Jul 24

Jul 24 What's my clothing size?

My clothing sizes are all over the place. At Express, I’m an XS in dresses, and a 4 in pants. At Farm Rio, I’m a Medium in pants, and a Small in dresses. In Levi’s 311’s (Amazon), I’m a 27 but in Levi’s 710’s I’m a 30 (yes, three sizes different). Additionally, there are many brands I simply don’t fit into. I have curvy hips and will never fit in Banana Republic because they are cut too straight. So what size am I?

The fashion industry doesn’t actually have an answer to this question. Each brand is creating clothing for their customer base, meaning they all have their own sizing system. Because of this, I never know if a cute brand I’ve seen online will fit me. I’m sure you feel the same way. We’re going to explore how clothing sizes are created and why this process makes it hard for you to find clothes that are a perfect fit for your body shape.

No Two Bodies are the Same

Every body is unique. Brands understand this, so each brand offers clothing that's ideal for a different set of body shapes. A brand can do this in two ways. The first option is to use a manufacturer's preexisting clothing pattern. When a brand does this, they know the fit will appeal to the market at large. However, it may not work for a particular niche or body shape.

Alternatively, the brand takes on the responsibility of creating the clothing pattern. This allows them to look at the population of people they want the clothing to fit and pick proportions for the garment to reflect this. For example, when Banana Republic looks at which professionals are buying their clothing, they see they are generally straighter cut. To fit their population correctly, they hire a pattern maker to make clothes for their straighter-than-average customer.

The pattern maker’s job is to design the measurements for each article of clothing to fit this population. The pattern maker starts by creating the middle size of a clothing line. Those measurements determine the shape of the clothes. What’s the middle size? It’s whatever size the brand expects the majority of their customers to buy. That means if you're a medium in a brand, you match up with the average customer that shops there.

The pattern maker doesn’t arbitrarily chose measurements for the middle size. Instead, the measurements for the middle size are typically designed for and adjusted to a “fit model”, a real person who represents the average customer who will buy the garment. If the brand is trying to fit multiple shapes well, sometimes they’ll employ several fit models. If you’re shaped like one of their fit models, this brand is a perfect fit for you.

Once the pattern maker determines the measurements for the middle size, he moves on to creating the other sizes.

Sizes come from Grading Rules

All other sizes for a clothing line are usually based on the measurements of the middle size. To generate the measurements for the other sizes, the pattern maker applies a technique called grading to the middle size. Grading increases each measurement by a fixed amount between sizes. For example, the waistband on a pair of pants usually changes by an inch between sizes, while the thigh changes by a half inch. This approximates how different parts of the body change in proportion to one another.

Think of it like Russian stacking dolls. Each smaller doll in the stack decreases in height and width, but has the same shape. Likewise, each smaller size decreases in height and width, but keeps the same shape. The small size is made for a person who is shorter and narrower, while the large size is made for a person who is taller and wider.

The Problem with Grading and Size Numbers

Grading works well if you’re shaped similarly to a brand’s average customer. It approximates shape changes as people grow taller and wider at the same time. Like the Russian stacking doll, all proportions of the person need to grow for the next size to fit perfectly.

This is why it is so hard for short men or petite women (like me) to find clothes that fit. Their shape is completely different than a person of average height. That means that if a brand designs clothes for average height people, it’ll be too long for shorter shoppers. Other measurements, like the leg opening or shoulders, will be too big. For grading to work well for short and petite shoppers, it has to be applied to a clothing pattern designed specifically for them. That’s what brands like Under510 and Ash & Erie are doing for short men: designing clothing patterns that cater to the unique fit challenges that short men face.

For plus-sized customers, the situation is even worse: grading rules used for standard sizes don’t work well. The body changes differently between plus sizes than it does between standard sizes. To make a good plus-sized line, brands need to rethink both clothing patterns and grading from scratch. Luckily, some brands like Premme and M.M.LaFleur adopted custom designs for every size they offer. That lets them make more flattering clothing for everybody. Brands like Pari Passu are creating sizing designed for three different plus-sized body shapes. What they found is that plus sized customers can’t be described by one number. Sizing only works if you first know their shape.

What Pari Passu found for plus-sized customers is actually true for everybody: no customer can be described by one size number. Your shape determines whether or not you’ll even fit into a brand’s clothing. That’s why I have some brands that fit me well, like Express, and others that don’t fit at all, like Banana Republic. This is also why brands can’t standardize sizing: it might be easier to know what your buying if they did, but more people would be left out, unable to find clothes that fit.

So the truth is: you don’t have a clothing size. Your size depends on the brand and who they’re trying to make clothes for. So make sure to not sweat the number!