american clothing sizes

it is hard to find clothes in todays world. specailly for me.. I am 5'4 286lb... so many people as me why I hate all shopping well that is why. cause I can't find anything. and when I do it look like old lady.. if you go into like walmart or something the clothes look like anorxic people clothes (sorry if that affends people dont' intend too) it seems like this world it only fit for one size person.... What happend to everyone is beautiful no matter what they look like. or celabraite the differences in people and charish the similaritys.

 

I bought this skirt at Goodwill for a few dollars and it's straight from the seventies. On the tag it reads "Size 10"...It's WAYYYYYYYYY too small for me...I can't even get it around my hips...and I normally wear a 7. Shows how times have changed as far as sizing goes.

 

About Marilyn Monroe being a "larger" size...

http://www.jessicaseigel.com/marilyn.shtml <<HERE is a size 12 (by today's standards) trying to fit into Marilyn's dresses.

 

I love the WTFery look on her face. My sentiments exactly. Marilyn was a damn twig with some boobs.

 

Originally Posted by bare is best

This is not true. Women are supposed to have more body fat than men. In reality, they are supposed to be "cushy", not boney. It is very unhealthy to have bones sticking out. Fat is on our bodies for a reason, it is unfortunate that people have made it to be something that it is not (ugly) beause it is very beneficial to our survival, unlike Starbucks.

There is a normal standard of health that people should be at least trying their best to meet. Not with fad diets and starvation, nor should they be eating disgusting fast food and manufactured junk. In my professional opinion (as a personal trainer) it is not healthy to say "I'm super obese and I don't care, the rest of the world has to deal with it not me." Nor is it healthy to say "society has caused me to starve myself to death, and I look damn good in a size double zero jeans so who cares if I can't walk up a flight of stairs, afterall muscle makes you look fatter".

Trust me, all of my closest friends have been very thin, 3 of which naturally do wear a size 0 to a 2 at the highest. I also have very large friends who wear sizes in the 20's. I myself have gone from a size 10 (at age 9) all the way up to a 26 (by age 20) and all the way back down now to a 12 which is where I'm strong, healthy and hella sexy.

Of course, the standard does all depend on the person's overall lifestyle. For example, I personally do not eat a lot (I drink like a fish though which is my problem) and I only eat healthy foods that are natural not processed and I have not had fast food or soda in 5 years (not even a salad from a fast food place because I refuse to give them my money so they can kill more people). I work out for 2 hours most days (about 5/week in the gym, plus on the weekends I do sports of all kinds). However, one of my best friend's, Chrissy, doesn't ever work out, and eats more junk than one can imagine (McDonalds 3x's a day and junk from vending machines in between) yet she is a size 0. I bet you any amount of money if we went to the doctor today, I'd be the one who is more healthy than she.

I don't know why more people just don't understand this is about life and death here, not about what you look like in a pair of freakin jeans. I mean sure I do make sure I look nice in my clothes, but the reason I lost weight is because I didn't want to die. And the reason that I don't lose much more is because I don't want to die to be thin. For me it is all overrated. I'm more about being healthy.

Just some more of my 2 cents.

 

let's not forget they wore "foundations" in those days, too.

 

Marilyn did have quite a nice butt, as well. My dh is an ass man (and a tit man, and a leg man and.....) and he thinks MM is wonderful. He says I'm built like her, if she had had four kids.......I THINK that's a compliment. LOL!

My mother still goes on about girdles and how awful they were. I don't blame her. I bought a tummy tucker for a dress I was going to wear to a wedding, and realized after about 15 minutes that I wouldn't be able to sit, eat or feel like talking to anyone. The 40s and 50s and even the older and more conservative womyn in the 60s wore girdles and padded, iron belted bras, ect. I remember my grandmother taking off her girdle in the Parlour when I was a child. She would just FLING it....."That GOD I got that goddam thing off." You'd have loved her.

Anyway, people can be proportioned very differently, weighing the same. My mother and I weigh nearly the same. Her stuff is mostly below the waist, she has no breasts to speak of (she, did, however have no problem making milk for the few weeks she tried) and is very belly heavy. You could take 10 womyn the same weight and they could all look very different.

Don't forget also, before the "Liberated" 70s, if the things on the store racks didn't fit you, you sewed. Most womyn sewed, and if you were an odd size, or had huge boobs, or were really short, or really tall, or had a tiny waist, you either altered your clothes or made them. Only a fraction of womyn back then bought "off the rack." I remember my mother thinking womyn who bought all their and their kids clothes "off the rack" as either very rich or very effected. She sewed most of what she wore and most of what I wore until I was about 12 years old.

I remember most houses having a "sizing dummy" with dials to change the shoulders, boobs, waist, hips, rear ect. Nearly all my freind's mother's had them, and they usually were in the Living room or dining room, where Mom had the sewing machine. Nowdays, there are MORE sizes and most womyn don't sew most of their clothes.

 

i'm dying to learn to make my own clothing. i'm fortunate that my excess weight distributes evenly, making my 185 fit in the clothes for a less fortunate 150, which is excellent. but i'm long legged and short waisted and huge busted. it's aggravating trying to find the things that fit, as i'm sure most women here understand. if something fits my waist, there's not way in hell it's going to fit over my boobs. if it fits my boobs, then it's shaped like a potato sack and people ask me when i'm due. my pants have to be low rise, long in length. if i could just learn how to design and sew my stuff, i'd be totally hooked up.

my grandmother bemoaned the death of the corset, girdle and all that. called in the end of women's waistlines. personally, i always thought women looked silly with wasp waists. i like a nice rounded belly. but for some reason, i love putting on a corset for a while. makes all my already overblown features even more rounded, but for some reason, keeps them under control. totally impractical, though. and since having my second baby, tummy control items rank high on my list of "i wish i could afford a good one," but then when i try to sit, they just sort fold up in the middle. horrifying contraptions bent upon humiliating us non thin women.

 

I have a girdle story too. I was always "overweight". I was a chubby little girl (actually I filled out quite early) but I wasn't obese or anything. Plus, I was very tall thanks to my grandpas (I absolutely love being a tall woman). Well, according to my grandmother I looked more like a football player and not like a young lady at all. So my mother and her got into a huge fight one day because my grandma told my mom that I should be in a girdle because I'm too fat. Well, that made me cry, and I didn't even know what the fuck a girdle was (I was only 9 years old for crying out loud). Anyway, she honestly thought that is what I needed. Nevermind all of the food she stuffed in me, like grandmas do. So from that point up until last year I hated the idea of a girdle because I associated it with being fat and ugly and unloved.

But like I said, this was all until last year. Then I got these panties that suck it in (I carry all of my weight in my tummy) and I was in love with them. So now I want to get a real girdle, but I'm going to wait and see how much more I lose before I spend the money. Like I said before I fluctuate in weight so much that I have 2 separate wardrobes.

Regarding sewing things, that is a very good point to make. I can sew, though I don't usually have time for it. But these days it really does not cost very much to take something to a tailor, especially if it is something nice that you will get a lot of wear out of. I have to do that with blouses because I have a huge chest, but I like my shirts to be fitted to show off my waist. I also have a very long torso and legs (I'm 5'11") so sometimes I just buy mens clothes (like t-shirts and jeans) because nothing is ever long enough for me. I'm so glad they have come back with the tunic sweaters, they actually fit me now.

 

I can't wear any tummy tuck thingies. It gives me a tummy ache, and I feel like I have to poop and........TMI. I had to throw away the tummy tuck panties I bought and just wear the dress. (I looked pretty good, anyway.)

Putting a NINE year old in a girdle? OMG. That's so sad that someone would think like that, while shoveling cookies into the child as well. My mom HAD to wear a girdle when she went away to Boarding School in High School. The Nuns said that men wouldn't want to marry you otherwise and it was good for "childbearing." HOW would they know? My mother STILL blames her belly (which I've never had a problem with, but she's always going on about her belly) on the fact that "That girdle ruined my stomach muscles." I don't know if that is true, though.

KC, I can't sew to save my life. I can take up hems, and when I had a machine, I could make pillow cases. I would be nice to have pants and even skirts that weren't 5 inches too long, though. The only time I've ever had pants fit in the length is during the 80s and early 90s, when those calf length pants, with the zippers were in style. I could buy pants that would fit a normally sized womyn to the calf and not have to hem them or roll them up. *sigh*

 

well, after my first bedrest, the left side of my stomach was stretched more than the right side, from laying on my left side for 8 months. that doesn't even factor in the weight gain. after my second baby, it just got worse. so i don't even have an even-shaped buldge, it's bigger on the left than the right. uck. but i like that my waist isn't quite so narrow anymore. it was SO pinched in that it looked horrible. i really should just make my own stuff. i think i'll take a class in it. i designed my own prom dress to suit me, since nothing in the stores did, both in cut and in style. that went over really well. i've made a few drawings of other things as well that my mother made. i should just get on it and learn to do it.

 

you can get jeans taken in at the waist. I used to abhor wearing jeans because I thought I looked bulky (I have the oppositte problem-thick and high waisted with narrow hips and all my fat is in the front of my body) now that my tailor cuts them like wide leg pants I I can't get enough of them...especially with heels. He only charges like 7 bucks too.

 

yeah, i'm gonna have to do something.