SYDNEY: Consumer watchdog group Choice is spearheading a move towards standardised sizing across the Australian apparel industry by aggregating a groundswell of public support.
The move follows the release of a report by Choice journalist Kate Browne which showed a lack of data on the changing shape of Australians had forced fashion brands to base their sizing either on previous sales history or marketing hunches about the shape of their ideal customer.
The group found the inconsistency in sizing was causing both frustration and confusion among consumers with the issue further complicated by disparity among different labels produced by the same fashion house.
Among those quoted in the Choice report was Discovery Group CEO Danny Avidan who admitted a size 10 in the group's Lili brand was several centimetres smaller than a size 10 in the group's Charlie Brown or Howard Showers collections.
The report also found the use of vanity sizing was prevalent within the industry and that online buying was also a "mixture of guesswork, market research and ensuring the company you deal with has a generous returns policy".
As a result of its research, Choice last week hosted a roundtable discussion on the topic where it sought to engage online fashion commentators and bloggers as consumer conduits to drive home the need for a national voluntary sizing standard to the federal government.
Brown, who sought comment from all sides of the debate including consumers, industry bodies, fashion houses, individual designers, fashion lecturers and retailers for the report, said the government had repeatedly asked industry associations to provide evidence as to the scale of the problem.
While the government's TCF Review last year had recommended the government allocate funding from the 2009 budget to develop a voluntary standard as "a matter of urgency", no direct funding had been allocated.
Instead the Rudd government agreed to commission further advice on introducing a voluntary standard and anthropometric database as part off an overall $55 million funding package for the textiles, clothing and footwear industries.
Brown said her research had shown a lot of the designers spoken to had bemoaned the lack of a "jumping off point" and had merely speculated about who their customer was, were using fit models or - in some cases - using themselves as a sizing measure. This practice ensured the story was no better among the buying public, she said.
"Some savvy shoppers I spoke to said I'll try and find out who their fit model is and work it out from there. That's a lot of work for the consumer and quite a bizarre business model."
Brown's findings appear to be backed by Ragtrader Online readers with retailer Maria Fargher agreeing sizing needed to be made uniform. "While it is a nice to have and feel that you are a size smaller realistically consumers are frustrated at having to try so many clothes on just to find one the one that fits. Not only is it difficult when buying from a store it is much harder to sell clothes on the net when there are no real sizes."