0

Good question but I dont think so anymore. In 2001 I was @ 190 lbs and 5'9" tall. I wore a size 13/14 at most "trendy" stores - BeBe, Express, Cache, etc. I wore a 14 with most designers - Calvin Klien, DKNY, Lucky, etc. I am the same height and weigh 148 lbs today and wear a 12 @ Express and BeBe (as of last weekend) and my Lucky's are 10's and 12's. When I was losing weight I found my clothes were too big but the sizes were NOT moving. I was @ 140 in Feb and still could not fit in anything smaller than a 10. I think it is going the other way at this time. I should probably add I did NOT squeeze into anything - never sucked it in to button my pants.

I say this all the time to my husband. I'm almost 5'9" there's no way I should be a small. I worked with a Japanese girl for a couple of years and she could only shop in the children's section. Luckily for her, 10 year olds are dressing like adults these days.

That's why they make clothes in size zero. Did you know they even made a size double zero? I didn't until a month or so ago when I was in the checkout line. The young lady in front of me was thin, but also quite short (under 5'); I'm pretty sure she was at her full adult hight and she didn't look emaciated. She was commenting about how she can never find jeans that fit and that she was happy that this particular store carried size double zero.

I don't know what girls smaller than her are supposed to do...unless they've come out with negative numbers for sizes. Maybe they have to make their own clothes. I understand that really skinny women may have difficulty finding clothes in their size, but it's still hard for me to pity them.

Years ago, when I first heard that Marilyn Monroe wore a size 14, I was confused because I wore a 14 and I recall thinking, "hmm, I don't look like her." Then later, I learned about the ever diminishing sizes and understood. Sure, it feels nice now to be able to buy a size 4 or 6 dress, but that number doesn't mean much when I still can't look decent in a bathing suit--which reminds me of another phenomenon: the ever-diminishing bathing suit. I could go on and on about how much they've shrunk over the years. The only decent bathing suits were in fashion before I was born. Now, we're given two triangles to wear on top, and for the bottom there's a triangle in the front and one in the back, and we're supposed to feel comfortable--yeah right. Ok, I'll stop now before I get carried away.

Negative numbers for sizes!! Now it's going to be a competition to see who can fit into negative 7's.

Marilyn Monroes's measurements - from Snopes.com: Did Marilyn Monroe really wear size 16?

Height: 5 feet, 5½ inches
Weight: 118-140 pounds
Bust: 35-37 inches
Waist: 22-23 inches
Hips: 35-36 inches
Bra size: 36D

I don't think she'd be a 14 today! Maybe she'd be a negative number with that tiny waist.

For me it seems that sizes have gotten larger. When I was in high school in late 70's , I weighed 135 and wore 7's and 9's. I weigh 148 now and wear size 4-5 and they aren't at all tight .I am 5'7. My waist was definitely smaller then, before I had children, but my thighs and hips were larger and more muscular then. My son's girlfriend is 5'9 and weighs 119 and and wears size 1-3.

Lillybelle, I was thinking the same thing. I read once that if Marilyn Monroe were alive today she would easily be a size 14 and not a 12.

My mom is very thin, always has been, at one time she actually bought a girls size jeans and they fit. Now she wears I think size 4 in juniors?

Since I was a size 16 about the same time Marilyn Monroe was it is easy for me to understand....a woman or missies size 16 was downsized to an 8-10......I weighed 140 pounds was 5ft3 1.2 at that time.....so if I get back to my highschool weight instead of a 16 I hope to be looking at 8s and 10s as Marilyn would as well........(ps....don't think she could have worn the tiny sizes in a dress as she was way more endowed then I in the above the waist department).....

Personally, I'm a "huge" fan of vanity sizing. I can't even begin to describe my delight that size 4's are actually loose on me. Last summer I was visiting my mother and she tried to return clothes that I'd given her that I wore 25 years ago (she defies explanation...just take it at face value.) I weighed about 110 when I bought those size 8's, and they fit perfectly. They were too tight on me last summer - OK, I humored her and tried them on- and at the time I was comfortably wearing size 2's. As I said above, I LOVE vanity sizing

But I think this really ties into the "What is normal" thread on the Maintainers forum. I feel like I'm built like a cement block also (Meg's lying, she has a waist!) but last week at my son's chorus concert, I realized I might have been the smallest woman in the auditorium over the age of 15 and smaller than a lot of the teen-agers. Certainly one of the smallest. What do smaller women do? Hmmmm....there aren't many. I see a lot of larger wormen, a few my size, and very few smaller. There still are the size 2's I wore last year, size 0's, and at Banana Republic, Ann Taylor and others, 00. My daughter, who is really tiny and 24 yrs old, wears a 0. The trendier, extremely expensive jeans are sold by waist size and run small. Even wearing a size 4 in Banana Rebuplic and Ann Taylor clothing, there is NO size of Seven or Paige jeans that will go on my legs. They are cut for stick figures. Real tall stick figures

This is from a blogger "Skwigg":
Personally, I'd rather buy a size 4 than a 35.

Mel

Yeesh - too confusing.

I know for sure that back in the early 70s when I was finishing high school I wore a size 7 and could just never get any smaller. I figure I weighed at least 5-7 pounds less then than I do now and I had a high school shape.

I will say that for the last at least 7 or 8 years, it seems like things stabilized and for the most part Talbots for example hasn't changed - the stuff I got seems predictably sized from the past to what it is today.

I remember my mom in the 50s and 60s talking about being a size 12 and so proud of it - even by the late 60s that was seeming like a big number to me.

So ridiculous!

Coming from Australia our sizes are different again.

An Australian 8/10(which I am at 36" hips 24" waist and a bust thats well...very sad - my hips and waist are two different sizes) is generally accepted as a US 4/6

I was at one point down to an emaciated 112 pounds and had 34.5" hips and a 22.5" waist and couldnt find anything to fit...some 6's did, but there weren't a real lot around.

As for jeans...I find the sizes being in inches frustrating when they don't state whether they're using the "natural" waist or the "drop waist" when stating the size. It means I can pick up a size 24 thinking yeah...that'll fit when um...no...the 26" or 27" does because they've measured further down south.

Bottom line for me...vanity or not...if it fits, i'll buy it. I'd rather have something a size "larger" and look hot than something that says it's a small or extra small (help us all in Supre where it goes to xxxsm) and look squeezed :P

My mum in highschool was a size 10 and she weighed a tiny 112 (she's an inch taller than I am at 5'7) and from looking at photos in todays Aussie sizing she'd probably have been a 6.

Today she is about 121 pounds still a size 10. (Mind you...I reckon she is is actually an 8 but for whatever reason she refuses to believe me :P)

Livi

I like vanity sizing but I think it also helps people fool themselves into thinking that they haven't gained weight.

One of my aunts is tiny, short and naturally thin. A few years ago, she was proud of a purchase she made... in the kids department. We all thought it was funny that she was wearing kids clothes but what are they going to do if they keep changing sizes?

The existence of size "00" is absolutely insane.

But, it's not true that men's sizes are totally uniform though. My dh has 32 pants that are loose at the same time as some 34s fit perfectly. He tends to have um, more ample thighs and butt than most men though, so can't just pick up a pair of pants and assume they fit, he always has to try them on.