How SAMPEEL sizing works, and the drawstring arithmetic

A size letter is a label on a box, not a measurement. No agency in the United States defines a medium, no law checks one, and every company that makes clothes puts its own numbers behind the same five letters. That is the whole reason a size chart exists and the whole reason this page does.

The honest version is short: measure yourself once, read the chart for the item, and let the drawstring do the rest. Everything below is the long version, department by department, with what the letters we send out have taught us.

You need a soft tape, a mirror and ten minutes. Wear what you would wear under the garment, because a padded bra moves a bust measurement by an inch and a half, and that is a full size on most charts.

Two habits produce most wrong orders. Measuring over jeans adds an inch at the waist and two at the hip. Pulling the tape tight produces a firm number and a garment that does not close. The tape should lie flat and leave no mark.

Put the four numbers in a note with the date. They change, but slowly. Once a year is enough for almost everyone.

The letters below are the ones the range is built on, and the count beside each is how many pieces we currently list in it. The middle carries the catalogue. The two ends carry less, and if you sit at either end, filter by size before you fall for a style.

That distribution is not an opinion about bodies. It is what the maker produces, and we would rather show the count than let an empty filter be the first thing you learn about it.

The same letter behaves differently on a linen set and on a ribbed sweater, and the table below shows where each department has choice.

Read it as availability rather than as fit advice. A department with forty styles in medium gives you forty chances. A department with three gives you three.

A large part of this range has a drawstring at the waist, and a drawstring changes the sizing question more than any other single feature.

Elastic alone holds one size. It stretches to admit you and then pulls back to its own length, so a pair cut for a twenty-eight inch waist sits comfortably on twenty-eight and grips on thirty-one. A drawstring inside that elastic lets you set the waist anywhere the cord allows, which in practice is two sizes.

So the arithmetic is this. On a drawstring pair, buy the size that fits your hips and let the cord handle the waist. Hips do not adjust. Waists do.

The reverse also holds. If a drawstring pair feels big at the waist, that is the cord's job, not a reason to size down and lose the room at the hip. Sizing down on a drawstring pair produces trousers that fit at the waist and pull across the seat, which is the least comfortable shape trousers can have.

Every pair here that has a drawstring says so on its page under the features line. Where the page is silent, assume elastic alone and size to the waist.

Most people are one size on top and another below, and a set sold as one size is the place that becomes a problem.

Where a set is sold as two separate sizes, buy each half to its own measurement and the problem disappears. Where it is sold as one, buy the size of the half you mind more about. For a shorts set that is usually the shorts, because a top that is slightly loose reads as a style and shorts that are slightly tight read as a mistake.

There is one exception. If the bottom half has a drawstring, buy to the top, because the drawstring covers the difference below.

Sets in this range are listed with the sizes each one exists in, and the department page filters by size first. Filter first and choose second, because doing it the other way round is how a size runs out in the exact colour you wanted.

Every page carries a fabric line that looks like small print. It is a legal disclosure, and it is the single most useful sentence for anyone choosing between two sizes.

The rule that produces it is specific about how the fibres must be named. No shortcuts, no footnotes:

That is the reason a label says polyester and spandex in full rather than a code, and it is what lets you read stretch off the label. The number to read is the spandex, which also appears as elastane.

Under five per cent a garment holds its shape and forgives little. Buy your measured size. Between five and fifteen it stretches and recovers, which is where most of this range lives, and where sizing down by one is a legitimate choice if you want a closer fit. Above fifteen you are in leggings and swim territory, where the fabric is doing the fitting for you.

The counts come from the pieces in this catalogue that state a blend. Where a piece does not, its page carries no fabric line rather than a guess from a photograph.

Each of those words is a filter on the department pages, because each one changes the size question, and a filter is faster than reading two hundred titles.

Every photograph here is the maker's own, on a model whose measurements we do not know. That is worth saying plainly, because a photograph is the most persuasive and least reliable thing on any clothing page.

Three things distort it. Height: a mini dress on a tall model reads as a mid thigh dress on a shorter one. The pin: studio garments are routinely clipped at the back so the front hangs clean, and the drape you see is the best case. The crop: many frames show a torso or a pair of legs, which is useful for detail and useless for proportion.

The order that works is your tape, then the chart, then the fabric line, then the photograph. Reversing it is how most returns happen.

One more rule, learned from the letters we get. Believe the tape over the pattern. Buying a medium everywhere because you are usually a medium is how a wardrobe ends up with three things that never get worn.

Some styles do and some do not, and a single sentence covering seven departments would be a lie. The tape and the chart for that item are the reliable route, and where a piece states an inseam, that number is the most honest thing on its page.

Only where the set is listed by half. Where it is listed as one size for both, the table on its page shows exactly what is sold, and we do not pretend otherwise.

No. Up adds width, not length. A cropped top is cropped in every size, and the honest fix is a different cut.

Weight the chart for the measurements and the reviews for the behaviour. A chart says what the garment measures. Reviews say what it does after four washes, which the care guide on this site covers in detail.

None of this is complicated and all of it takes one evening. After that, ordering clothes online stops being a gamble and becomes arithmetic, which is the better game.