Canadian Sizing: Caught Between Two Systems
By The Velocity Wear Team
Canada has no governing clothing size standard, which is true of most markets. What is distinctive here is that Canadian shoppers navigate using American letter sizing conventions while thinking in metric measurements, and they routinely compare against brands from both the United States and Europe. That is more ambiguity than most markets carry, and it lands on your product page.
Publish both unit systems
This is the whole recommendation and it is nearly free. Give chest width laid flat, body length from the high point of the shoulder, sleeve length and shoulder width, for every size, in centimetres and in inches.
Canadians move between the two systems constantly and which one a given customer prefers is unpredictable. Publishing both means nobody has to convert, and a customer who can compare your numbers to a garment they already own does not need to interpret your letters at all.
Say chest width, not chest
A small precision that prevents a real error. "Chest 56cm" is ambiguous — half the readers will assume it is a circumference and order two sizes up. "Chest width, laid flat: 56cm" is unambiguous.
The same applies to length: "body length from high point of shoulder" removes the question of whether you measured from the collar seam or somewhere else. These phrases are longer and they eliminate a category of return.
State the intended fit
Measurements give numbers, not intent. A generous chest measurement could be an oversized fit working exactly as designed, or a regular fit that runs large, and those call for different decisions from the buyer.
One sentence solves it: "Designed with a boxy, oversized fit — take your usual size for the intended look, or size down for a regular fit." That line prevents a meaningful share of size exchanges and costs nothing but writing it.
Model height and size worn
Capture it at the shoot and publish it. It is the most requested piece of information in apparel ecommerce and one of the cheapest to provide. A customer who can see that a 175cm model wears a medium has better information than any chart gives them.
Extended sizing and the grading question
- Grading beyond XL is not simply a continuation of the same increments — larger sizes generally need proportionally more width than length and a reconsidered armhole.
- Ask your supplier for the full measurement table across every size in the run, not just your base size, so you can publish it and check it behaves sensibly at the extremes.
- Order a size set rather than a single sample where you can. Grading problems live at the ends of a range and are invisible if you only ever hold a medium.
- Extend a size range on designs that already have sell-through history rather than on new ones, so you are testing one variable rather than two.
Bilingual size information
If you sell into Quebec — and a nationally shipping brand does — your size chart is part of the commercial information on your site, and the Charter of the French Language reaches websites offering goods to Quebec consumers. A French version of the size guide is part of doing that properly, not an optional extra.
Ordering across a range
Mixed sizes are included inside our 20-piece minimum per design, so a first run can carry a realistic curve rather than being pushed into one or two sizes by a minimum. Weight it to your best guess, sell it, and let actual sell-through set the curve on the reorder — which remains the only reliable way anyone has found to get a size split right.
