiny. It used to be that the smallest size you could find at EXP or the Gap was about 4 or 6. Now they have 2, 0, and 00. What the fuck is size 00? Ridiculous.
Imagine my dismay this spring when I started pulling out size 4 and 6 shorts that I bought just last fall and I discovered that nothing fit anymore. Off to Old Navy I went. To discover that I am now a size 2. I now weigh what I weighed back in high school, give or take a couple pounds this or that side of 115. I am officially two sizes smaller.
I don’t know why they don’t just stick a Barbie tag in my clothes and be done with it. Pretty soon I’ll be able to shop for clothes at Toys R Us.
Edited to Add: re, standardization. Amen. I bought some skinny jeans at Old Navy that were a size 2. I did not try them on in the store because they were about the third pair of pants I bought from that store so I think I know my ON size. They were as loose and baggy in the butt as my size 4 jeans. Double checked the tag – maybe I picked up the wrong size. Nope. Waistband says size 2. I returned them and went to pick out another pair. Same size = 2. Fit perfectly. Nevermind that there’s no consistency between stores: my Kohl’s size is still a 4P most of the time, I can switch between size 2 and 4 at Target, depending on how the garment is cut, my ON size is definitely a 2… Most other stores, I have to try on because I don’t really know what my size is there yet. But even the same pair of jeans at the same store, same cut (The Flirt!) and same size… fit totally differently.
We *could *standardize in the same way men’s clothes are *supposedly *standardized by using actual measurements (i.e., 36x32) for sizing. However, even men’s clothes are subject to vanity sizing in that what the label says is not always what the garment measures out to be. This is actually quite common and always varies significantly by manufacturer.
