The half-size mystery solved

As mysteries go, this will never enjoy a BBC production. After all, it features no bodies, no stolen jewels, and no charismatic detective. Just an aging professor, dressed in well-worn L.L. Bean basics, trying to figure out what happened to the women's clothing range formerly known as "half sizes".

Sears, Roebuck & Company Spring 1970 catalog.

Half sizes were designed for "mature figures" -- women with fuller, lower busts, waists that were larger in proportion to bust and hips than "Misses" sizes, and shorter from neck to waist than "Misses" or "Women's" figures. Half sizes were seldom sleeveless, and the sleeve seam and upper arm were roomier. Skirts were usually longer than other size ranges. Shoulders were more rounded. In other words, half sizes were for postmenopausal women. Until they disappeared in the late 1980s. 

Of course, I mean that the size range disappeared, not the women for whom it had been desired. Half Sizes were replaced by Women's Petite.

I am still tracking down the exact change in standards, but it is clear that the dimensions and proportions changed, not just the name.

Sears, Roebuck & Company, Fall, 1988 catalog.

So what? Why should anyone care? 
Here's the thing. If sizes associated with age (half sizes) do not exist, women over fifty must select clothing from the remaining size ranges based on the size, shape and proportion of their bodies. This sounds like a good thing, but there's this reality: we are not all Helen Mirren. We are also not 20-something plus-size models. Some of look like this, or will, if we live long enough:

Figure from Margaret Swisher Larmour, “A Study of Body Measurements Relating to the Fit of Clothing for 65 to 74 Year Old Women,” 1988.

And so, I wonder, how did the elimination of half sizes change the ways in which older women see themselves? As baby boom women age, what options will we have, and and what will we choose?