Bloody clothes sizes

[flick]

Women's clothes sizes make no bloody sense, even when you look at them in inches.

There's a top I want to buy, which the designer-maker says is:
- size 12 bust 36/38" waist 26/28" hips 38/40" ("so quite big")
- size 10 bust 34/36" waist 24/26" hips 36/38"

I just measured myself, and my measurements are 38/30/37. I wouldn't say I'm currently bigger than a "quite big" size 12 (the size 10 trousers I bought in M&S the other week are somewhat worryingly baggy about the waist, although they are casual), but I thought she might be basing the size numbers on an old pattern, so I had a look at the M&S website:
- size 10 = 34/27/37
- size 12 = 36/29/39
- size 14 = 38/31/41

So, do I assume that the designer is lying as much as M&S does, and in the same direction, or that her sizes are accurate...?

Sigh.

Comments

[flickgc.livejournal.com]

I just don't bother with tops that have buttons, because they either gape or are hugely too big for me. The one exception to that is the shirt I wore for wedding, which was a size 16 (iirc) that I had taken in. I say taken in, the poor woman re-stitched every seam in the thing, from what I can tell.

I think M&S is one of those shops where you have to be The Right Shape for the clothes (and the shoes).

[frostfox.livejournal.com]

I don't have tops with buttons because they are buttons, obviously and therefore evil and smelly.

I am now a size 20 short in M&S trousers and a large in LandsEnd, I seem to have developed a LandsEnd wardrobe, the T-shirts fit me very well.

My walking trousers are a 20 or a 22, same with the base liners, mostly from Mountain Warehouse.

FF