Today’s fashion industry loves “vanity sizing”: making clothes bigger than their stated size. And if you’re the kind of gal who is flattered by this trick, then vintage clothing sizes can be a bit traumatic.
Since most online vintage boutiques sell clothes by bust/hip/waist measurements rather than size, in order to purchase vintage clothing online and make sure it fits, you’re going to have to make friends with a tape measure and take an honest look at your own body’s measurements. Then you need to get mentally prepared to open a package from your favorite online boutique and–yikes!–find a dress with a crinkly 1950s size tag that is several sizes larger than anything else in your closet.
Of course, if you can get past your size phobia, you’ll have access to some pretty amazing fashions. Take a look at today’s VPOD.
This 1950s silk dress is the loveliest shade of steel blue with sparkling rhinestone detail. And its shelf bust with collar, full skirt and matching belt are meant to flatter a woman with some curves.
It’s a beautiful blue find for a vintage fashionista!
Available at Timeless Vixen.
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Technorati Tags: Fashion, vintage, vintage_clothing 1950s, Dress
nice post, thanks for sharing!
I just bought a vintage Jaeger skirt….I don’t even want to mention what size it was. Let’s just say that it is 3 sizes larger than my regular clothers.
Also, It amazes me that I wore a larger size in college, when I was smaller than I am now.
Vanity sizing indeed.
Today’s fashion industry loves “vanity sizing”: making clothes bigger than their stated size.
Actually, sizing is designed to reflect the mean, the average size. For example, a size 10 was never intended to remain static but fluctuate with the population. As the average consumer has gained appreciably in girth, as have sizes followed suit. Were this not the case, then we’d still have a broad range of vintage era sized garments to pick from. The reality is, too few consumers can wear those sizes so we don’t make them anymore.
Sizes in moderately priced apparel are the largest per size because that average customer is larger. In pricey expensive designer lines, the measures that constitute a given size are smaller than say at Wal-Mart because the average wealthy consumer is thinner than the broad mean. If it were true that sizes are intended to appeal to vanity, it’d make sense to do it in expensive clothing but it is exactly the opposite. Where’s the value in appealing to the vanity of someone buying a $5.99 tee? Iow, vanity sizing is largely a myth.