To think this is not how you measure your chest

[5foot5]

DD had put a particular design of hoodie on her Christmas list. This could only be bought online so I went to the site, found the hoodie and started to order. Of course the sizes were in Small, Medium, Large etc. and I wasn't sure if she would be small or medium so I opened up there Sizing Guide. This gave the measurements (in cm) so I tossed a tape measure to DD and asked her to measure her chest.

When she told me the measurement I did a double take and said she must have got it wrong as that was way too big for any of the measurements on the chart. However, I then looked again at the chart (see picture) and realised something was very wrong with their sizes.

Even if you bought Extra Large this only has a chest measurement of 65 cm, which I make about 25 inches. I don't believe any adult has a chest that small, let alone one who is supposed to be Extra Large. And yes we were definitely looking at adult sizes, children's sizes were listed separately.

I contacted the company by email and today I got this response:

"The sizes are the measurements on one side from armpit to armpit so please roughly double the size to get the correct measurement"

It's not just me is it? This is just not how you take a chest measurement. Has anyone else encountered this before?

I have actually lots of clothes measured this way before . I don't think it's anything new.

Bizarre way to measure tbh. Plus if you have a big chest the front measurement will be much bigger than the back

Really!!?

Is it maybe a "modern" thing or something imported from elsewhere? Because I have honestly never heard of such a thing before.

That’s pretty standard when buying clothing direct from suppliers but the company you were buying from should change it to make it easier.

I've seen all sorts of weird ways of measuring clothes. I'd look at those measurements and assume it was armpit to armpit as they say.

They're showing you the measurement of the clothing itself, when you like it flat on a surface.

Measure DDs own appropriately fitting top and match.

Yep, lots of tops for sale to men mention the measurement from pit to pit.

No unusual at all.

*lie it flat.

You might like it flat on a surface, I couldn't possibly say!

It's pretty standard for t-shirts, hoodies etc. to measure it laid flat on a table. For something tailored like a dress I would expect to measure full chest circumference.

They are giving you the finished garment measurements. As PP said, this is normal when buying direct from a supplier. It enables shops to translate into their size as they will all use different fit models (which is why a 'small' or a '10' can differ so much from shop to shop). Unusual when buying from a commercial site but assume they are about the logo and have just copied the sizing from their supplier?

One encountered it on things like eBay where used clothes are sold with the size an then” measures —— underarm to underarm”.

If someone's selling on Ebay, I like them to state the armpit to armpit measurement, as it's easy to compare with clothing I own already. Agree that it's odd for a commercial clothing company, they should make it clear at least that that is what it refers to.

I used to have a friend from Luxemburg and she said clothes were measured that way there - I remember her shopping for a jumper for her boyfriend once and taking a tape measure with her to measure the jumpers the Luxemburgish way because she didn't know what his chest measurement would be in inches and all the way round!