Why it doesn’t fit: 5 reasons besides size
Few things are more frustrating when shopping than trying to find what fits you well. While most of the emphasis today is on a garment’s size, there are some other factors that impact how any given piece will fit your individual body.
First and foremost, knowing your current body measurements and checking those against the size chart for any garment you look at online will save you a lot of headache. But there are other factors to consider, whether you’re shopping in person or online:
Vertical measurements: Your overall height will of course affect how well garments like pants fit you off the rack (or whether you need petite sizes or hemming), but other vertical measurements make a difference, too. Two 5’ 4” people who have the same hip/waist/chest measurements can look drastically different in a top if one person has a short torso and the other has a long torso. Hemming a top can help with how a top looks on short torsos by adjusting where it hits on your waist.
Body shape: Clothes don’t have a gender, but the reason gender categories persist for clothing retailers is that they function as shorthand for body shapes. Simplified: men are expected to have minimal differences between their waist and hip circumference and women are expected to have larger busts and hips than their waist. Unfortunately, this means anyone with a tummy can have a harder time finding a good fit in ready-to-wear clothes.
Fabric stretch: Different fabrics (and fabric blends) have different amounts of stretch—think about jersey bedsheets versus linen bedsheets. Stretchiness is especially helpful for garments that are pulled over your head versus buttoned or zipped up. Less stretchy fabrics can have more structure to them, creating specific silhouettes. Plus, how fabric is cut for a garment also affects how stretchy the final piece is because it will stretch more in some directions than others. In general, knits or fabric blends that include spandex will have good stretch compared to woven fabrics.
Pattern ease: “Ease” is exactly what it sounds like—how much spaciousness is built into a given design for a piece, and there’s a relationship between fabric stretch and pattern ease. For example, bodycon dress patterns have “negative ease” because it’s meant to be created with a very stretchy knit fabric. If you used a bodycon dress pattern with a fabric with no stretch, it would turn out looking like a dress for a child!
Quality control: Even if you pick two items of the same design and same size, one might fit correctly and the other might not. Mistakes in cutting or sewing can create small but substantial differences in how the individual end product actually fits. So if you’re surprised by the way something fits, you might try grabbing a different one in the same size just to double check.
Understanding all the different factors that go into designing and producing clothing can help you understand what works best for your body and your style—and remember that when things don’t fit just right, it’s just a problem with those clothes, not your body!
