Women hoard £200 worth of clothes they can no longer fit into



Nothing to wear: The average woman's wardrobe contains at least 10 items of clothing that don't fit

They are the guilty secrets squirrelled away in the wardrobe by most women.

The pair of jeans that used to fit perfectly, the top which is flattering in all the right places, the suit that will definitely fit again one day.



Apparently 80 per cent of women have items of clothing hidden in the wardrobe which are testament to the days when they were that bit thinner. They keep the clothes in the hope that one day they will fit into them again.



Instead the items of clothing collect dust and just act as a reminder of the size they once were.



Researchers have found the average woman has £200 of unworn clothes in her wardrobe.

That means women have spent an estimated total of £32,186,000 on clothes that do not, and have never, fitted.



A survey by diet company Slim Fast found that nearly 50 per cent of women have 10 or more items of clothing in their wardrobe they cannot bear to throw out. On average this includes four pairs of jeans, two little black dresses, two bikinis, a skirt and a boob tube.



The most unworn item of clothing is jeans - as women keep pairs that just don't fit anymore.



The survey also found that 53 per cent of women have clothes in their wardrobes that span three or more different dress sizes.



And one in four people have lied to their friends and partners about what size they are.

Nutritionist Fiona Hunter said: 'The weight of a lot of women yo yos. They lose weight, gain it then loose it again, so they have their fat clothes and their thin clothes. A lot of the problem is that women choose inappropriate diets and once they lose weight they can't stick to that weight.

'But we are optimistic so we keep clothes which used to fit us. And the problem with yo yo dieting because if you have lost weight once, you think you will be able to do it again.

'If a woman has a favourite dress or something that brings good memories to them, they would like to think they would be able to wear it again.'

More than a quarter of the 2,000 women surveyed said they had purposely bought clothes that do not fit as an incentive to diet, but have never reached their target so the clothes remain unworn.



Slim Fast spokesperson, Tracey Wilson, said: 'Hopefully this survey will show us that we are not alone in hoarding our clothes and that there are many other women out there, who cling on to clothes that no longer fit. The overall cost of unworn clothes is phenomenal! We want to tell the public it needn’t be a challenge to slim into our dream outfits.'



Evidence shows British women are getting bigger, taller and rounder. The average female waist has increased from 27.5in 50 years ago to 34in, according to the National Sizing Survey.



Hips are 1.5in wider five decades later at 29in, while bust size has increased by the same amount to 38.5in.



To reflect this, most fashion stores provide larger sizes to reflect the reality of their customers.



As long ago as 2005, Topshop chiefs admitted they had been forced to inflate sizes to cope with young women 'blossoming'.

Its standard size ten and 12 were 'super-sized' to cope with changing body shapes, an executive revealed.



Marks & Spencer has made a virtue of changing its sizes, which included moving its standard from size 12 to 14. The firm's Per Una fashion range goes up to an 18.



