Is it just ME?

Don’t you just love it when shops say you’re smaller than you are?

IT HAS long been the lament that one woman’s size 10 is another’s 14 — but all that is about to end. Last week, several brands announced their intention to adopt a ‘universal’ template to iron out sizing discrepancies.

A survey of 30,000 adults will enable standard measurements to be devised, so we’ll be able to head for the changing room knowing a size 12 is a 12 — and not a horribly tight 10 in disguise.

Well, I’m not sure about this. First, if retailers are trying to stem the exodus from the High Street, they’re going a funny way about it. Remove the chance element from sizing and there will be no reason for people to visit local shops.

More importantly, there is no way this is going to work. I don’t care how many supercomputers and surveys you deploy, the

I love that little frisson of joy as I see the letter M on the label instead of the customary L

range of shapes and sizes, lumps and bumps that make up the female of the species can never be distilled into a simple set of numbers.

The reason sizing varies so wildly is because women vary so wildly. Also, let’s be honest, the reason most of us can’t fit into an H&M size 12 is because, frankly, we’re not a size 12. When clothes come up small, it’s generally because the person trying them on is rather bigger than she thinks.

That is why, if I want to feel good about myself, I seek out brands that I know are generously cut — such as John Lewis’s Kin — so as to afford myself the satisfaction of buying a size smaller. I love that little frisson of joy as I observe the letter M on the label instead of the customary L.

If the plan succeeds I’ll have nothing to look forward to, save the truth. And who in their right mind wants that?