Gone up a size in Penneys lately? You’re not the only one

Popped into Penneys for a few bits lately and realised your normal size doesn't quite fit anymore?

Before you start blaming it on your stay-at-home lifestyle and takeaway habits these past 18 months, you might want to take a look at this. Yesterday, Chelsea Farrell, the current Miss Ireland, posted a video to TikTok showing her comparing the sizes between five pairs of Penneys shorts, all labelled as a size 12.

@chelsea..farrell@penneysireland @primark need to do better! This isn’t fair. ##fyp ♬ original sound - Chelsea Farrell

“I just wanted to come on and talk to you about something that my mam has noticed and I think is absolutely disgusting,” Farrell said in the video, which has been viewed over 700,000 times.

“Can Penneys please explain to me why all of the size 12s are different? There’s a massive difference between them all.”

The 21-year-old then shows the shorts, all stacked on top of each other, with every pair appearing to be a different width.

Farrell then explains that the pair of shorts bought last year fit her mother perfectly, and are “true to size”, while the newer shorts are much smaller.

“Every pair of shorts here is a size 12 from Penneys. Four are a denim short, mid-rise, the exact same one and this one at the back is one from last year,” says as she points to the pile.

“That is not fair. The problem with this is that the people who were a size eight in Penneys last year and are now a size 12 or 14 in Penneys, feel like they put on weight and it’s giving them a weight complex.”

Needless to say, the comment section lit up with other women claiming to have noticed the issue too, and thanking Farrell for talking about it.

“I had a mental breakdown in Penneys because I couldn’t get into a 12 or 14, but fit into a 10 in Dunnes and New Look,” one Tiktok user commented.

“I’ve stopped shopping there for bottoms, I’m a size 14 but according to Penneys I’m an 18,” another lady wrote.

The Irish Examiner reached out to Penneys to see what they had to say about the apparent sizing discrepancy, and a spokesperson for the high street retailer said:

"Everyone is welcome at Penneys which is reflected in the broad size ranges we offer. Consistency of fit matters as much to us as it does to our customers. We are always working with both our suppliers and technologists in our quality team to track and improve this.

"We continue to fit our designs using Size UK data as standard but always encourage customers to get in touch with us if they have concerns about sizing and we will happily look into their query."