Will the new metric clothing standard work?
A new international standard for sizing clothes would overcome many of the problems of incompatible size labelling. But will it be undermined by the British retail and clothing industries because it is metric? - article based on contribution by M-V.
During the last few days there have been various newspaper articles describing proposed new labelling for clothing. This labelling is in fact the EN 13402 European standard for labelling clothing sizes and is expected to come into widespread use by the end of 2007. The work was sponsored by CEN (European Standards Organisation - an organisation that draws its membership from various European bodies), while much of the fieldwork was done by the BSI (British Standards Institute). The photograph below (by Markus Kuhn and downloaded from the Wikipedia site) shows an actual label used for a high-visibility jacket.
The standard works as follows.
(Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EN_13402
has a full description - also written by Markus Kuhn). Firstly, it should be remembered that measurements on the garments refers to the wearer, not to the garment itself. Thus the chest measurement on a vest label and on an overcoat label for a particular person have the same value.
The standard comes in four parts:
- EN 13402-1 defines how the body should be measured (using centimetres and kilograms where appropriate). For example, the length of the hand girth is measured “maximum girth measured over the knuckles (metacarpals) of the open right hand, fingers together and thumb excluded”. This results in a pictogram (diagrammatic picture) of the individual customer - as illustrated below:
Ideally, everybody should have a little card bearing this pictogram, and they can use this whenever they go shopping for clothes (or borrow their partner’s if they are shopping for them!) Enterprising clothing retailers might offer a free measurement and card-issuing service.
- EN 13402-2 defines the primary and optional secondary measurements for various garments. For example, the primary measurement for men’s trousers is the waist girth, while the wearer’s height and inside leg length are optional additional measurements. The author has spotted one omission is the list of garments – there is nothing about men’s kilts, though manufacturers might use the same parameters as are used for women’s skirts.
- EN 13402-3 defines the standard interval sizes for various measurements. For example men’s chest sizes will be in 4 cm intervals and a 100 cm chest would be suitable for men with chests between 98 cm and 102 cm.
- EN 13402-4 defines a five character manufactures coding system.
If UK retailers adopt the system (it is optional), then there will be a big change – conversion of the sizes of existing clothing lines will be difficult because the traditional British interval for men’s chests (for example) is 2 in, not 4 cm. This will mean that manufacturers will have to offer the public a wider range of measurements to accommodate the smaller interval. Unless there is some coordination, one can see chaos on the high street if one retailer or manufacturer uses the EN 13402 while another sticks to traditional sizing.
January 29th, 2007 at 10:41
I can remember a few years ago hearing a news report on the radio that the British clothing industry was considering switching to European clothes sizes in the hope of making life easier for everybody… but the next day a story appeared in the tabloids stating that the EU was trying to force this on Britain. At that point the whole thing went quiet.
This sounds like an excelent idea but I’m guessing that when the tabloids get hold of this that the same thing will happen.
February 1st, 2007 at 22:25
I sincerely hope that the new standards do become the norm, not just because of the move towards metric, but the introduction of proper objective standards.
I loathe the tradtional cloth markings of S, M, L, XL, XXL, etc which mean absolutely nothing. Surely the industry itself has a vested interest in bringing that nonsense to an end? Especially nowadays with people shopping over the internet, the absence of proper measurement must be costing the industry a fortune in wasted delivery and returns because the customer can’t be sure of a proper fit.
February 2nd, 2007 at 10:54
The EN 13402 standard defines XXS, XS, S, M, L, XXl and 3XL for loose fitting clothes - apart from the largest sizes, each letter represents a 8cm step, based on chest girth for men and bust girth for women.
In most cases, standard sizes will be in 4cm steps.
March 17th, 2007 at 11:49
This is not only an excellent idea to make clothes buying easier when shopping in a different country or online, but a chance to change how people perceive their size.
If clothes retailers moving to the new system offer to measure customers’ key measurements in cm and add these to a give-away credit-card for people to carry around, it would be good marketing for the store, and everyone who opts to take a card will see a reminder every time they buy clothes that they are 187cm tall, etc.
April 14th, 2007 at 21:09
Ok, this thread is a while back, but I’d just like to add that at our local bowling alley I just ask for size 44 shoes and no problem. They don’t have to convert into inches or whatever the measurement for shoes is. I happen to know my shoe size ever since buying skates in Germany 55 years ago to fit onto my RAF size 10 boots (= 44 as I discovered. I wonder if the forces use metric boot sizes nowadays?)
July 6th, 2007 at 19:16
The July 2007 issue of “Which” Magazine published an article about the EN 13402 standard (without actually mentioning the standard by name). By and large the article was negative with many high-street stores promoting the virtues of the way that clothes are marketed on the British High Street. The “Which” article was reported in the national press.One of the threats to the British High Street stores is pan-European Internet shopping. Assume that you were designing a web-site targeting all of the EU. If you can get away with a single system of measurements and three languages, your set-up costs would not be too high compared to a mono-lingual website and your potential market as a percentage of the EU would be:
• English - 13% 1st language, 51% 2nd language = 64%
• German - 18% 1st language, 32% 2nd language = 50%
• French - 12% 1st language, 26% 2nd language = 38%
By and large, those sectors of the population that did not read English, French or German would not be doing Internet shopping.
The pan-European internet “shop” would not use English only for the British and Irish markets, but also for the Spanish, Portuguese, Scandinavian, Polish markets. EN 13402 would greatly facilitate such a marketing exercise. If the British High Street stores can convince the British public that “only foreigners use centimeters”, then they will remove one of the threats to their market.
Data source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_European_Union
April 5th, 2008 at 14:40
When does the new sizing come into force in GB?