Erratic clothes sizing causes chaos for shoppers

If you've ever bought the same size clothing from two stores, only to find one garment fits perfectly and the other doesn't, you're not alone – shoppers are increasingly frustrated by inconsistent clothing sizes on the high street.

The problem seems to be even worse online, said Katie Rosseinsky in The Independent. "Ordering multiple sizes, crossing your fingers and hoping that one might fit has become commonplace." So why is it so hard to find clothes that fit?

'Vanity sizing' vs 'compensatory spending'

Standard sizing is a "relatively new phenomenon" that emerged from the large-scale production of army uniforms in the 19th century, said Rosseinsky. Women's fashion was slower to catch up, with the first major sizing survey for women in the UK taking place in 1952, before another set of standard, but not compulsory, garment sizes were introduced in the 1980s. 

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Nowadays, however, each brand will have a "base" or "sample" size which is used to create their design prototypes, and they "won't necessarily line up with those used by others".

There are other factors at play too, such as the "plague that is 'vanity sizing'", said Shakaila Forbes-Bell in Cosmopolitan.  The practice of "altering measurements to allow customers to fit into smaller sizes" has been exploited because the positivity from us believing we are a smaller size "causes us to spend more". 

It can also work the other way around; some brands run smaller than usual. While you might think that not fitting into your regular size would "put you off", a study published in the Journal of Consumer Psychology suggested that having to size up causes "compensatory spending", which essentially means "we end up buying more to assuage our body hang-ups".

Time for 'universal sizing'?

"Erratic sizing isn't just bad for our self-esteem – it's damaging for the environment too," said The Independent's Rosseinsky. A survey from the British Fashion Council last year found that wrong sizing or fit was behind 93% of returns, which have a knock-on effect for transport-related carbon emissions.

One solution to the "sizing debacle" would be the introduction of universal sizing, said Leah Harper in The Guardian. But fashion technology expert Simeon Gill warned that shapes and distributions of bodies differ so much that it might not work. There are also the "complexities of cultural and regional variations in body types and preferences", said Shingo Tsukamoto, president of sizing technology specialist Makip.

Another option may be to go "totally bespoke" and buy far fewer clothes. If you had "five pieces of clothing tailored to your body, they would all fit", journalist and author Heather Radke told Harper. "So the answer may be something none of us is totally willing to do, which is to change our relationship with clothes and how many we have."