Is it time the high street adopted universal sizing?

A 12 in one shop, a 14 in another – like many women, Caroline Leaper welcomes the possibility of universal sizing on the high street

Is anyone in this world a perfect 10? I don’t think I’ve ever met a woman who can honestly say that she could enter any shop on our great British high street to find that, without exception, the dress in “her size” is the one that always properly fits her.

The size that I buy the most is a 12, but, even in the same shop, I can easily find two similar dresses that will fit completely differently. Some 12s might sit too tight around the middle, but then the 14 will swamp. I’ve got items in my wardrobe that are sizes 8 and 18, XS and XL, 36 and 44, yet, mysteriously, they all fit my body, regardless of what the label says. Ideally, I think I’d like to wear a British size 13, only that doesn’t exist.

And yet this frustration may all be about to change, because now the biggest high street retailers have agreed to take part in a nationwide survey to standardise sizes. A move backed by Britain’s biggest retailers, including Monsoon, New Look, River Island, Next, Asos – no doubt spurred into action by the fact that size variations result in about half of all items bought online being returned.

To kick things off, a nationwide Shapegb survey aims to take the measurements of 30,000 British adults. Stores will encourage us all to download the app and add our data to the national pot. The profiles collected will go beyond the standard linear measurements usually used to calculate clothing sizes and will tell you your BVI, or Body Volume Indicator, as well as BMI (Body Mass Index). Richard Barnes, founder of Select Research and Shapegb, believes the findings will go a long way to helping retailers understand why two women, both wearing a size 14, may be shaped quite differently.

“The first phase is to collect as much information as we can from across the country, so that the data is really meaningful to the retailers who are going to use it,” Barnes tells The Daily Telegraph. “For the first time we will be able to properly assess people who are the same size, but have different body shapes, and then those findings can be integrated into clothing design.” It is the first time in 17 years that the nation will have had its vital statistics assessed. Think how much our lifestyles, and as such our biometrics, will have evolved in that time. The experts predict that the survey will prove us to be taller and with bigger bums and waists than before; likely acquired while eating more junk food, doing more computerbased activities and sitting around watching our latest Netflix obsession.

I hit the pavements yesterday in search of a nice summer dress. I went to H&M, Marks and Spencer and River Island, and came out with a 12, a 14 and a 16 respectively, all of which fit me perfectly. So how on earth can it be so hit and miss?

Almost every high-street store that designs in-house, and manages its own production processes, will employ a fit model to check and tweak their samples on. Their block patterns, which are the basic templates that pattern cutters use to develop designs from, are based on the measurements of whoever the brand perceives their core customer to be. Chances are, if the brand is pursuing a younger audience, they will be developing their products from a smaller block and scaling them up, whereas others might start larger and work backwards. There are UK standards, but customer profile is also key.

“At M&S, we usually start with a 12 and size up and down, so all of the development work is done based on the 12, and adapted and applied for the other sizes,” Jo Hales, Marks and Spencer’s buying director, recently told me, as she launched the brand’s new Curve plus-size range.

“The one that you develop ‘true’ will be the most perfect fit, as all the details are in the right place, the scale of the prints, the pockets in proportion. The adaptations that are made for other sizes are carefully calculated and precisely positioned, too, but when it came to doing our Curve collection, we used a size 24 as our base size, because we wanted to achieve a perfect fit for those larger sizes, too.” It is understandable that every brand has a customer to cater to, but as older shoppers are now used to shopping in “younger” shops, it seems incredible that there has simply been no requirement to standardise that profile. It’s common practice, for prolific shoppers like me, to hedge our bets and take several sizes into a changing room, which becomes beyond irritating when you are trying on a few styles and then told by a “helpful” assistant there is a five-item limit. I learnt a long time ago not to worry what the label says, because it’s not definitive. Also, sometimes, it’s a matter of personal preference; I might like wearing loose dresses, you might wear the same piece as bodycon. But for some people, size does matter. Before the new survey was even announced, H&M revealed that they would be reviewing their sizes following customer feedback. “When I tried on your jeans, I was annoyed, hot and frustrated,” customer Rebecca Parker wrote on Facebook. “The pair of jeans clearly were not made for a woman who is a size 14. Why is that?”

“We are taking the steps to change our womenswear measurements to be in line with UK sizing, for example the previous measurements and fit of a size 12 will now be the measurements of a size 10,” a spokesman told The Telegraph. “This will be a gradual process whereby customers will experience a transition period and are encouraged to use our sizing guides online or ask our store staff for advice.”

Taking every modern-day body shape into account and making one size fit all, will be extremely hard. The more nuanced sizes that a retailer commits to offering, the more its production costs will go up. Then we’ll probably all complain about the prices instead. The results of the survey will be interesting; will my size 13 body finally be acknowledged? Will we be able to universally trust every brand’s sizing, preventing hundreds of thousands of online shopping returns every month? In the meantime, take anything that doesn’t sit quite right to your local dry cleaners. You’d be amazed what alterations they can make; your Topshop frock is bespoke after all.