Garment Size Calculator

What this calculator does

It looks your measurement up in standard reference charts and reports the result with its workings visible: the chart row your measurement fell in, the size in each system, and a flag when you sit near a boundary. Women’s tops and dresses are sized by bust, men’s tops by chest, bottoms by waist for both, following the primary-measurement convention the charts themselves use. UK and EU equivalents are given for women’s sizes, where the conversions are standard (UK numeric is US numeric plus 4; EU is US numeric plus 32); men’s tops stop at letters in most charts, and men’s bottoms are given as the waist number itself, which is the size. Nothing here pretends to be a brand’s chart; the tables below are the reference, and their limits are stated in the open.

How to use it

• Measure the body, at the chart’s landmark. Bust and chest are taken across the fullest point with the tape level; waist means the natural waist for women’s charts and the waistband line for men’s bottoms. A measurement taken at the wrong landmark is the right number for a different size question, and garments cut slim or relaxed shift the picture further, which is what the fit preference is for.
• Between sizes is information, not indecision. Charts divide a continuous body into steps; a measurement near a boundary genuinely fits two sizes depending on fabric and cut. The calculator flags it and applies your fit preference, and the practical move for online orders is the two-size order with a return, stated plainly because everyone already does it.
• Check the brand’s chart before paying. Vanity sizing is real and uneven: the same labelled size spans inches across brands, and a brand’s chart is the only authority on its own garments. This page gets you to the neighbourhood (and catches the embarrassing errors, like converting by letter across systems); the brand chart picks the house.
• For dresses and fitted garments, the largest measurement leads. A dress must fit bust, waist and hip at once; where they disagree across sizes, fitted styles follow the largest and are tailored down elsewhere. This calculator sizes by the primary measurement of the garment type; a fitted dress deserves a second run with the waist in the bottoms mode as a cross-check.
• Re-measure for the purchase that matters. Bodies change, tapes stretch, and last year’s figure is a rumour. The measurement takes a minute, and it is the cheapest accuracy in clothing.

Reference charts used on this page

Worked examples

A bust of 36 inches, regular fit. The women’s tops chart puts 36 in the M row (35-37): US M, numeric 8-10, UK 12-14, EU 40-42. Mid-row, no boundary issue, and the size most brands’ charts will agree on for this body, which is as much certainty as clothing offers.

The same bust at 36.8 inches, near the boundary. 36.8 sits 0.2 below the M/L boundary at 37. With a close fit the answer stays M; with a relaxed preference it moves to L (US 12-14, UK 16-18, EU 44-46); on regular, the page flags it as between M and L and leaves the call to the garment’s fabric and cut. Three honest answers from one measurement is not a defect; it is the chart’s step edge viewed from close up.

A men’s chest of 41 inches. The men’s tops chart puts 41 in the L row (40-43): size L, no numeric equivalent, because men’s tops are sold by letter in the standard chart and pretending otherwise invents precision. And a men’s waist of 34.4 inches for bottoms returns size 34, the waist number rounded, with brands’ vanity adjustments warned about in the limitations.

Reading your results

Read the chart row before the size: it tells you how much room the size assumes and how close you are to its edges, which predicts whether a brand that runs small will push you up a size. Read between-size flags as a two-size fitting plan. And read the equivalents as the same row in other codebooks, not as separate opinions: if the US and EU lines ever seemed to disagree about your body, one of them was converted wrongly, because both came off the same chart row.

Limitations

• These are reference charts, not your brand’s. They reflect the most widely published standard ranges, and individual makers deviate, deliberately (vanity and athletic cuts) and otherwise. For a purchase, the maker’s chart for that garment outranks this page, which says so on its results.
• One measurement cannot fit a whole garment. Shoulders, hip, rise, arm and torso length all vote. The charts use the industry’s primary measurement per garment type; tailored and fitted pieces need the others checked, and the cross-check suggested for dresses applies the same logic.
• Men’s bottoms carry a known fiction. The labelled waist number frequently measures larger than stated in mass-market brands (vanity sizing at its most literal). The calculator returns the honest number from your tape; a brand whose 34 measures 36 will fit you in its 32, and only its chart or a tape on the garment reveals that.
• Ranges end. Measurements beyond the printed rows return the nearest end size with a flag, not an invented chart extension; extended and petite ranges are separate charts with their own proportions, not continuations of these.

Frequently asked questions

What size am I?

On the standard reference charts, the size whose row holds your primary measurement: a 36 inch bust is a women’s M (US 8-10). The qualification that makes the answer honest is that the question is only fully answered per brand, because charts differ. Use this page’s result as the reference to start from, check the brand’s chart where one exists, and treat any between-size flag as the plan to try two, which is how fitters have always resolved a step chart against a continuous body.

How do US, UK and EU women’s sizes convert?

On these charts, by the numeric size: UK is US plus 4 (a US 8 is a UK 12), EU is US plus 32 (a US 8 is an EU 40). The letters follow the same rows (both US and UK use S/M/L at the same measurements on the reference charts). Conversions done by letter alone go wrong when a brand’s letter rows differ from the reference, which is why the conversion here always travels through the numeric row the measurement actually landed in.

Should I size up or down between sizes?

By the garment: structured and woven pieces forgive nothing, so size up and tailor down; knits and stretch fabrics forgive in both directions, so your fit preference decides; anything worn layered sizes up. The calculator applies the same logic through the fit selector near a boundary, close keeping the smaller, relaxed taking the larger, and flags the case on regular so the fabric in front of you, not a default, makes the final call.

Why does the same size fit differently across brands?

Because a size label is a brand’s promise, not a standard unit: each maker drafts to its own fit model, ease allowances and target customer, then labels the result with the shared vocabulary. The reference charts on this page describe the middle of the industry’s practice. A brand can be a full size off that middle in either direction and be perfectly consistent with itself, which is why its chart governs its garments and why this page prints its own charts and limits instead of claiming a universal answer.

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Method: direct lookup in the standard reference charts printed on this page, with boundary cases resolved by the stated fit-preference rule and out-of-chart measurements flagged, exactly as defined here. Last reviewed: 13 October 2026.