Re: Marilyn Monroe and the current trend of VANITY LABELLING!
Marilyn Monroe's height was 5'5", weighed between 115-120 at her peak, and her measurements according to her dressmaker were 35-22-35. Please see: http://www.marilynmonroe.com/about/facts.html
Back in the 1950s, when dress sizes were DIFFERENT, that made her around a US size 12. Today, the US size 12 is now a US size 4 or 6, if not smaller. Americans have gotten bigger over the years, and manufacturers have adjusted their sizes according to the vanity of their customers. Please see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanity_sizing
There also wasn't any uniform sizing back in the 1950s - it was just being developed --see http://www.sazzvintage.com/size_chart.html
For the best article on this see http://www.fitme.com/Fitme/html/Publ...Z_Rep_0104.htm
re: the Marilyn debate.
Personally, I would LOVE to be a size 12 if that meant measurements of 35-23-35!!!
I am 5' 5 & 3/4' , I graduated high school in 1983 and at the time weighed 125-130 pounds, my measurements were 36-26-36 and I wore a 9/10. My 19 year old daughter has the same exact measurments though we carry it differently and she wears a 3 or a 5 depending on the cut, but my old highwaisted Levis are too big for her hips/butt and too tight at her waist. Go figure!!
Marilyn Monroe's dress measurements would have been for a body in a tight-fitting girdle. Her body shape was great, but it wasn't nearly as out of the ordinary as those measurements, accurate or not, would suggest. Add a few inches to the waist and hips for what she'd look like in the underwear you and I wear most of the time.
Hey, 38-25-38 still sounds like a fantasy to me, and I think that today, this would equate to about a size 3! I also, in high school, weighed 115 lbs at 5 foot 5 inches (grew a couple since than), with a 26 inch waist, and wore size 8-10. Go figure...
My only point of my post is that a reported size 12 in 1950 is a whole lot smaller than a size 12 is today. While I have taken comfort over the years in thinking that "hey, Marilyn was a size 12", the sad facts remain that vanity labelling is a reality, that marketing dictates that larger people now fit a smaller size on the label, and that although buxom by 1950s standards (just look and "Some Like it Hot", where she had gained weight and was unable to do up her dress from the waist-up, and you can see this visibly in the boat scene with Tony Curtis, but I digress), she was by no means skinny, by no means overweight, and with a generous measurement of 38-28-38, STILL would have had a rockin' body by today's standards.
nelie - btw in regards to the shirt issue you are having..you may want to buy the larger size and have it altered...it seems to work for me. I'm prob a size 18 due to my "girls" but i'm a size 12 waist..most size 18 shirts are so big on the bottom i'm swimming but have them altered and Vavoomm...perfect shirt.
Oops, Freiamaya. Girdles don't change your breast measurement. (A girdle is/was a stretchy thing that went from the waist to, usually, the upper legs. It worked like control-top tights, except it squished much more.)
Because this is my post, I'm going to interpret 35-22-35 in a girdle (Do I necessarily believe the dressmaker? I don't know. I'd believe someone who didn't make money off the Monroe myth more, especially someone who could document the measurements of a dress that could be documented on her-- in other words, something we can see a picture of her wearing.) as 35-25-37 in normal undies. At JCrew that would be a size 4-6, with extra room in the waist. At Lands End, it would be a 6 on top, 4 on bottom, extra room in the waist either way. IOW, small but not teensy.
