This is the first time that Mintel has examined consumer attitudes towards clothing sizes and fit. In very few areas other than fashion can the nature of the consumer in terms of their body dimensions and shape determine their whole experience of a product and cause them either to be completely satisfied with the result or utterly disappointed, just for the sake of a few centimetres of fabric. As the main purchasers of clothing, women are in the front line as far as problems of fit and size are concerned, and retailers face a difficult job juggling their aspirations for a slim-looking figure with the actual reality of the typical sized female body.

In this report, Mintel set out to look at a number of different questions. First and foremost was how happy consumers were with sizing and fit and if they were not happy, why not. The research also aimed to look at how attitudes to these questions varied by the consumer’s size, age, gender and other variables. For instance, how different is the experience of clothes shopping for a size 18 woman from one who is a size 10? Secondly, the aim was to look at consumer attitudes towards various possible improvements to the service and ranges that they find in store. These ideas ranged from offering free alterations, which while maybe appealing to customers are likely to make less economic sense for retailers, to smaller practical measures like improving size labelling on hangers, clothes and rails. Another question under examination was the sizing system itself and whether a more standardised, logical, consistent, measurement-based version should be adopted instead.

Mintel examined the assertion that many consumers make – that there is a much reduced choice of clothes available on the high street above a certain size level. Where does this boundary lie in terms of garment size, and which age ranges of consumers are most concerned about this?

It should be noted that given the more general nature of the subject matter, the structure of this report differs from a standard Retail Intelligence report. Given the extremely wide variety of clothing retailing competitors covered in this report, company profiles have been reduced to a summary analysis. Finally, due to the fragmented nature of both the markets and difficulty in definition, Mintel has not included a market share analysis.