Size charts help brands, customers, and manufacturers ensure consistent garment fit. This guide breaks down the three types of size charts fashion brands use – including free templates you can download and customize.
Table of Contents
Types of Size Charts in Fashion
1. Internal Size Chart
An internal or private size chart is the size chart used by a fashion brand’s product development team. It’s used to record body measurements – not garment measurements. For example, the fit model’s shoulders, waist, hips, and so on.
Technical designers use this chart to create garment measurement specs and find fit models for sample fitting sessions.
2. External Size Chart
An external or public size chart is also composed of body measurements. However, the purpose of this size chart is to help your customer understand what size the brand recommends for their body measurements.
A regular shopper won’t understand across front, bust height, etc. so public size charts only include main body measurements crucial for the specific garment style. These are usually your shoulder, chest, waist, and hip measurements.
3. Garment Size Chart
A garment size chart includes specific measurements of the clothing. These could be copied from the garment’s graded specs.
Since these will be provided to the customer, garment size charts also only focus on a couple of important POMs (Points of Measure) – enough for the customer to understand what size they should buy.
Do You Need to Have All Types of Size Charts for Your Fashion Brand?
Short answer: yes. Each type serves a different purpose, so ideally, your brand should have all three.
That said, if you’re short on time or resources, start with an internal size chart – it’s the foundation for product development and helps define your brand’s “ideal body type.” It also rarely needs updating unless your customer base or sizing strategy changes.
From there, you can easily create an external size chart by pulling key measurements like bust, waist, and hips from your internal chart. These are the charts customers see on your website.
Garment size charts take the most effort since they need to be created per product, the info could be easily pulled from the garment measurement specs, but adding them to each product page takes time – this is why some brands just include an external size chart as a general guide for customers.
Step-by-Step Guide to Creating Size Charts for your Fashion Brand
1. Define your brand’s sizing
Every brand has an “ideal body type” based on its target market.
Start by understanding your customer’s age, lifestyle, and preferences. A casualwear line for college students may cater to a wider range of bodies, while a performance wear brand might skew toward leaner, athletic shapes.
- Brands often create internal size charts by collecting real measurements from their target audience.
- If you’re a smaller brand or freelancer, you can reference pattern-making books like Patternmaking for Fashion Design by Helen Joseph Armstrong, use sizing data from similar brands, or hire a freelance fit expert from Upwork.
2. Determine the key Points of Measure (POMs)
Identify the essential measurements that will make up your size chart. Different garments require specific considerations so you’ll need to choose the relevant points of measure (POMs) for each garment type.
3. Choose your size range
Decide what sizes you’ll offer – i.e. XXS–3XL or just S/M/L.
This may vary by product:
- For basics, you might offer a full range.
- For oversized items like jackets, fewer sizes may cover more customers.
Example: One womenswear brand I worked with normally offered XS–XL, but only produced S–L in denim jackets since they were oversized and costlier to make.
4. Input the measurements using my FREE size chart templates
You can customize your templates for your fashion brand or use my free size chart templates.
5. Add notes or conversions
Add helpful info like:
- Size conversions for US/UK/EU
- Units (inches vs. centimeters)
- Disclaimers (i.e. “Garment may shrink 5% after washing”)
6. Regularly update your size charts
Customer feedback, fit issues, or style changes might require tweaks to your chart. Keep it updated to reflect your current sizing strategy and prevent confusion.
Free Fashion Size Chart Templates
Here’s what’s included in my FREE Fashion Size Chart Templates:
- Internal Body Measurement Size Chart Template: A template for recording body measurements including the main POMs.
- External Body Measurement Size Chart Template: Shorter version of the internal size chart that you can provide your customers. The template includes the shoulder, chest, waist, and hips measurements – suitable to guide your customer in finding the perfect fit.
- Garment Size Chart Templates: These templates offer a range of garment-specific size charts and important POMs to take note of for your customer. The clothing size chart templates include the following:
- T-shirt Size Chart Template
- Button Down Size Chart Template
- Pants Size Chart Template
- Skirt Size Chart Template
Each template comes complete with placeholders (that you can customize!) to make the process as smooth as possible.
