Asking About Sizing Without the Awkwardness

Sizing is the question buyers most often decide not to ask, and the one sellers answer most casually, because they get it every week. Whatever awkwardness you are feeling is entirely on your side of the screen.

Ask for measurements rather than a size. A size label is an opinion held by a factory, and two garments marked the same can differ by inches. A measurement in centimetres is a fact. For most things one or two numbers settle it: waist and hip for briefs, chest and length for a top, the flat width across for anything worn low.

If you are buying for yourself, measure something you already own and like rather than measuring your body. It is easier, it is more accurate, and you do not have to tell anybody the number. Lay it flat and measure across, and say that is what you have done, because a flat measurement and a body measurement are different and the seller needs to know which one you have sent.

What a seller can tell you is what the item measures and how it sat on them. What they cannot tell you is how it will sit on you, and be a little careful of anyone who is very confident about that. Fabric decides more than either of you can predict: something with stretch forgives a great deal and something cut on the bias forgives nothing.

Ask before you order rather than after. A seller can usually offer you something closer if they know in time, and very little of this is fixable once it has been posted, particularly with worn items, where returns do not work the way they do on the high street.

One more thing. If you are between sizes on anything that fastens, go up. Nobody has ever been disappointed by a waistband that is a little kind.