Sizes and standards: how the industry measures

Anyone who has tried to buy clothes across brands knows the problem: a 'medium' from one brand does not fit like a 'medium' from another. It is not just random mess — it is a real standardization problem the industry and European standardization bodies have worked with for years.

§Why do we need a common standard?

Without a common reference each brand can in principle define its own sizes based on what suits their own cut and target group. This makes it difficult for the consumer to shop across brands and countries, and it makes it difficult for a clothing craftsperson to communicate unambiguously about sizes when working with customers, suppliers, or other businesses.

§DS/EN 13402 — the European sizing system

The standard series DS/EN 13402 is the European standard for size designations on clothing. It was developed to provide manufacturers and retailers with a common system for indicating which body measurements a piece of clothing is designed to fit – based on actual body measurements rather than arbitrary letters like S, M, and L. Danish Standard has described the work with the standard as a modernization that should make size specifications more transparent to consumers.

§Size is not the same as fit

Even with a common standard for size designations fit is still something else: two garments in the same stated size can fit completely differently because the cut the fabric's stretch and the designer's choice of style play a role. That is why a clothing craftsperson's ability to fit a garment to a specific body is never made redundant by a standard — the standard helps with communication not with the craft itself.

• 01Standardized sizes make it easier to communicate and compare across brands
• 02They do not replace the need to measure the individual body in bespoke work
• 03Cut, fabric stretch and design choices affect the perceived fit, even at the same stated size
• 04Grading (see the article on pattern construction) is the practical work of converting size ranges into actual patterns

§What does it mean for you in practice?

If you work with product development or construction, knowledge of the European standard is useful when you need to set up size series for production. If you work with adaptation and repair directly for customers, it is first and foremost the actual body measurements — not the number on the label — that are your working tool.

“A standard t-shirt in normal size”