It is not your body
The instinct is that something is wrong with how you are shaped. The evidence points somewhere else: the labels themselves disagree.
Size charts do not match the clothes
Tellar Research measured more than 1,000 garments across 50 UK brands against their own published size charts. Only 64% of garments matched their brand's chart within 1 cm. Average within-brand, within-category variance was 4.2 cm — wider than many size steps themselves.
The accuracy also degraded with size. Charts matched 71% of the time at UK 8-10, dropping to 68% at 12-14, 61% at 16-18 and just 54% at UK 20-22. Larger sizes are described least accurately.
Your size depends on the brand
A 2025 Vogue Business survey of 687 readers in the US and UK found 91% said their size depends on the brand. That is not user error. It is the reality of sizing systems that predate and ignore body measurement data.
How much of this is fit?
Estimates vary, and the variation is worth understanding. Coresight Research surveyed 100 US apparel decision-makers in 2023 and found 53% attributed returns to fit. A McKinsey survey from 2019-2020 put it at 70%, though that figure combined poor fit with dislike of style.
Note carefully: the National Retail Federation does not publish a fit-versus-other-reason breakdown. Any article claiming NRF says a specific percentage are fit-related is misreading its data.
The scale of it
US retailers processed $849.9 billion of returns in 2025, a 15.8% return rate, according to NRF and Happy Returns. The 2024 figure was 16.9% and $890 billion. Note that Appriss Retail and Deloitte put 2024 materially lower at 13.2% — methodologies differ, and both are in circulation.
Across all retail, 9% of returns are fraudulent, per NRF. If you are lucky enough not to be targeted, the rest are honest people trying to find clothing that fits.
What actually helps
- Measurements beat size labels. A consistent set of your own measurements works across brands in a way that 'medium' never will.
- Expect brand-to-brand variance. Even with perfect measurements, a 4.2 cm average spread exists.
- Read reviews specifically for fit, not style. They describe the garment's actual cut.
- For anything fitted, treat your own measurements as the source of truth.