Discusses history, methods, and challenges of sizing systems in the apparel industry. (And hundreds of references for a deeper dive.)
"Providing clothing that fits the population is a critical issue for any designer and manufacturer of apparel. These documents provide an introduction to the issues related to this process with links to references on each topic.
There is no common agreement on terminology to describe the methods or systems that have been developed to provide a range of sizes to fit the population. For the purposes of this set of documents a sizing system will be defined as a set of sizes derived using common assumptions and methods of development, and size categories within a system will be defined as the various groupings of sizes as they would be presented in a retail situation. Thus the sizing system most commonly used for ready-to-wear in the United States makes use of a base size, often fitted to a fit model, and a set of sizes proportionately graded from this size."