Living the Plus Life at Work and Home

Here are two recent blog posts which are not too uncommon from the plus women's community on the confusion on size standards and fits. It is embarassing to think that we are doing such a poor job sizing our clothing or explaining our sizing or plain just being consistent.

#1

"I have a problem with all women’s plus size clothes always coming in tall sizes. I can understand the plus size factor, some of us need it, but what’s with the tall thing?"

#2
"The bane of women everywhere is the wild inconsistency of clothing sizes between stores and fashion designers. Unfortunately, things get even more confusing when dealing with plus sizes. The important thing to remember is a tape measure and the designer’s sizing charts are your best friends."


Just by coincidence last week I asked our inhouse professional (our fit and sizing technical manager) a similar question as I was viewing the plus size charts of an Australian retailer. They were showing the chart below which illustrates the differences between the US plus sizes and that of the UK and Australia. i.e. the US scale is bigger. A size 14 is a size 16 in Australia and a size 18 in the UK. I suggested that I thought Canadian plus size charts were close to the US scale.

Size Chart

Here is her answer

Yes, with caution.  Canada is very close to the USA sizing but each brand has their size charts.  See Below.

Brand Size 18	Addition Elle	Penningtons	Walmart	Sears	Reitmans Encore	Cotton Ginny	Old Navy	Lane Bryant	Dream Diva
Bust	46	46	44 ½	45	46	46	47	44	44 = 112cm
Waist	38	38	36 ½	38	39	37	39 ¼	38	37 ½ = 95 cm
Hips	48	48	46 1/2	47	48	48	48 1/2	46	47 ½ = 127 cm

Now I comprehend why there is confusion.


Addition Elle and Penningtons are Canada's only exclusive plus women's retailers. i.e. that is all we do and these are the customers we are driven to please every minute of every day. I'd like to say that we are also setting the standard in how plus clothing should fit but you know as I write this we are spending a lot of time with external experts ensuring we have it "right".

I will talk about Tall and Petite plus sizing in my next entry.