Shocking picture shows just how different a UK size 12 looks in high-street shops

TRYING on clothes can be a nightmare, what with the terrible lighting, loud music and hangers sprawled everywhere.

But after trawling through the rails, there’s nothing worse than getting to the changing room to find that the jeans you’ve chosen won’t go over your thighs, even though you use that size in a different store.

Shopper Chloe posted a picture of seven pairs of jeans, all a UK size 12, that showed sizing discrepancy@chloemmx / Twitter

Her tweet has since been liked by over 178,000 people, mainly women, and shared by thousands

After experiencing sizing discrepancy while shopping from high-street shops, furious Chloe, a teenager from Scotland, took to Twitter to declare she’d had enough.

The then-18-year-old tweeted a picture of seven pairs of jeans, all in a UK size 12, to emphasise how different clothes can look from one store to another.

Back in 2019, she wrote: “In case you’ve ever wondered why women get so frustrated with our clothing sizes – every pair of jeans pictured is a size 12.”

Chloe’s sizing protest came less than a year after major retailers including New Look, River Island and ASOS signed up to the Shape GB campaign – a nationwide standardisation of sizing in the UK.

Wanting to see change, Chloe said she found it frustrating that sizing changes in different shops and believes it can lead to body dysmorphia, where a person worries over the appearance obsessively.

Her tweet has now been liked by over 178,000 people from across the world and re-tweeted by a further 75,000, mainly women.

She told the Metro: “I was surprised that a tweet about jeans could reach so many people, but I feel like women are so sick of being made to feel larger than they are because of clothing store sizes.

“High street stores target young women to buy their clothes and they’re giving young women the impression that they need to go up a size when in reality it’s the store’s fault.

“There doesn’t seem to be an ideal size 12 or any other size – because from my picture we can all see clearly that they are totally different.”

Chloe added that brands should have a responsibility to have consistent sizing, admitting that two pairs of jeans from her photo are from the same shop in the same size, but still differ.

She added on Twitter: “No wonder women feel so insecure, I’ve had size 10 dresses that fit fine, then I’ll try on size 14 jeans that won’t even go past my hips. It’s not right.”

Other women agree, with one adding: “My 12-year-old was in tears in one shop as nothing fit. She was even trying on adult size 12 and 14. We never went in again – teenage girls have enough to deal with.”

Another said: “If you propose a regulation to make women’s jeans sizes use actual dimensions like men’s I’ll vote for it.”

A third concurred: “It’s very hard to have a body positive image when fashion retailers seem to work hard to make you feel inadequate.”

Fashion – The Sun