Clothing Size Converter

How the Clothing Size Converter works

Clothing size converter: why one number means three things

A size on a label is not a measurement. It is a code, and each country wrote its own codebook. A women's "8" is a medium in the US, a small in the UK and Australia, and does not exist at all in the French and Japanese systems, which use 36 or 40 and 9 for roughly the same body. Men have it easier on jackets, where the English-speaking world uses chest inches, but shirts switch between collar inches and collar centimetres.

How the converter works

The page holds three fixed charts, one per garment type. When you type a size, it searches every column of the chosen chart for that value, and every hit becomes its own result line. So "8" under women's clothing returns two readings, because 8 appears in both the US and the UK column.

There is no formula in the arithmetic sense, because the systems were set independently, but the steps are regular. Women's sizes step by 2 in the US, UK and EU and by 2 in Japan, with EU = UK

• 28 and IT = EU + 4 across the whole range. Men's jackets convert as EU = chest inches + 10, and a shirt collar in centimetres is roughly inches × 2.54, rounded to the sizes shirtmakers actually cut.

Worked examples

Example 1: a women's "40". Under women's clothing this returns two lines. If 40 is the EU or French size, it is US 8, UK and AU 12, IT 44, JP 13, letter M. If 40 is an Italian size, it is US 4, UK 8, EU 36, JP 9, letter S. The two are two full sizes apart.

Example 2: a men's suit 40. US, UK and AU 40 is EU and Italian 50, a chest of about 102 cm, letter M.

How many readings can one size have? Up to one per column. A letter such as M gives two women's rows, US 8 and 10. Women's and men's jacket sizes from the converter's charts

How to read the result

Each line starts "If 8 is US" or "If 8 is UK / AU", naming the system the tool assumed, then lists that size in every other system in the chart. Where no column contains the value, it says so and points to the chart; an EU collar of 40 is not listed, because shirtmakers cut 39 and 41 and label 40 inconsistently. The last line is the caveat, and it is meant literally.

Where sizing standards exist, and where they don't

• Europe: EN 13402 defines labelling by body measurements in centimetres, a pictogram with chest, waist and height. Adoption is voluntary.
• US: the government's voluntary standard for women's sizes was withdrawn in 1983. ASTM D5585 now publishes body tables, but brands use their own fit models.
• Japan: JIS L 4005 ties women's sizes to bust, hip and height, with odd numbers from 5 upward.
• Vanity sizing: US women's sizes have drifted larger over decades, so a modern 8 fits a body that wore a 12 or 14 in the 1950s. A vintage size will run small.

Tips and pitfalls

• Measure yourself, not your wardrobe. Chest or bust at the fullest point, natural waist, hips at the widest, and neck just below the Adam's apple with a finger's space. Then use the brand's centimetre chart.
• Cut matters as much as size. Slim, regular and relaxed fits of the same size can differ by 8 to 10 cm at the chest.
• Letters are the loosest. An Asian-market M is often a Western S.

Measurements in inches convert with the cm to inches converter. For footwear and jewellery, use the shoe size and ring size converters.

Sources: US standard clothing size.

Checked against: Sizes mapped by body measurement, not label

Related tools