What's My Size?: How to Read a Size Chart
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What's My Size?: How to Read a Size Chart<br>Lakyn Carlton<br>May 18, 2026
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If you do any shopping online at all, you should know your measurements.<br>I’m not saying measurements are “nice to have,” or something optional to make shopping easier, I’m saying that if you don’t know your measurements (and how to use them), you are doing yourself a disservice that can and probably often does result in frequent returns, wasted money, and ill-fitting outfits. Not to mention, if you’ve ever shopped vintage or secondhand online, you probably know that number sizing of the past is nowhere near what it is today.<br>That said, the inconsistency in women’s clothing sizes simply cannot be overstated. I once wrote in Why Does Fast Fashion Suck?:<br>“You’re a size 4 in one brand, but a size 12 in another, but a size 14 in jeans from the second brand but only if they’re dark wash, and a size medium in jackets but sometimes a medium fits like a small and it just doesn’t make any sense, does it?”
I dove into the reasons why this happens in that article—a combination of poor patternmaking, lack of quality control, distance from manufacturers, and good ol’ human error—but not the solution. Most would say said solution is obvious: universal sizing, but I don’t think so, as I said in The Perfect Industry:<br>Universal sizing is not a reasonable ideal to chase, nor would it solve the fit issues that, let’s face it, are simply inevitable when it comes to mass producing clothing. We know this because we’ve tried it: in 1939, the USDA published a study of women’s body measurements including stature, hip height, neck-base girth, waist girth, bust girth, shoulder length, forearm girth, posterior hip arc, and trunk line, with the goal of averaging this data in order to create a standardized size chart.<br>The problem—beyond the near impossibility of being able to gather enough data to represent every single unique body shape—is that…no body is really average. Maybe you and I have the same waist circumference…but do we have the same distance between our waist and our hips? Our shoulders may be the same length, but are our arms? Our inseams may be the same but we could be different heights. Body measurements are not enough to build a full range of sizes: you need to take proportions into account, as well, and if every single brand sizes their garments based on an average of all those measurements and proportions, then everyone who’s more than a couple of inches off from that average simply will simply not be able to fit clothes off the rack.
I want to briefly note here that size and fit are different, and when I use each word, I am referring to two separate concepts: Size is simply whether a garment can actually get onto your body, and the designations that let you know the likelihood of that. Fit, however, is about whether you feel comfortable and can move freely in that garment, and—most importantly—that the garment itself hangs as intended, with seams in their proper place and no excess tension or sagging.<br>In my, perhaps, unpopular opinion, we do need individual brands to have their own size charts, for the most part. We need fewer global brands making millions of every style, and more brands catering to their own niche—with some brands providing a variety of fits—available locally, with tailoring and alterations accessible at the point of purchase. Maybe some brands will work better for short torsos, with others more ideal for apron bellies, and some with options to accommodate both large and small busts: In an ideal world, you know what fit you need, and brands present the information necessary to decide whether their particular fit is for you and/or if it can be altered.<br>That, unfortunately, is merely a dream for a dream future in a dream world. And dreams don’t help you find clothes that fit, today, in the real world. In the real world, sizes are just a single number that represents another group of numbers, and which numbers align with your numbers is far more important than what that single number ultimately is. What matters is knowing how to use all those numbers.<br>Measure Yourself
So, how do you take your measurements?<br>First, you need a cloth measuring tape. I recommend looking locally at your nearest fabric and craft store, the laundry aisle at your nearest drugstore or big box retailer like Target, or, ordering from a site for sewing supplies like Wawak. They’re almost always less than five bucks and there are even extra long (up to 120 inches) versions.<br>The main measurements you’re gonna need for womenswear are the bust, waist, and hip. If you wear pants, you’ll also want your inseam. Here’s how to figure yours out:<br>Bust: Wrap the measuring tape around the fullest part of your bust---right over the nipples. For the most accurate and useful measurement, ideally, you should wear whatever bra you’d typically wear, especially if your breasts hang lower than your armpits (which...