no subject

[taimatsu]

Where can I find out what body measurements correspond to particular dress sizes, officially? There is an official standard, though of course manufacturers make clothes differently.

Comments

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

Google - M&S came out with a huge body-map survey type thing a few years ago (thinks: when was I temping in Baker St? Erm - must be early 2000). I definitely remember that a lot of news stories at the time ran sidebars with various tables of measurements in. And there are quite a lot of useful "international conversion" tables that have measurements as well as each country's sizing conventions. I had to look them up last week because of coming to the USA intending to buy a dress...

[borusa.livejournal.com]

Good lord. I was working at M&S in Baker Street in early 2000.

Which department were you in?

Robert

[lnr]

Is there an official one? I've never found it.

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

Not "official" official, like guvmint-approved. But there are some industry-wide standards, which a huge bunch of shops/manufacturers agree roughly on, so that is about as close as it gets. M&S definitely do have very rigid internal standards on this one, hence the fuss when they "redefined" a size 14 and so on. Most places are in rough agreement with them, with the notable exceptions of Dorothy Perkins and anyone who charges over £60 for a t-shirt when you'll find that the more you spend the smaller the size you appear to be. I've worn 14s in some designers' clothes (not mine, I hasten to add) when I was an 18 most other places.

[j4.livejournal.com]

First hit on google for "UK dress sizes" +measurements:

http://www.mapledrive.com/help/usdresssize (http://www.mapledrive.com/help/usdresssize)

[lnr]

But I note that by their measurements I'm a UK 16-18!

[gnimmel.livejournal.com]

That's odd, everywhere else I've seen has said you add 2 to US sizes to convert them to UK sizes, rather than 4.

[lnr]

It varies. Gap say add 4 to their sizes FWIW.