My name is Courtney and I am a size 16.

My name is Courtney and I am a size 16.

No, in fact I have clothes in my wardrobe, ranging from a size 14 - 20. However I have decided that this year, I don't care about sizes. I don't care for numbers; I just want to enjoy clothes that fit me and clothes that I feel good in.

Scary kids scaring kids
This post is inspired by a few things I've seen posted on the internet and also a few comments I've heard during my day-to-day business. Recently I saw a status on Facebook, along the lines of "not being able to fit into a size 10 jean is just unacceptable", a woman my mum works with was proud that her dress she bought from the US was a size 0 and also other day I was proud, for a moment, of one of my coats being a size 14.

 Numbers are annoying

The point is, that all these thoughts scare me. Why do we live our lives around numbers? Personally, I've hated numbers since I can remember; I used to dread mental maths tests in Primary School and even though I received B's in both of my Maths GCSE's numbers just do not mean a thing to me. So why do we obsess over sizes?

No standardisation 

Especially when all shops have different size guides. For example, I am a size 14-16 in ASDA, a size 16-18 in Primark, a size 16 in New Look. According to the website, I should not fit in to any of the sizes they sell in Topshop, however I have a skirt from there that is a size 14. In addition to this confusion, my prom dress was a size 14. 

It all depends..

Although I think sizing is ludicrous and confusing, I obviously don't think that it's entirely the shops fault. Especially now that online shopping demands a general size guide however these size guides are so vague (as shown in my Topshop example above.  The skirt I bought from Topshop is actually a stretchy velvet material, so it would obviously fit me better than a pair of jeans with no “give” in them.

If only you could buy 3 sizes of the same dress and stitch them together?
Furthermore, a size 16 generally is 33-34 inch waist, 40-41 inch bust and 42-43 inch hip. I know for a fact that my bust isn’t as big as 40 inches! My waist is about 34-35inches. Annoyingly I probably have a size 14 top and a size 16-18 bottom. But most dresses don’t cater for this. A lot of dresses I try are ridiculously baggy at the top. However I know girls that are the other way, and they have to buy bigger sizes due to their bigger boobs, which must be just as annoying as when i have to cater for my big hips! 

“Alternative”shops are the biggest offenders
I’m going to totally contradict what I said about numbers earlier, because it’s not just numbers that have an affect. Another thing that really pisses me off is when shops say M/L or even XL is a size 14-16. This mostly affected me when I was about 14 years old as I used to shop in “alternative” shops. (I have to say that I find those shops the biggest offenders of this ridiculous sizing method) I used to try on dresses and jeans in sizes XL- XXL and they still didn’t fit – it wasn’t because I was actually extra large or extra extra large, looking back I wasn’t even large, but when you’re 13 -14 and you’re more sensitive to these things. 

To conclude, my name is Courtney and I don’t know, nor care what size I am, I have big hips and small boobs and I try to love and accentuate my body best I can. 

 xx