The Lost Crafter: Vintage Sewing and modern bodies

image from what-I-found

A friend is leaving Sydney in a few months and mentioned as her going away party she wanted everyone to dress up and go to some cocktail bar. I thought it might be fun to find a vintage 60's dress pattern and make a dress for this. So I started to search and I have to say have taken something of a blow to my confidence. On What-I-Found they have 6108 vintage patterns, but when I search using my bust size I get 46 results, most of which are from the 80's. That works out as roughly .7%! Most of the patterns from the 60's were for a bust size at least 4 inches smaller then mine.

Now, while I am not exactly small I am also not big, I am well within a healthy weight range for my height, I eat well and I exercise (mostly). But I feel like if I were to be transported back to the 60's I would be considered obese. Although interestingly, given one quote I found on the average size of a woman in the 60's, while I am taller my waist and hip measurements are right on par, but my bust is much bigger (although don't ask me how reliable these figures were, people can say pretty much what they want here on the internet can't they).

So, I wonder, how much have our bodies changed over the last 50 years. And is this fashion for vintage out of reach for a lot of us as we simply do not have the bodies to fit the clothes? One statistic I found (and have heard a lot) is that in the last 15 years alone the average bra size, in the U.S, has gone from a 34B to a 36C. If there can be that drastic a change in 15 years imagine how different women could have looked 50 years ago! And it is hardly surprising with the amount of drugs, hormones and chemicals have been introduced to our lives (but that is another post!).

I guess the best solution, for me anyway, is to take a pattern drafting course and to learn how to resize vintage patterns to fit my modern frame. Because at the end of the day I will take a wiggle dress over a pair of skinny jeans every single time.