The FastDay Forum

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one with years of old clothes in my closet! I did manage to part with some a year or so ago figuring if I ever fit in them they wouldn't be age appropriate anymore.

I heard someone say we don't wear our clothes, we visit them!

I'm tickled with the idea of 'visiting' our clothes, it's so true!

Well isn't it generally recognized that most women wear only 20% of their entire wardrobe 80% of the time? I know that's true for me at least!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanity_sizing

I love vintage fashion and the rule of thumb basic difference between sizes from c1950-1990's.

To summarise:

If today you are a size 10:
In 1950-60 you would be a 16
In 1970's you would be a 14
In 1980-1990's you would be a 12-14

So @Rawkaren 's 10 year old size 10 skirt today would probably be a size 8 (approx.) today.

This is just a rough guide and there is no guarantee that if you are a size 10 today that you *would* fit in a 16 in a 1950's garments as different brands had different sizing then too and especially true with vintage garments the foundation you wear underneath affects the fit even if the measurements seem ok. e.g. if you try on a 1950's dress with a modern bra you probably won't fill out the bust area as a modern bra (generally speaking) gives a more rounded shape when the 1950's bras were more cone shaped. So even if the bust of the dress measures 36inches and you measure 36 inches things don't always fit.


Another thing to keep in mind with some fashion labels is that when the designers aim to a certain market e.g. if they are focusing to sell their designs to the size 12 market they will draft their clothes a size 12 and scale down to maybe size 6/8 and up to say 16/18. Anything smaller or larger than that and you have to pretty much redraft the dress design. If you keep on adding or taking away you start to lose the shape of the design. Larger women will be nodding their heads when they think of some brands of bras that in larger sizes just fall off the shoulder no matter how tight you shorten the over the shoulder straps. The design was drafted for a smaller size and just scaled up and up and up to the point that the shoulders become so wide that they don't actually fit anyone (not even those who it was intended for). This is an example of where the designers just scaled up and didn't design a new pattern for the corresponding figure.


Oh and another thing some fashion labels do is they focus on their target market say size 12 and because this is the size they hope to sell the most of they call it a medium. They then may have another shop that targets a different market say size 16 they then call this a size medium. Another shop may target to a size 8, they then call this a medium. So if you buy a medium from each shop you end up with a 8, 12 and 16 all because the target market was different in each respective store. These clothes can be all designed by the same designers they may very well just have different shop fronts/store names for the different clientele.

So the Zara coat in the XL that is tiny might fall in this category.

As there are no laws governing a certain size = certain measurements we will always be guessing and taking in multiple sizes into the change rooms.

I always ask the sales assistants if they are true to size, size up/down etc.

Oh dear so I am not a size 14 now? I was so happy to fit into a 14 wherever I was shopping...even found some skinny jeans in New Look that fitted I was so happy I got teary!!

Oh dear so I am not a size 14 now? I was so happy to fit into a 14 wherever I was shopping...even found some skinny jeans in New Look that fitted I was so happy I got teary!!

You are a size 14 in the New Look jeans but you may not be a size 14 in another brand. The number the slap on the garment is really set by the designer. I think we should move to a measurements based size e.g. 36 = 36 inch bust measurement, 38, 40 etc. translating that into centimetres is going to raise eyebrows... 90, 95, 100 I never thought I would ever say this... But I think I would prefer to stick to inches.

Although... The size in mens garments is apparently a measurements based size but when they are measuring a 40 inch (waist) pair of jeans they are finding that they actually measure more than 40 inches, vanity sizing is there in menswear too.