Nearly a third of clothing is wrong size, models find
BERLIN Models testing fashion brands like Adidas, Benetton and Gap are finding that almost a third of the shoes and clothes they try on are bigger or smaller than the size on the label indicates, explaining why many clothes bought online are sent back.
“If you try on the same brand in a different colour, it is sometimes a different size,” model Savina Bellotto with online retailer Zalando said as she squeezed a foot into a stiletto shoe with a shiny silver buckle that dug into her ankle.
To crack the problem, Zalando, Europe’s biggest online-only fashion retailer, told Reuters it was augmenting the data it gathers online with feedback from models.
“If we can put an article on a fitting model, just before or as an article is online, we immediately know there is a fitting problem,” said Zalando’s director of engineering Stacia Carr, adding that models flag about 30 per cent of stock as too big or too small.
Zalando’s small team of models initially tested shoes, but now they try on clothes too.
Dresses, its top selling category, also have the highest rate of returns.
Fast fashion firms like Zara and H&M have introduced software that suggests sizes for online customers.
Customers type in height and weight, which are processed alongside historic data on purchases and returns.
Around half of Americans expect to return clothes ordered online this holiday season due to poor fit, according to a survey by technology firm BodyBlock.
Zalando models try on up to 120 shoes a day, measuring the inside with a special ruler and noting how each fits at heel, ankle and toes, while also looking for strong smells or quality issues.
“It is very subjective. That is why we get the average between three models,” said model Gerard Nieto, as he measured a fleece-lined leather lace-up boot.