Ok, this started with my husband asking what someone with a 32 inch waist would be in women's sizing and since I haven't seen that small of a waist since um 8 years ago, I had to go look it up.

Um...did something happen with American sizing? Because in 1999 I was a size 8 and my waist was 30 inches on the dot. Now it's saying that would be a size 10. Did something change?

Anyone have a decent link to sizing (tops and bottoms) that I can access? I guess I am just going to go for an inch and pounds goal instead of clothing size because it just seems all the sizes shrunk!

I don't really know but I am a size 14 and have a waist of 40"

The sizes are nuts now. I can't make any sense out of them. That's why I just don't think in terms of clothing sizes!

Sometimes a catalog will have a range of sizes and the measurements that match up with them--like LLBean, I think...

Anyone else have ideas?

Jay

Let's thank vanity sizing, which has made clothes bigger thanks to the population as a whole getting bigger. There was a thread I read from awhile ago where someone made a statement to the affect, "If you went in one store and wore a size 8, but went in another store with similar clothing and wore a 10, which store would you rather shop at"?

Men have it so lucky b/c men's clothing is inch sized. Where as women's clothing is numerical and all this L, XL, S, XXS business. Although, some clothing designers are going back to inch sizing.

Sadly, it depends on the clothing store and whether or not they buy into the whole vanity sizing market. We can never win!

I knew I was brilliant...lol. J/K! I bookmarked the thread with the post on sizing. Read through and you'll notice how much size varies amongst a few members among our small online community so you can only imagine how much they vary for all women.

http://www.3fatchicks.com/forum/arch...p/t-40036.html

I think sizes have actually gotten a lot bigger, especially in the last few years. I have some very old clothes from the early 80's- size 8. I was a LOT younger then, pre-kids, and a distance runner. Those clothes are a bit tight. I also weigh about 10 pounds more now, but do a lot of weight training now. My size? 2-4 on the bottom and 4-6 on the top.

(the intervening years were NOT in single digit sizes!)

Mel

We finally managed to convince our mum a little while ago that clothes sizings have indeed changed over the years. For ages now she has been insisting on buying size 10 clothes (which would be a US 6) when they absolutely hang off her...she's a rake! But because she was a 10 when she was was 20 and her weight hasn't changed since then she insists she should still BE a 10.

We were out in a store which had the measurements with the corresponding size up on a sign and when I made mum actually look at it she was like...Oh...I see...you're right, they HAVE changed! Turns out she's an Aussie 8 bordering a 6 on top (US 4/2) in todays charts.

For my own part I'm a size 8-10 (US 4-6) - my hips are 36" and my waist is about 24.5"...things are generally loose on my waist because I have wide hips and runners thighs...I HAVE noticed pants made now are smaller through the hip than the older "vintage" pants I try on.

I think also sometimes clothes don't fit based exactly on those guidelines. I have smaller hips and a larger waist, so I wear a size 8 pant, even though my waist is 1.5 in bigger than a "size 8" waist according to the sizing chart, because the pants I wear ride lower on the hip. So even if you were a size 8 with a 30 in waist, the sizing charts might have said that a size 8 was a "29 inch" waist.

I find the whole thing horribly confusing, in any case.

It really varies depending on a person's shape, too, not to mention the manufacturer! I'm 5'5" and have a 25" waist/35" hips, and I generally wear I size 7 or 9 in Canadian clothing styles...6 in American brands...4 from Old Navy! That said, I still have some older size 11's that fit like a glove, and my jeans are generally size 28-30.

Oh good lord. So basically I will have a ton of different sizes in my closet.

I always find that clothes run big. I have size 2 up to size 9 and i have a 26inch waist. size 2s are suppose to be like 23inch waist. Basically you need to go by how clothes fit because there is no standard anymore. when i had a 32 inch waist I wore a 11/12 most of the time. the bigger the population gets the smaller the tag size gets on bigger clothes.

you will! every manufacturer is different. i have a thick waist/slender hips and generally wear a size smaller than my "waist size" because everything is cut so low. i mostly have 10s and 12s that fit now, but i have a pair of very old 16s that are definitely not too too large yet. i'm a 34 (well honestly 35 but i just had to downgrade on the bras!) bust but have wide shoulders so i tend to wear larges on top, sometimes XL.. i have had everything from 8s to 12s fit me in the stores with a 32/34 waist depending on the tom and 38 inch hips. i have found that in most stores i'm a 10 but that is absolutely not universal.