I was in TKMAX the other day, in the vain hope that I might find a nice warm cardigan suitable for wearing in this warm weather we are having. Fellow sufferers from Reynauds disease will understand this problem. I was even hoping I might find something knitted in acrylic. Fat chance. But thats a rant for another day.
While there I noticed a very nice pair of trousers. As I was picking them off the rail I simultaneously noticed that they were size 8, but that they also looked as if they would fit me. Although my eye is pretty reliable in this respect, I checked by holding them up against me, paying particular attention to the waistline.
It might have been a bit of a squeeze, but only a bit.
And that is ridiculous.
I have always been slim, if not actually thin, & I certainly have no problem with my appetite. I have no truck with modern eating fads & have never been on a diet in my life.
In the 1950s it was quite usual for clothes to be home made. The ground floor of John Lewis in Oxford Street, & of most other department stores, was given over almost completely to bolts of cloth, paper patterns, sewing machines & haberdashery (lovely word).
I made all my own clothes from the age of 14 onwards so I really am sure that I was a size 14.
Misses, that is, in the world of paper patterns. Womens sizes were designed for the fuller, deeper figure.
A size 14 was designed to fit 34-24-36 (or possibly 34-26-36). That is bust, waist, hips, in inches. We used to think it was very odd of the Americans to designate that same size as a 12 - were they trying to delude themselves that they were thinner than English girls?
I have stayed the much same size ever since, albeit with a thicker waist. The clothes in the shops have got larger.
But if I have magically reduced to a size 8, that at least half explains the mystery of size 0.
