Why it’s harder than ever to find clothes that fit
“What size are you?” has always been a loaded question for most women, but it is also an increasingly complex one as the answer varies wildly depending on where you’re shopping.
I’ve been in rural America and swamped by every tent-like swimming costume I’ve tried to buy. I’ve lived in Hong Kong where shop assistants have shot me looks of horror when I’ve asked to try something on (usually followed by them taking a prolonged and ultimately unsuccessful hunt for the biggest size in stock). Here in Britain, I’ve been everything from an extra-small in Next to a large in Miss Selfridge, despite my weight staying pretty much the same since university. The result is total confusion, with women of all ages and sizes left guessing what to buy – and, half the time, getting it wrong.
All of this makes perfect sense once you realise women’s clothes sizes are essentially made up. Because there is no formal correspondence between what letter or number is on a label and actual measurements, brands are free to set them according to who they believe their target customer to be, hence a medium in Zara feeling a lot smaller than a medium in Marks & Spencer.
“We offer a ‘standardised’ womenswear range that has been designed for a customer at a height of 5ft 6,” says a M&S spokesperson. “We have a set of guidelines that we follow, which is based on UK-wide research into our customers, with a key focus on fit and comfort.”
I have no doubt that M&S is trying to make the best-fitting clothes they can, but the key words here are “our customers” – other brands, such as Cos, Mango and Sandro, will have done research into their client base and will have produced a different set of results. And at the end of it, we are left having to make complex calculations about whether the brand is French or British or aimed at midlife women or younger ones; calculations that even the savviest shopper gets wrong from time to time.
“There’s no way I can expect to order the same size in two retailers because size is existent within the universe of each brand,” says Telegraph columnist Emily Johnston. “I wear an XXL in Zara, a large in H&M, a 16 in Ralph Lauren and an 18 in Boden. It’s all completely random and only discovered by putting in some serious legwork in store or at home trying on. My advice: don’t lose hope, just expect your shopping to become like a second job in order to get it right.”
One reason why we have ended up in this frankly absurd situation is because of vanity sizing, which is rife in the industry. Women’s bodies have changed significantly since the 1950s, which was when factory-made fashion first went mainstream: in 1957, the average British woman was 5ft 2in, weighed 9st, had size three feet, a 28in waist and wore a 34B bra. Today, she is 5ft 5in, weighs 11st, has size six shoes, a 34in waist and 36DD breasts – and the result is that a “medium” today is very different to a “medium” back then. As bodies changed, brands began to cotton onto the fact that they were more likely to sell clothes if a woman could fit into the size she wanted to be, rather than the one she realistically was – hence, me, at 5ft10in, being an XS in Next.
Although it is the sizing inconsistencies that exist within each brand that is arguably even more infuriating. I visited a major high street store while researching this article and found a four-inch difference in the waistband of the various size medium trousers on sale. This leads to total confusion for the customer and is something brands explain away by saying certain collections are designed to fit differently – the truth, though, is that global retailers now have such big supply chains that half the time they don’t even know which size blocks are being used.
“It’s very frustrating but it’s important to remember that retailers don’t really do this on purpose,” says Heather Tillier, a director of tech brand True Fit (more on them later). “Brands mass produce and also make their clothes at a bunch of different factories around the world, so they don’t even have total control over the sizes they order. But they’re now experiencing a lot of pushback – shoppers are getting very annoyed – so retailers know they need to find a solution.”
I’m definitely one of the annoyed shoppers. Last week, I went to Oxford Street and only bought clothes in what I think is my size (a size 10 or a medium) and the results were hilariously bad, as the photographs illustrating this feature attest. The jacket from Mango and the jeans and dress from M&S were clownishly big, while the last time I could have feasibly zipped up these trousers from Zara was when I was revising for my GCSEs. Had I been shopping online, I’d have returned the lot.
And therein lies the problem. Before the mass switch to e-commerce, sizing variations were an irritation customers had to solve themselves in the changing room of a store. Now a whopping 70 per cent of British women buy at least some of their clothes online, it has become a serious issue that’s making a dent in clothing brand’s profits.
“When it was the client’s problem there was less incentive to fix it,” says Tillier. “But now their financials are being affected by just how much stuff is being sent back, they want to do something – particularly since Amazon has forced retailers to be accommodating and make returns very easy and very cheap.”
Today, customers send back an estimated 30 to 40 per cent of what they buy online – mostly because of sizing issues – and the cost of it is breaking the fashion industry. Boohoo last month joined Zara in charging for returns for the first time, which is fair enough in the case of serial returners, but annoying for those of us who have ordered an item of clothing we very much want to keep but can’t because it doesn’t fit.
Consumers, however, are fighting back. “These days shoppers have far more choice than they did before – and are more vocal than ever about what they want and need. Retailers are losing money by sticking with the status quo,” says Anita Balchandani, a partner at McKinsey specialising in retail. “Brands know they have to change and they’re doing this in four ways.”
The first, according to Balchandani, is using by all the data they can get on an item of clothing and passing that onto the customer when they shop online (usually an explainer on the size and height of the model and how the clothing fits); the second is by being consistent around the size blocks they’re using within their own collections and the third is thinking very carefully about the definition of small, medium and large.
But it’s the fourth that is arguably the biggest game changer – tech. Having streamlined every other part of our lives, it seems Silicon Valley is finally helping us find clothes that fit (somewhat ironically, really, if you look at the fashion choices of your average tech bro). Currently, the most successful start-up in this field is True Fit, which is based in Boston and which tracks the data of more than 90 million people by working with around 10,000 brands, including Toast, Adidas and Boden and Claudie Pierlot.
When shopping on one of these sites, customers can click on a True Fit link which will allow them to enter their weight, height and age, as well as information on which sizes tend to fit well from the brands they already own. I tried it and when I was shopping afterwards, the algorithm suggested I buy a small from Toast and Boden and a medium from Claudie Pierlot, which seemed about right.
“We help the customer pick the right size but more importantly we can watch digitally and see which items are running much too big or too small and tell retailers they need to change them,” says Hillier. “Brands are really responding to the data and we’re seeing so much more consistency in their sizing.”
Does this mean that the days of opening a delivery to find a tent-like dress or a Barbie-doll sized trousers inside might finally be coming to an end? For the sake of our collective sanity, I really hope so.
How to buy the right size
If you’re in between sizes, go big as it’s easier to style something that’s slightly too loose than slightly too tight.
Look at the fabric. Something like denim or corduroy will feel tighter and may need a bigger size than anything with stretch.
Read all the information brands offer on fit and follow it – remember they really want you to buy the right size.
Buy a tape measure. Brands are starting to put the exact measurements of each piece online.
