Finding your way through the sizing maze...

Happily, people come in all different shapes and sizes. Luckily, clothes do too. Unfortunately single sizes of clothes also come in all different shapes and sizes. Every woman in the UK must have experience the frustration of being a different size in every store she visits. (It’s a problem which this magnificent tool both cleverly illustrates and attempts to address.) Sizing is not simply a three dimensional issue. We each bring a large dollop of confounding factors in the form of our beliefs about our size, perception of what we ought to be and emotional reaction to how clothes fit us.

All of the above also applies to childrenswear, which is further complicated by the addition of age based sizing, and what size a child ‘ought’ to be at any particular age.  Babies and children of the same age vary hugely, and parents get to know pretty quickly whether their child fits nicely in to the ‘correct’ size for their age or whether they need a different one.

Or do they? When polling my customers on the fit of the brands sold in my store, the range of responses was staggering. There was virtually no agreement at all about which brands are particularly ‘big’ or ‘small’.  There appears to be even more variation in sizing of children’s clothing than there is in womenswear.

This picture shows romper suits from 12 different brands stocked in my store. They are all labeled 3-6m (68cm), and yet there is 15cm difference in length between the shortest and longest. As childrenswear sizes increase in 6cm bands, that’s equivalent to 2.5 whole sizes and nearly a quarter of a 68cm tall baby’s body length! Furthermore, the shortest romper is significantly wider than the longest.

How on earth can a customer know which size they need when it appears that neither age nor height are a reliable indicator of how clothing may fit? It’s a brave parent who takes a child under the age of 3 or 4 into a changing room to try on clothes. The risk of tantrums or nappy related accidents are just too great. It’s not even an option for shopping online. The inevitable confusion caused by this variation has several consequences, none of which are ideal for the customer, retailer or manufacturer.

In the first instance, if an item is too big, the customer can put it away for when the child grows in to it. The least worst option, most people won’t mind this, but the seasonal nature of clothing, and the unpredictable rate at which kids grow mean the item may fit at exactly the wrong time and never be worn. It’s also easy to forget about saved items until it’s too late. Too-small clothes can be returned, but no matter how smooth a returns process, there is always some level of hassle for the customer, especially one with small children, and some admin costs to the retailer.

There are also the other variations on the theme; clothes that wide enough but too long, the right length but too wide and so on.

In each of these cases, the customer will inevitably be disappointed and possibly frustrated, a feeling that will tarnish their perception of our brands and us as retailers and manufacturers. 

Getting it wrong encourages customers to play it safe, stick with brands they know, thereby reducing their choice and our sales.

So is sizing standardisation the answer? Well, no. Customers told me that they appreciate the fact that different brands cater for different body shapes. A standardized sizing set would fit far fewer people than it didn’t fit. What customers (and retailers) are crying out for is more, clearer information.

They, and we, want to know how long clothes are, how wide they are, what length limbs they fit. Current sizing charts which focus solely on a child’s height are clearly pretty pointless given the photo above, and cause a surprising amount of confusion.

This is an appeal to clothing manufacturers; please publish more detailed sizing information. You must have all the necessary measurements to be able to produce patterns for each garment size. Please let us have them, and we as retailers, parents and customers will do the rest!

Ruth Lopardo of www.loveitloveitloveit.co.uk