I've been reading this thread with interest. I think US sizings are totally different from NZ. The woman whose house I live in is totally thin and she wears a size 10. The smallest size I've ever seen in the shops here is a size 8. So I'd be interested to know how your sizes work. I find that here the cheaper stores seem to have larger sizing, not just larger sizes.
I have a pair of size 18 all elastic waist pants that I bought as incentive, I can get them on reasonably comfortably now. Another pair of 18's I bought from another store are just about falling of me. Yet another pair that are only 1/2 elastic won't even pull up over my butt.
I read in the paper the other day, that they're going to standardise the sizes, but then some styles are designed to be loose anyway.
The annoying thing is it's nice to buy a couple of things in a smaller size when I see them in a sale, but I want to know how long I'll have to wait, not find they're actually 3 sized smaller not one.