Editor’s Note: You have probably noticed that the size on the label of one brand of costume rarely matches the size of another brand. It’s an industry-wide problem. Click here to read an article about an NCA survey on this topic. We asked Wendy Goldstein, an expert on fashion industry topics, to explain to us why size inconsistencies exist.
By Wendy Goldstein, MS Textiles and Clothing
It would be great if retailers and customers could confidently buy the same size across different brands, but the truth is that customers tend to wear different sizes in different brands. The human body varies in so many ways -- women more than men -- that it is difficult to standardize sizes.
Some costume brands are designed to fit a range of body sizes and are usually rather unfitted. Other brands have created their own size standards for many reasons. This creates a lot of confusion on the part of both the retailer and the customers. But there are good reasons for it.
It Started 150 Years Ago
It may help to look at the fashion industry to understand the history of size standardization and to understand how the consumer has gotten used to looking at sizes in clothing.
The development of standard sizing vs. custom made started with military attire. The Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815), the Crimean War (1853-1856), and the American Civil War (1861-1865) required unprecedented numbers of uniforms for soldiers. The measurements, taken by federal agents, of thousands of recruits during the American Civil War formed the basis of a sizing system for menswear.
Slowly the mass production of uniforms transformed into the production of ready-made clothing for everyone. By the end of the 19th century, most urban male populations in Europe and North America were wearing mass-produced, average sized clothing with variations in length and fit. Women’s clothing was still primarily made at home and by dressmakers from custom measurements. Some women’s garments that required little fit, like petticoats and cloaks, were mass produced.
As technology improved it was cheaper for companies to mass produce clothing, making it accessible to everyone. By the end of World War II, along with the rise of advertising and mail order catalogs, custom made garments were out and ready- to-wear was in.
Government Attempts at Standardization
In 1939, the Works Projects Administration headed a government-funded study of female body measurements. The study took 58 measurements of 15,000 women in the hopes of creating a standard labeling system. In 1958, the National Institute of Standards and Technology introduced a sizing system from 8-42. These sizes were arbitrary numbers based on bust size combined with a letter to denote height and either an increase (full) or decrease (slender) in the size to account for hip measurements. Brands were advised to make their clothing accordingly.
This system was unpopular and generally not accepted. Revisions in 1970 were made as consumer tastes and body types changed. In 1983, the U.S. Department of Commerce completely withdrew the 1950s sizing system.
As Americans have grown physically larger, brands have shifted their size measurements to make customers feel skinnier. This was the beginning of vanity sizing, where the size on the label is reduced in number to encourage customers to buy the garment, taking advantage of consumer body image aspirations. This is how sizing became a marketing tool. A women’s size 12 in 1958 is now a size 6! Just to be more confusing, it is possible for the waistband of a size 6 pair of jeans to vary by as much as 6 inches in the waist.
In 1995, the American Standards for Testing and Materials (ASTM) International created its own non-mandatory sizing standard. These measurements have also been adapted for vanity sizing over time. Other countries have also made attempts to develop sizing standards. Standards differ from country to country and are just as inconsistent as in the United States.
Alpha sizing -- S,M,L,XL,XXL, etc. -- has been used for a long time for T-shirts and stretchy casual clothing. Alpha sizing is part of the EN13402 European standard, which was first developed in 1996. Alpha sizing simplifies manufacturing, with fewer different-sized items to manufacture. It also simplifies transposition into international sizes and makes online shopping easier for customers. Today, many brands use stretchy fabrics, like lycra, which make precise sizing less essential. As the sportswear category grew in popularity during COVID even more brands began using Alpha sizing.
Contemporary size scanning equipment, such as Fit3D, SizeStream, 3Dlook, TruetoForm and many more, has provided a great deal of sizing data. However, this data is proprietary and has primarily been used by brands and not industries to improve sizing and fit. In addition, these systems have been adapted to create bespoke or custom fitted garments for brands such as Brooks Brothers for custom men’s shirts and others.
Catering to Their Customers
Today, fashion brands and retailers have to cater to the whole world and all of its diversity. So, they focus on the demographics of the customers that buy their brand. Brands target different bodies, which means they use different fit models, and using different fit models leads to different sizing. A good example would be a brand designed for young athletic women will have totally different body measurements, and therefore sizing, than a brand designed for middle age working women.
The fit, design, and measurements of a brand’s clothing are a form of intellectual property. How a particular brand’s garments fit is often how customers choose one brand over another, and develop preferences. In this way, clothing size variations among brands actually allows the market to better meet unique sizing demands.
As a result, different brands, aimed at different customers but owned by the same company, can have different sizes. Add to that the different sizing systems between countries and regional peculiarities and it becomes clearer that the concept of standard sizing has only gotten more complicated.
Costumes Started as Toys
Finally, the costume industry has its own complications. Some manufacturers started when costumes were classified as toys and had no size standards. In addition, patterns were often developed in other countries that had not yet adapted to American sizing. Early American costume manufacturers had little experience in setting sizing standards with their foreign manufacturers.
In addition, as the costume industry grew, some ready-to-wear manufacturers created costume brands and based their sizing on their original customer patterns. This created a unique blend of brands and sizing in the costume industry.
To create size standardization in the costume industry today would be very expensive for manufacturers. It would involve revising all their patterns in all their sizes. It is also asking something from costume manufacturers that the ready-to-wear industry has not solved for over 150 years.
In addition, consumers have come to expect each brand to have its own identity, including sizing. The costume industry tries to communicate this by publishing their sizing in their wholesale catalogs. The demographics of costume industry brands are less defined than ready-to-wear and make it difficult for manufacturers to determine their customer’s body type and sizing.
Even without universal or standard sizing, retailers can improve their customer experience and foster loyalty through personalized recommendation experiences. It may be helpful for retailers to develop a chart comparing their key manufacturers’ sizing so they can tell customers that a particular brand runs small or another is more fitted.
At the end of the day, standard sizing isn’t what customers want. They want to be able to easily buy costumes that fit them well.
Wendy Goldstein, who is retired, taught fashion and retail studies at Ohio State University from 2009 to 2023 and founded and owned NCA member business Costume Specialists in Columbus, Ohio from 1981 to 2019.
Are you interested in helping the NCA develop solutions to the sizing problem? Click here to join a special interest group on the topic.