Sizing

[plumtreeblossom]

Since when does a size 6 skirt fit me?

My proportions and size are exactly the same as they were in college, but back the I needed a size 14, for everything. Just now I tried on a skirt I salvaged from the going-out-of-business giveaway that Benjamin and I found in Arlington. It's a size 6 and I didn't expect to get it so much as over my thighs, but it zipped up nice as you please. Clothing sizes are growing bigger around me, and it's just plain weird when you stay the same size while the clothes expand. I still have some "old size 14" garments from the 80s, and they fit neatly. But I swim in a modern store-bought 14, and am into the single digits without having lost an inch. Also, I used to take a size Large for stretch tops and t-shirts. Now it's either Medium or Small. I'm curvy, and I have to wonder where slender women shop, when a "Small" is now this big.

Oh well, the skirt is lovely. Shrug...

Comments

[androidqueen.livejournal.com]

in the dieting/binging drama that is my life i've run into some fun facts:

marilyn monroe was a size 14. she had a 26 inch waist.

i am currently somewhere between a size 10 and a size 14 (depending on brand, etc), usually a size 12. i have a 34 inch waist.

sizes are definitely shrinking. my sister, who is a small woman, wears a size 0 in many things. i wonder if they'll go to negative sizes.

[lillibet.livejournal.com]

It's all marketing. A standard size 14 (who knows what that is, exactly, but there you go) is now the most frequently purchased size in the US, up from a size 8 about 20 years ago. So shops have been making sizes larger, since women feel better about themselves and clothes if the clothes have smaller numbers on them. This is also why some large-women's shops have gone to a proprietary sizing system of "1, 2, 3," etc.