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“What we have found,” says Malcolm Ball of the Association of Suppliers to the British Clothing Industry (ASBCI), “is that people with identical measurements may have completely different body shapes, and even if you have an identical body, then you have different requirements from your clothing, so the feeling in the industry is that, by necessity, each store has to have an idealised shopper. And that they should use size 12 as the standard – the norm.”

What this really means then is that a size 12 isn’t a measurement of body – a size 12 is the average of a certain demographic in a certain area. The demographic size idea spins into a bigger dilemma when you consider that in February 2007, government statistics revealed that 11.46 per cent of British women were underweight (a body mass index of 15-20), 48.83 per cent were normal (BMI 20-25), 26.5 per cent overweight (BMI 25-30), and 13.21 per cent obese (BMI 30-50). So, almost 40 per cent of British women can be classed as fat. If a retailer can sell clothes by manipulating sizes and making the customer “feel” thinner, it makes sense that they would.

At Oasis, size 12 is a 34-28-38, and has been for ten years. It’s the best-selling size, and it knows that consistency in fit is the lynchpin of its business. “If you are a customer at Oasis and you wear any of our sizes, everything in that size, whether it is a wide-leg trouser, a skinny fit jean, a jacket or a dress, will fit you,” says its MD, Sharon O’Connor. “We are about total consistency in our sizing. If you want loyalty and people coming back again and again, you want their trust. We sold 400,000 of our Scarlet jeans last year – they are one of our best-selling online items – and we think this is because there’s no need to try them on. People already know they will fit.”

Oasis uses the data from SizeUK as a barometer, but also has an in-house fit-model that reflects the core hourglass shape it sees as its idealised shopper. Oasis sells sizes up to a 16, and prides itself on selling clothes for “real women” – ie, those over 25 – yet later this year it will introduce a size 6 (a US size 2). Is a 4 (a size zero) next? “It doesn’t mean we are going younger,” says O’Connor. “We are reacting to the fact that our 8s are selling well.”

The size/demographic relationship is so influential that at M&S, which is aimed at older women, a size 10 is bigger than a size 10 at Topshop, which has a younger clientele. At labels such as Jacques Vert, size 10 is bigger again. Everything relates to the core customer. Most women can identify with shopping in, say, M&S or Jaeger on a “fat day” because they can get into a size 14 (when normally they might have to squeeze into a 16). The designer world is harsher on larger women.

“None of the designers we sell offers clothes above a size 14,” says Smith-Start. “But when a garment size tells you that you are small, it’s like stepping on scales and finding you have miraculously lost weight. That feelgood factor directly impacts on the purchase.” So, in a world where a size 10 is now a size 8 in some stores and a size 12 in others, and given that other than religion or politics, weight is one of the most emotive issues in our society, the question we have to ask is, are we being cheated by manufacturers and marketers, or are we cheating ourselves?

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