Is your Women’s Workwear Label Lying?

Surely clothing labelled women’s fit should fit women? Sadly this is not always the case…

Once upon a time, women’s sizing was created by simply manufacturing a smaller version of men's clothing. But the promise of comfortably fitting workwear for women was still just a fairy tale, a fable designed to placate women in the workplace and pay lip service to equality.

One size cannot fit all…

It was, and still is, a misconception that it is possible to have a unisex garment. Many businesses have tried: Projects conducted for the military, to standardise uniform sizing, scanned hundreds of people but were ultimately unsuccessful due to the huge variations.

An array of differences manifest themselves when attempting to resolve male & female body shapes. Women generally have narrower shoulders, shorter arms and shorter body length with a more shapely upper body. Of course, there are variations to these rules but wearing a man’s jacket of the ‘right size’ results in rolled up sleeves, trailing hems and unflattering fits. (An unflattering fit may sound like a minor issue, but try going to work dressed in an outsize suit with rolled up cuffs, rolled up trousers and gaping excess material, and see how many people take you seriously: Imagine the effect that has psychologically.)

If fact, a good fit of clothing to any body shape requires a match between two (or sometimes three) independent body dimensions and matching these up between the sexes is beyond possible. Men’s trousers are classed by 1. waist size and 2. leg length because man’s waist to hip ratio is generally standard and the dimensions can be more easily predicted, however, women’s waist to hip difference can range dramatically, by several inches.

Women have more curves, their body shapes are defined into categories, pear, oval, hourglass etc. and change over time. Even in footwear, female feet are usually narrower and shorter. Understandably, businesses want to cut costs by streamlining their offerings, limiting the variations in sizing available, meaning that as companies provide fewer options, finding a perfect fit can be increasingly difficult in today’s marketplace.

Standardisation of sizing

Currently, across Europe, several different systems are still used for the size designation and labelling of clothes. This is a confusing situation for customers and creates inefficiencies across the supply chain. Ideally the clothing industry would harmonize and simplify the size labelling of clothes for the benefit of businesses, consumers and the industry generally.

With this aim in mind, British Standard EN 13402-3:2017 describes a flexible sizing system based on body dimensions of men, women, boys and girls using a breakdown of anthropometric data to produce a standard pictogram. The values and intervals provided they take into account the latest anthropometric studies carried out in Belgium, France, Germany, Netherlands, Romania, Spain and Sweden. This is vital as body dimensions are changing over time.

Despite the fact that these should be used as best practice reference points, the fashion industry in Europe and the UK has not completely taken on board BS standard EN13402-3:2017 yet. However, the specialist design team at Anchor Safety use them at the drawing board stage to design the women’s versions of our products so that female workers can be sure of a safe, comfortable and flattering fit which will not make them feel they are at work in a sack!

Details of EN13402-3:2017