Vanity Sizing

Nice Girl said:
The fact that sizing is not consistent is a pain! I NEVER order clothing from catalogs or online because I am unsure whether the merchant's size 8 is really a 10 or a true 8.[...]

How do you know the 10 is the false number? The point of this post is that sizes are being DOWNSIZED, not UPSIZED. Chances are you wear a 10 and some brands size that as an 8 ;)

Listen, I had my guy friend with me the other day shopping, and the poor fella couldn't seem to get me the right size pants while I was trying on clothes. It was funny then, because I jumped all over from a 00 to a 10, but now that I've read this post I've had to stop and think. Before I lost weight I put a lot of stock in what my size was, and would buy brands that were labeled smaller, and I didn't even realize that I was doing it!
I'm one of those hourglass figures, so I've never had a problem of not looking good in most clothes, but I know a lot of girls who do, and I feel for them. Even though I don't think this whole "untrue" size thing isn't very honest, psychologicaly it might help those that are subconcious about their weight, no thanks to society. Just a thought.

It's just a number! If they want to switch the numbers around, that's fine by me. In stores, I try clothing on, and I study size charts when buying online. I wouldn't mind if they started using actual measurements to tally sizes, though!

Problem solved - sort of. Having walked around for years with money in my pocket looking for clothes and finding nothing tha fits I have given up and am wearing clothes I already have - but woe betide the store owner who tells me that they are close to losing their business due to lack of trade. If they won’t join me in complaining to the clothing makers, they will have to suffer the consequences.

I live in Australia and am a size 14 but the reality to get a good fit might need to buy anything between size 12 and size 20.

The truth is that the rag trade - from the designer to the sales person couldn’t care less what we want.

This morning I measure the width of the waist of a suit I wore 20 years ago and compared that with some skirt widths at Macy's. The closest size there was a size 2 and a size 0 on the rack was actually an inch wider than my old size 10. So all you 2s and 0s are actually a size 10!!!

TRUESIZE said:
This morning I measure the width of the waist of a suit I wore 20 years ago and compared that with some skirt widths at Macy's. The closest size there was a size 2 and a size 0 on the rack was actually an inch wider than my old size 10. So all you 2s and 0s are actually a size 10!!![...]

Yes and no. It depends a lot on brand as well. While I buy the odd 2 or 12 cause some garments are just sized crazy, I mostly buy 8 for dresses/pants, and 6 for tops. I have size 8 jeans I wore 20 years old that fit me just like my current size 8 jeans. Those are my straight-leg jeans. And I have skinny jeans (we used to wear them in the 80s too) from 20 years ago that are a size 10, and guess what? I bought skinny jeans last year and needed to go up to a 10 as well because of the tighter fit, just like I did 20 years ago.

I'm saying that before people start going "ZOMG if all the size 0s are size 10s and I'm a size 10 then I must be a size 64 from 20 years ago! I'm so fat!" Some brands vanity size, some size small, most of them have no clue so you are probably gonna need 3 different sizes for 3 pants at the same store. It is not a big "fat acceptance conspiracy".

I have a friend who is tiny. She has had a variety of health problems that have made it all but impossible for her to gain weight. As little as three years ago she could wear a size 2. Nowadays, even 0s are too big. I feel more pity for her than I do myself. Sure, I have clothing marked size 6, 8, 10 and 12 in my closet and they all fit-- more or less. If I were to gain/lose weight I could still find sizes that could fit me.

Mary mentions Marilyn Monroe and the thing that women tell each other and themselves to feel better: Marilyn was a size 12 (or a 14, depending on the story). Which, of course, is a 2007 size 4 or maybe a 6. In Marilyn's time I would've been an 18. (I'm a fan of finding and sewing vintage dress patterns.) My aforementioned friend would have been able to find clothes in a store other than those for small children.

I actually get a little mad when I fit into a size 6 at Banana Republic. I know that I'm not a size 6 and I resent that stores are always... always!!... adjusting their sizes and making the process of shopping for clothes more difficult. Women who are concerned about their weight should mind their tape measures and scales, not the number (usually hidden from view) on their clothes.

I know how you all feel. Everything has changed. I'm not talking about the Pepsi cans...I'm talking about how people see one another. I don't mean to sound like a saint but you know I'm right. I'm a model. I'm a size 00-0 and sometimes 1. I'm somewhere between 5'7-6'0 tall. I weigh like 90-110lbs. No I'm no anorexic or bulimic and I never intend to be and I never was. I know these numbers are scary and terrifing to everyone that I tell them to but so what. Doctors and people are worried about me but ALL of the designers and companies that hire me (I was famous in Spain until their BMI law) say that I'm perfect and all of the other models are jealous of me. I'm living my dream. Modeling and acting is my world and passion. You may think that I have nothing to worry about because my figure but I do. Example: What if the next big thing is if a model has a size XS in baby size (that's tiny). Do you have any idea what that could do to the fashion world and civilization? Anorexia would be an old fashion thing. People might do stuff more outragious then being anorexic. Little 4 years old would even start asking "Does this make my butt look big?" I little 4-year-old?!?!?! A 4-year-old shouldn't even know what a diet or calories or fat are. Did you know that about 40-70% of all second grade children have already been on a diet??? That's like a 6-year-old. A 6-year-old knows what a diet is!!! Look at what our world has turned into. Anorexia is the new thing. Weighing 0lbs is hot! What's next?!?!?!?!?! I can't get any smaller...I'd look more sick then people say I already do. I feel no pressure unlike the other models because I'm supposidly perfect. Why can't we go back to the days when being a size 12 was the best size you could possibly be? Why can't we? Do you know that that could keep 11 million (3 million of that is men)people from having an eating disorder? It's crazy. I hope I'm not too off topic :-D

I gained about 50 lbs with my last pregnancy. So far have only lost half of it. Have a pair of Arizona brand jeans, size 15, that I can get on, but are super tight and not at all attractrive. Finally bought new jeans this year, to get out of the maternity jeans I was wearing. Went to Kmart, found a pair of size 13 jeans that I can pull on without unbuttoning or unzipping, they constantly fall down and look horrible. I don't feel good about the smaller size on the lable because I know I don't look good in them anyway. I wish clothes manufactuers would stick to one size guide.
I have always hated having to figure out what my size is for one brand, only to have to figure out what I am for another. Women spend more money annually than men, on average, so it would be nice if sizing was consistant. I know from my own experiances that when I go shopping if I have to keep going up in sizes I get discouraged and quit shopping, but I don't think having manufactuers telling us a size 12 is now an 8 is doing us any favors.

I am 30 years old. Fifteen years ago in middle school I wore a GAP size 3-4 and I was about 5'0 and 90lbs. I am now 5'2 and 98 lbs..(I'm just really small, I don't have an eating disorder, and I love how I look so please don't hate..I am allowed to like myself as much as "curvey" women are) but anyay the point is that a size 0 in the GAP these days is HUGE HUGE HUGE!! There is no way I should not fit into a size 0 for goodness sake! My size 3-4 from so long ago would be too small on me too. Express, Banana, all those stores have just forgotten that there are such thing as small women.
The reason I am even on there is that I went to Express and you got a coupon if you tried on a pair of pants, so I got the usual snort from the saleslady when I asked for the 0 from the dressing room and when I tried them on I could have had about three other girls jump in the pants with me because they were so freaking big...and I was really mad but it's not like you can cry to anyone about being too small.
There is no love for skinny people. Cosmo tells us that men don't want to date us, if we complain about not finding clothes people want to stab us, and stores have just decided that we hate pants and want to run around in our undies.... which THANK GOODNESS still fits!

The clothing designers are crazy! So are societal aesthetics!! Look there people come in a plethora of diverse shapes, sizes and colors. But why would white Occidental women strive to look like Californian girls or fashion models when they also come in curvy, rectangular and spoon?

Instead of buying $2000 or more on a dress, try designing and sewing one yourself (though I'm desiring to design and sew clothes for myself which I have been planning all along!). And once you turn 30 +, forget about buying clothes meant for younger women, wear something more mature and more maternal (long and medium skirts, turtleneck/polo necks, sweaters, cardigans, scarves, "kung fu"/straight leg pants, jackets and mid heels as well as modest frocks and gowns). Turn to Victorian, medieval, 17th century pilgrim, 20s, Chinese and Renaissance customes for inspiration. For designers and edgier ones, Goth, punk, Vivienne Westwood and Giorgio Armani, if only Armani could design clothes for older women.

I can say sometimes the clothes designed and worn by skinny women look funny or unfashionable because of the fabric used, the type of dress and its shape. However, if you are skinny I suggest try clothes of tigher fitting fabrics and suits.

Jessie, "the bigger, the better" was a Roman aesthetic applied to architecture early on before now to everything else (except women and women's clothes).

I agree that there are many discrepencies in sizing between stores. Abercrombie serves as a prime example of "vanity sizing." A size 00 there is would be like 4 sizes bigger at any other store.

I wish I could say I don't buy into the sizing thing... but I'm admittedly a culprit. I mean, I will not even look at anything if is not the smallest size. I'd be insulted if anyone suggested something in a bigger size. It would make so much more sense not to pay attention to labels, but striving to be teeny tiny is something I've always done ever since I was a kid. Messed up... I know.

Marina, check out the above mentioned something-fishy site. It is a wonderful resource for those of us who struggle with EDs and for those who support us.

Mia, I hope you soon realize how destructive bulimia is... I have had almost all of my teeth replaced because of my ten year struggle with anorexia and bulimia. Among all the damage done by my ED, this is one of the worst because it lasts longer than stays at hospitals and treatment facilities... half of my teeth gone FOREVER (I have rediculously $$$$$$$$ implants) and I'm only 20 yrs old.

I found this site/blog by accident while surfing for stuff on vanity sizing.. I have to say I am glad to see I am not the only one who seems to have the whole issue with never has a consistent size..

I am currently in a size 6, although it seems some of the 6's can be rather baggy, and some fit well, but i have my doubts about going down another size... and at my heaviest.. well i really don't know what size i was exactly .. because i wore alot of the xxx's so i didn't have to actually know what seize i really was.. stir-up pants and tunics hide a multitude of suns ( at least we think it does.)

So far this is about the more informative.. entertaining site I have read.

Kris

I was cleaning out my closet last week, and came across some Levis shorts. They must be from the seventies - when I put them on, I flash back on "Starsky & Hutch". Anyway, they're waist size 34 and they fit fine. They're in good shape too, not worn out at all. I guess I never liked wearing white shorts. But, in my latest jeans purchases - Levis, Lucky, Hilfiger - I wear 32 x 32.

So, it's not just an issue with women's clothing? Not as dramatic, perhaps...

Quito--I asked my husband about this too. He said he's got older pants that are size 36, even though he typically now will buy a 34 and they'll fit. So I guess it's not just a women's clothing issue. Although, it boggles my mind that a clothing company can claim 34 inches is the same as 36 inches.

vanity sizing is cruel. i'm 24 years old, 5'2", 100-105 lbs (not sure b/c i don't own a scale). i'm very proud of my size now because i worked hard to thin down and tone up, and am currently working hard to maintain it. i've lost the weight gradually, through healthy calorie/food restriction and rigorous exercise. i've worn everything from a size 14 fifteen years ago (at age 9) to a size 0/00 right now. actually, my abercrombie & fitch size 00 skinny jeans don't fit - the waist slips down my hips. there are only two or three stores that carry clothes i can wear (and i live in nyc, aka supposedly shopping heaven). some of my friends have told me to gain some of my weight back in order to fit into more clothes. how about they make clothes that fit people on both ends of the size spectrum? after all, we are the ones who are forking over the cash.

I think the reason women have illogical clothing sizes is because their clothing was originally made from graded patterns, with the "fit model" wearing the base size for that particular line of clothing. This has been the custom since the 1920's. Ready-made clothing did not really become available until the 1940's, but used the size labels from the 1920's. A fit model's measurements are a tightly-kept secret for fear of infringement. If a competing designer has access to the fit model's measurements, the original designer may lose a lot of money. Men's clothing sizes were established in prepatation for the Civil War, and their clothes were originally made by tailors using actual measurements.

I don't really know about all this vanity thing. In April I had to buy a pair of 16s from GAP (although they were so large I could sleep comfortably in them) one day because they didn't have anything but 6's and 16's and I needed pants. I was a solid 12 as I have been for years.

Now I've lost about 25lbs or so and I'm comfortably in a 9 with some 7's fitting me. I don't think the label generosity thing is always the case. You need to take into consideration fabic, cut, style, and your own body cycles into account.

My mother is the same height as me, but with a small frame and weighs about 15 lbs less but can't wear my jeans just because of her shape.

In the end, it doesn't matter, you just should buy clothes that make you look and feel great. And from a girl who has been every size category (except these 00's) there are clothes out there for everyone. You just have to dig a little sometimes.

iFitandHealthy said:
I think size zero is oxymoronic. It seems to be a way of saying "I do not want to exist".[...]

come on, thats just ignorant. i'm 5'2 and usually wear a size 0, and even sometimes buy a size zero that has to be altered smaller to fit. and the last time i checked, i'm still a woman and i still exist. while it may be infuriating for average size or plus size women to feel assaulted by the media culture of uber-skinny women...its equally infuriating for smaller boned, petite or even just naturally skinny women to be flippantly accused of having an eating disorder or not being a "real woman" because "real women have curves."

and back on topic:
working in fashion and retail for a long time, here is a little insight for you. retailers model their size range according to their general consumer. retailers that have a generally more mature client tend to have a size range that runs larger than a retailer that has a younger, generally smaller client. they pay people to research this, and its brand specific. ralph lauren uses(used) his wifes measurements to set the standard for his sizing. also, when buying mass produced, medium market items such as denim the sizes will even fluctuate from item to item. sometimes when i buy jeans i take multiple pairs of the same style and size into the dressing room. items like this are cut in stacks, and each stack varies slightly. really, the only way to avoid most sizing pitfalls(although its unrealistic for the average consumer) is to pick a handful of designers in which you know and trust the sizing. the designers that send the super skinny models down the runway (you know the ones) are less likely (in my opinion) to use any kind of vanity sizing because plus sizes aren't their demographic anyway. so why would they care?

Vanity sizing isn't a big issue for me. No matter where I go, I can never find something my size b/c women are rarely ever my size. It's not that I'm too fat or too skinny... I'm 4'10"! *Any* pair of pants I get'll need altering. :( I personally hate children's styles...

Hey Midget, I feel you.
I'm 5 feet & all the jeans I try on, they fit fine but they're way to long!
I just blame my 5 foot 3 parents, lol.

I want to buy pants for summer now and am struggling with this issue. I tried on pants today and am apparently am now a size 2 or 4 in misses and size 5 juniors. I lost a little weight since last summer, about 10 pounds because I went on a diet to control my cholesterol without medicine (and I succeeded) but there is no way I should have gone down two sizes from losing 10 pounds.

This is scary. I am by no means a tiny woman. I am 5 ft 3 and weigh 135. This is well within normal weight. In fact, on a weight chart someone 5 ft 3 who weighs 135 is called 'large-boned'. My BMI is something like 23 or 24. My hips are 36 inches around. 36 inches is not abnormally small. Remember when an ideal figure was 36-26-36? How can it be that someone my size has to wear XS and size 2 or 4--that's just crazy. I think that this website is full of women who really are petite complaining because they are the ones who are suffering from this. When you make normal sized people into petites, then true petites (people who are 5 ft tall and 98 lbs or even less) are sized out of everything. All so that people who are overweight can pretend to themselves that they are normal sized.
If it goes on like this, next year I will be a zero, by staying exactly the same size.

An issue that I think the general frustration with vanity sizing doesn't always touch on is how much it colors our perceptions of what "healthy" is. I see it reflected in some of the comments here, even--the idea that wearing a retailer's size 0 or having to shop at kids' stores suggests you must be anorexic. I am 5'7" and 130 lbs. My BMI is 20--well within the healthy range of 18.5-25. Most fashion models, by contrast, have a BMI of 16-18. I routinely buy size 0, and at some stores (Banana Republic, for example), even size 0 is too large. As someone else noted, the sizing charts are often innaccurate--my 26" waist should never be too small for BR's size 0, listed at 24" (which, in 1950, was a size 6!). Meanwhile, my petite healthy friends, 5'1 and 110 lbs, for example, BMI=21, have no chance of buying clothes at adult retailers. They're not anorexic, I'm not anorexic, and retailers' size 0 is not for unhealthily thin people unless they're very tall or have large bones. But because a UK size 0 (or a size 2 from 1950) is actually tiny, there's a perception that a healthy weight is too thin, and because unhealthy weights no longer connote "plus" sizes, they must be ok. Things have got to change. I'm hopeful that losing all the clientele of the smallest 20% of women will lead to a change in retailers' sizing, but as obesity continues to increase the problem is more likely to just get worse.

I haven't really had a problem with the numerical sizes, but what I have hated is that anything "5'4" and under" is considered "petite" in almost any store! I am 5'4", and it annoys me that even though I am pretty much average height, I have to buy a lot of clothes in "petites" because the designers seem to think 5'8" is the average height for a woman instead of 5'4"! And I can't even imagine how frustrating it must be for women who truly are petite - my friend is 5'0" and has to shop in kids' sizes. If the sizing system (height-wise), was at all accurate, she would be shopping in petites and I would be buying regular length clothes.