Clothing Sizes

We started a project aimed at helping you pick the right sizes. Unfortunately, our research showed that it's hard to find two people in the clothing industry that agree on anything. Every manufacturer has differently sized patterns and a different understanding of what the size numbers and letters mean. Really crazy! After lurking in department stores and pattern departments we realized it wasn't our imagination, or just the vendors we deal with. In any case what we show below are what we decided was "normal" or average representations of sizes in general based on weights and measurements of the average medians (got that?). Use it as kind of a guide or starting point, just remembering that we get blanks from all over, and the vendors don't necessarily conform to the charts below. "Normal" sized stuff shrinks if not pre-shrunk so you have to allow for the shrinkage when ordering also. A very few vendors "cut oversize to allow for shrinkage". This means that after shrinkage, they should fall into the appropriate size ranges , depending on that vendor's interpretation. We mark those items with a "cut oversized" icon. When we realized, though, how much variation there was, we decided to measure everything we carry, before shrinkage, and you will see those measurements on all of our clothing - use that when you need to have a more specific fit, and don't forget to allow for shrinkage! That's the deal. Confused? Join the club. Anyway, we hope it helps.