What is Vanity Sizing? Are you being fooled?

Poor Victoria Beckham. When British denim company David Bitton recently sent her premium jeans, the former Spice Girl Posh found herself swimming in them. Seems the size 24, the brand's smallest, didn't fit the celebutante, her stylist reported. So Bitton crafted a size 23 to grace Beckham's bony backside. A quick tape measure, however, proved that their 23 was really more like a 25. That's because of "vanity sizing" - a brand's way of appealing to a customer's ego by slapping a size 2 label on a garment that's much more like a 6 - and it's gained incredible momentum in the past few months.

Banana Republic recently introduced a "00"; Old Navy now has XXS tops and bottoms, and the desire to become a nearly negative size is taking over the retail scene. Vanity sizing has become a pop culture touchstone. Eva Longoria's supposed size 00 measurements were even written into an episode of "Desperate Housewives." "Retailers don't want size 16 women coming in their store and saying, 'I need to lose some weight; I'll buy this later.' They want them to think they're a 12 and buy it now," says Tim Gunn, chairman of the fashion department at Parsons the New School for Design, and fashion authority on Bravo's "Project Runway." "The sizing is so much a part of a woman's self-esteem."

Paige Adams-Geller, a former denim fit model, created her own line of jeans called Paige Denim, that are true to size. "There are brands out there that don't focus on fit; they focus on the visual appearance of the garment, which can cause sizing issues," says Adams-Geller. "These companies use their own sizing criteria, therefore a true 28 can end up being a 26 or 30 in their brand."

A recent national survey noted that in the past 50 years, the average woman's waist has gone from a 27 to a 34; still, more and more females are miraculously fitting into smaller and smaller sizes. "The consumers seem content to be deluded," says Gunn.

NY Daily News