Tell me about it. I started feeling angry just reading the thread title.
What year was this or what manufacturer?
Back in the late 80’s when I was 5’6"* and 120 (my thinnest), I was lucky to squeeze (painfully) into a size 10!
My most comfortable size (fitting, not loose, not skin tight) was around a 12/13.
We won’t go into what size I wear now… 
*Somewhere along the line, I seem to have lost an inch or so, depending on who measures me. I’ve gained weight and can only assume that’s where I lost height…
Before I lost the weight, I was a size 10. I lost 40 pounds, and I can get into a size 4, but it’s a tad snug. Size 6 is more comfortable, but there is a gap.
I think vanity sizing has something to do with it. When I was a skinny teenager mumbly mumbly years ago, I wore a size 8.
I like how my pants are simply given measurements like 34 waist, 34 length. Why aren’t women’s clothes measured like that? Would seem to save a lot of trouble.
This was around 2000, no idea of a manufacturer. I only know the details b/c I was talking with a business colleague once who kept bragging that when we went out that night I’d meet his new (trophy) girlfriend (who was half his age), and that she was a size 2. Oh, and did I mention she’s a size 2?
I remember thinking, big deal, my wife’s a size 2- and I only knew that because she had just come home with a couple new dresses.
I completely agree, but I have no idea why they don’t do it.
A few manufacturers sell by “waist size” but it doesn’t necessarily correspond with your actual waist size, either - IME, for clothes by “waist size” you actually wear the size that’s two inches or so smaller than your actual waist, but I’m not sure if that’s true of men’s sizes, too.
I would kill for at least more length options - we get 3, at most. Petite, average/medium, and tall. I’m just this side of too tall for petites, so I have to hem all my averages. I know plenty of people who too tall for tall.
Options in between those 3 lengths would be fabulous.
Yep, Family Guy, but I’m embarrassed to watch it. Love-hate relationship. 
The whole thread has been pretty helpful, actually, if only to show that clothing sizes aren’t the best designed system around. 
This was a good start to get a handle on the situation. 4 down is pretty thin, 14 up is somewhat big. The rest of the thread is kinda just filling in the gaps.
Thanks for the response all!
ETA: Seeing how S/M/L lines up with the sizes is particularly useful. At least I have an idea of the difference between S and L for a men’s shirt, so I assume they’re somewhat comparable.
Because the world is a terrible place.
Actually, I have absolutely nothing to support it, but I’m convinced that it’s intentional to keep you in the store longer (going through the racks, finding different sizes to try on) with the hopes that you’ll find more stuff to buy.
And can we please stop with the ridiculous notion that anyone below a size 6 or whatever is some anorexic waif? Some people are just small overall. Other people are naturally skinny. Not being a fatass doesn’t mean you have an eating disorder.
The “short” part, yes. It does mean “little,” as well, but as I left my high school French behind me some years ago, I am not anything like an ultimate authority, and I don’t even have a username like yours to live up to. 
And being a “fatass” doesn’t necessarily mean you just sit around and stuff your face all day, either. Or are you one of those people who thinks that only skinniness can be “natural,” but fatness is always artificially acquired?
It depends; many a short man has been called petit despite his girth, but it really means “small”; when calling attention to a lack of length or height, the precise word is court.
Because clothing manufactures hate women and want them to suffer.
Actually I think it’s because the shops think the longer women are forced to wander around trying to find the right size the more likely we are to buy more things.
When I asked my sister about the size thing today*, I heard the same argument. She also said she thought that the reason some places (I think Old Navy was mentioned above) was so that women can feel thin shopping there. She related that as a super-conscious teenager, she shopped almost exclusively at 2 or 3 shops that she was a size 7-8ish at so she could ‘brag’ (my words) to her size 10 friends. FTR she was and is generally a 10. Not my preference (you know, besides being my sister!), but if that’s supposed to be fat…
*- It was actually a really good thing to ask about, since she gave me examples of friends who are a certain size. It was a little easier to picture them than to just figure out the raw numbers from a table, but it also gives the table a real-world counterpart to compare to.
Yep. Part of the reason of widely varying sizes even within the same style of garment is the cutting the pieces in huge stacks, and part of it is variations in sewing the seams. If you get one piece of a garment that was cut large to begin with, and then the seams are sewn very closely to the cut edge, that garment is gonna be a lot bigger than one that was cut small, and then sewn with wider seams.
Back in the early '80s when my mom worked at Levi jeans factory, she was allowed to be off 2 inches either direction! I don’t know if there are tighter regs now or not. But the place she worked did close down…
Levi used to be considered a fairly good ordinary brand. However, AFAIK, it’s shut down all of the American factories and now makes products only in overseas factories.
Thanks!
So, it appears the fashion industry *drastically *changed women’s/misses sizing somewhere between 1986/1987 - and 2000.
When I was 120lb, I was really way too skinny for my frame and in no stretch of the imagination could have fit in anything smaller than a 10 – let alone a size 2! :eek:
This new sizing bugs me to no end!
When I was 17 to 23, at 115lb and 5’ 9", I wore size 9 in missus and 8 in ladies, my jeans had a 26 waist and my measurements were 33-25-34 - I was no just slim, but model slim. I had done modeling and for most of the shows, all the clothing and shoes too were size 9 at that time (1988 to 1992) - there were some size 7 women but the were the petite models (under 5’ 8").
Currently at 38, I weigh 140lb, at the same height, and my measurements are about 5 inches larger everywhere, and I find I am buying clothing anywhere between size 4 and size 9 - jeans sized by waist band are the only consistent thing, I wear 30 now.
I am guessing if I was the weight and measurements I was when I was young, I’d be in the size 0 and size 2 range.
I’ve also noticed this, especially with Old Navy. I don’t even bother going there anymore because if I want something that doesn’t hang off me like a tent I have to buy from their children’s section - but because children’s clothes are’t cut for people taller than 5 feet with boobs or hips, they never really fit properly either. So I just gave up trying to shop there altogether.
How much off do they let them be in metric countries? This could be a good use of that other way of measuring…