Highstreet stores accused of “vanity sizing”

It’s been a few months since we last kicked off about clothes sizes.

Last time it was jeans that fell foul of our fashion eye after we had a rant about the different fits and sizes. And now research has found that some highstreet stores are increasing the size of their garments to convince shoppers that they wear a smaller clothing size.

According to The Times stores such as Marks & Spencer, Gap and John Lewis are creating “vanity sizes”, which means they are expanding the ideal measurements described for each clothing size, to make us feel better about ourselves.

For instance, in some stores we can easily slip into a size 10 dress, but in another we can’t even get our foot in a size 10.

Marks and Spencer of course denied the claim telling the paper it had not altered its measurements for suppliers since 2003, following a 3-D body scanning survey of women’s bodies, it has reportedly increased its ideal measurement guidelines.

“We are not sweetening the sizes or softening the blow for anyone but in 2007 we introduced a size 6 and a size 30 to our range and we tweaked the sizes on our website so they are based on an average body,” a store spokeswoman told The Times.

“We were trying to more accurately reflect what customers’ body shapes would be showing them. We did not change the size of the garments.”

Gap said that its sizes “depend on the fit and style” of the garment, while John Lewis said “emerging fashion trends and seasonal influences dictate sizing adjustments.”

We’re not sure what to make of this research, but we have been silently campaigning for shops to introduce universal measurements for a good few months now (wouldn’t it be lovely just to grab your size and leave instead of tirelessly trying on different ones?). We’ll be asking for your help with this shortly.

In the meantime we want to know what you think about this research. Should stores continue with their “vanity sizing” or are they doing more harm than good? Vote below and let us know.