If you’ve ever stood in a fitting room wondering how you can be a size 12, 14, and 18 all at once, let’s clear something up immediately: your body is not the problem.

Clothing that doesn’t fit is not a personal failure, a “flaw,” or a cue to try harder in the gym. It’s the result of an industry built on shortcuts, assumptions and a deep misunderstanding of body shapes.

Let’s unpack the real reasons why clothes so often miss the mark.

“Standard sizing” isn’t standard at all

Despite the comforting idea that sizes are universal, there is no global standard for women’s sizing. A size 14 in one brand can be the same measurements as a size 18 in another.

Most sizing systems are based on outdated data, inconsistent grading rules or whatever suits a brand at the time. Vanity sizing muddies the waters even more.

The result? Size labels become meaningless and customers are left playing a guessing game of what size to purchase.

Fast fashion skips the fit test

Fit testing is time-consuming, expensive and inconvenient. Which is exactly why much of fast fashion brands simply… don’t do it.

Many garments are:

• Designed digitally

• Sampled on one body type

• Never tested across multiple sizes

• Rushed straight into production without fitting

Instead of fitting real humans, clothes are graded up or down mathematically, as if bodies scale evenly like vector graphics. Spoiler: they do not.

When speed and volume matter more than wearability, fit is the first thing sacrificed.

Bodies are not one shape 

Most clothes are designed for an imaginary average woman who:

• Has balanced proportions

• Carries weight “evenly”

• Has a predictable bust-to-hip ratio

• Exists somewhere between a size 8 - 10 AU

But real bodies are gloriously varied. Some have fuller busts, softer stomachs, strong thighs, narrow shoulders, long torsos, short legs or all of the above.

Designing for one body shape and calling it “inclusive” is like putting one shoe size at the door and insisting everyone squeeze into it. Some people manage, most are uncomfortable and plenty don't fit it at all.

Not all fabrics behave the same way

Two dresses can look identical on a hanger and fit wildly differently on the body, because the fabric behaves differently.

Stretch, weight, weave, drape, recovery and fibre content all affect how a garment sits, moves and holds its shape over time. When brands reuse the same pattern across different fabrics without adjusting for their behaviour, fit goes rogue.

Cost-cutting shows up in the seams

Fit isn’t just about patternmaking. It’s also about:

• Seam placement

• Ease allowance

• Button spacing

• Zipper length and placement

• Waistband construction

These details cost money. When budgets are slashed, garments lose the quiet engineering that makes them wearable. The dress might technically go on your body, but it won't remain comfortable all day.

Women’s bodies change. Clothes rarely do.

Bodies change with age, hormones, stress, illness, pregnancy, menopause, movement and life itself. Clothing, however, is often designed as if bodies are static objects rather than living ecosystems.

When brands refuse to acknowledge this, they create clothes that only fit bodies at one imagined moment in time. Everyone else is left feeling “between sizes,” when really the clothes are between realities.

The truth that deserves repeating

Clothing doesn’t fit because:

• Sizing is inconsistent across different brands and countries

• Fashion fashion skips the fit test to produce clothing at an accelerated rate

• Bodies are diverse

• Fabrics are complex and behave differently on the body

• Fitting garments costs brands more money

• Real life isn’t accounted for

Not because you’re shaped wrong.

Good clothing starts with respect: for bodies as they are, for craftsmanship and for the fact that fit is not a luxury. It’s the bare minimum.

When brands choose to design with intention, test on real people and embrace size inclusivity as a design principle rather than a marketing line, clothing stops fighting the wearer. And getting dressed becomes what it should have been all along: empowering, simple and exciting.