I wear a size 29 waist pants (30 leg). Yesterday I ordered a custom made suit on-line from a web site recommended here (makeyourownjeans.com, thrilled to know about it as it is hard to find clothes cut right for someone as short legged yet wide shouldered and normal trunk length as me) and measuring for the suit my waist was 33 1/2 inches.
I’ve long known that women’s clothes sizes were fictitious vanity numbers but how long have I been living in a delusion as well? In short the GQ question is what is the straight dope on men’s clothing sizes?
I don’t know if they’re as fictional as women’s clothing, but there’s definitely a disconnect between the numbers and reality. I spent the summer after my senior year of high school working in a place that did some clothing certifications, and the ranges we were given for waists of a certain measurement did not include that measurement. The inseams tended to be a little closer, but not by much.
Yes vanity sizing for men is just as ridiculous as it is for women. Here’s a chart of some common men’s brands showing how much the sizing varies: http://i.imgur.com/yL8Mn.jpg
I have a hard time finding jeans that fit. I’m somewhere between a 38-42 waist and 34-38 inseam depending on the brand and cut. Rather than going to a dozen stores and trying on pants only to find they only have my length in skinny waisted beapole nuthuggers or they only have my waist in squatty little bowling-ball-man lengths I typically just order 25-30 pairs online and keep the 4 or 5 that fit best and return the others.
Vanity (or at least inconsistent) sizing is alive and well.
I’ll let you know how makeyourownjeans does on my suit. If I was able to measure accurately enough for them to get that a better than store tailored fit then using them for jeans seems like a safe bet. Pretty reasonable pricing - most jeans in the 50s and my suit, pure wool, for about 300.
I was actually excited shopping visiting my son in Japan - the Japanese are built like me! Clothes off the rack (at UniQlo) that fit! (A little snug across the chest and shoulders but otherwise … it was amazing. And I am not a clothes person or a shopper.)
Ellya, thank you for that graphic. So it is also very brand variable? Although the same fictitious size fits me across the waist pretty similarly in most brands, if they carry it. It’s just that the legs are way long and the cut at the waist/crotch is for someone several inches taller than me.
Have they always sized like this or has it changed over the years?
I can see that being true for the more, er… healthy, husky sizes, but at the other end of the scale they are fairly accurate. That is my experience with waist sizes at least.
Have you tape measured your waist (just below belly button)? Again, I wear a size 29. Most places don’t even carry that small and size 30 is definitely a bit too loose. But my real waist circumference is 4 inches bigger.
I am just shy of 30 in the waist and mostly wear a size 30 with an occasional 29 and a rare 28. FWIW, most of my pants are from Levi’s, Ralph Lauren, Dockers, or Land’s End.
Are you sure that you are measuring right? I cannot believe that your clothing is that far off.
A big part of of the disconnect on men’s sizes is jeans. No, seriously, hear me out.
Jean styles have moved, over the last 25 years, to where jeans are worn below the waist, with the button fastening well below. I’m OK with this.
But at the same time - for the classier pants (slacks, suit pants, hell, even khakis) the measurement hasn’t moved. The “waist” measurement is still on the older measurement scale. Meaning “waist” means the circumference around your torso, over the navel.
For me, when I’m buying dress pants it’s an automatic +2 inches on the waist. Now that I understand this, I’m much better at buying clothes.
Yup. Did it again. Just below the belly button. Not pulled tight. 33. Maybe you are measuring right over the hip bone, the narrowest spot?
A reasonable point although truth be told all my pants are worn lower than true waist circumference, i.e. not along or just below the navel. Taking out the measuring tape that lower point gets me to about 31.5. Still 2.5 inches more what I need to buy on the label to fit right.
Can you put the buttonhole on your jeans over the button while wearing them without pulling them together? If you have to pull them together you’re probably squashing yourself into them, to some extent.
I wonder if it’s different here (the UK) anyway. I don’t know where you’re all from, but a couple of times I’ve ordered a top from the US and found that the American size “medium” was huge compared to what I was expecting. I had a similar experience ordering food in Canada.
The one time I’ve actually been measured for a suit, my waist measurement was exactly the same as my jeans size.
Yes, that is where you traditionally measure your waist.
I think you are on to it here. The “waist” measurement on pants is the measurement of your waist, not the actual measurement of the pants. Since they are normally worn lower on the hips, the pants waist needs to be a little larger.
Hang on – your waist is supposed to be around your belly button?! So Simon Cowell had it right all along?
My waistband is a good 4 inches below my belly button, and I don’t exactly walk around all gangsta-stylee. In fact, I can’t take my pants much higher without wedgie-ing myself and showing my socks like Michael Jackson.
I wear a 34" waist. After checking with a tape measure, I’m 34" around my belly button, and 38" where my waistband rests.
So I guess pants sizes refer to a waist that they don’t even reach nowadays… :s
Is it just me, or is there vanity sizing for shoes? My shoes have “gone up” by a size or two since I reached the age when I assume they’d stopped growing.
