Standards
There are several ISO standards related to Size designation of clothes:
- ISO 3635:1981 Size designation of clothes – Definitions and body measurement procedure
- ISO 4416:1981 Size designation of clothes – Women's and girls' underwear, nightwear, foundation garments and shirts
- ISO 5971:1981 Size designation of clothes – Pantyhose
- ISO 8559:1989 Garment construction and anthropometric surveys – Body dimensions
- ISO/TR 10652:1991 Standard sizing systems for clothes
The European Union has produced a standard EN 13402 intended to replace existing standards in the member countries. This is not yet in common use.
The United Kingdom has an existing standard for women's clothing BS 3666:1982, however this 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.
The standard sizes have not had stable names, however. 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).
The new European standard EN 13402 seeks to address this problem, since it is an absolute scale and mandatory; there is no mandatory clothing size standard in the U.S. In the US there exists a US standard clothing size.
Read more about this topic: Clothing Sizes
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