International Clothing Sizes

In clothing, clothing size refers to the label sizes used for garments sold off-the-shelf. There are a large number of standard sizing systems around the world for various garments, such as dresses, tops, skirts, and trousers. Made-to-order garments require measurements to be taken, but these do not need to be converted into national standard form.

Before the invention of clothing sizes in the early 1800s, all clothing was made to fit individuals by either tailors or makers of clothing in their homes. Then garment makers noticed that the range of human body dimensions was relatively small. Therefore, sizes were invented to

However, because of the drape and ease of the fabric, not all measurements are required to obtain a well-fitting dress in most styles.

There are several ISO standards for size designation of clothes, but most have them are being revised and replaced by one of the parts of ISO 8559 which closely resembles EN 13402:

The European Standards Organisation (CEN) produced a series of standards, prefixed with EN 13402:

BS 3666:1982, the standard for women's clothing, is rarely followed by manufacturers as it defines sizes in terms of hip and bust measurements only within a limited range. This has resulted in variations between manufacturers and a tendency towards vanity sizing.

Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia and Serbia still use the JUS (F.G0.001 1979, F.G0.002 1979, F.G0.003 1979) standards developed in the former Yugoslavia. In addition to typical girth measurements clothing is also marked to identify which of 5 height bands: X-Short, Short, Medium, Tall, X-Tall, and body types: Slim, Normal, or Full, it is designed to fit.

The common US misses sizes have not had stable dimensions. For example, the dimensions of two size 10 dresses from different companies, or even from the same company, may have grossly different dimensions; and both are almost certainly larger than the size 10 dimensions described in the US standard. Vanity sizing may be partly responsible for this deviation (which began in earnest in the 1980s). There is no mandatory clothing size or labelling standard in the U.S, though a series of voluntary standards have been in place since the 1930s.

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