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sizes.darkgreener.com

London - You’ve lugged armfuls of dresses to the changing room, only to find the size that suited you in the last shop no longer makes it over your hips.

It may be known as “vanity sizing”, but the trick of understating clothes sizes to make shoppers feel slimmer leaves most of us frustrated rather than flattered.

However, help is at hand - after one shopper became so fed up with confusion in the fitting room that she devised a website which tells women what size will fit them in each store.

Computer programmer Anna Powell-Smith created the What Size Am I? website (sizes.darkgreener.com,) after reading an article which criticised shops for their misleading labelling.

The program asks women to enter their bust, waist and hip measurements, then calculates what dress size they should go for at a range of High Street retailers, including Marks & Spencer, Next and Zara.

And it also suggests which shops are most likely to have something suitable, so shoppers can avoid hunting for a dress in Whistles if Warehouse is going to offer a better fit.

Powell-Smith has adapted the website for smart phones, so women can use the calculator while on the move.

She said: “As everyone who”s ever bought clothes knows, High Street sizing is completely mad. You can easily be a size eight in one store, and a size 14 in another, and it’s impossible to guess your size without lots of zip-wrangling.

“In the UK, a size 16 at Jaeger has a bust of 42.3in, waist of 34.6in and hips of 44.9in. A size 16 at Banana Republic has a bust of 38.5in, waist of 30.3in and hips of 40.5in.

“That’s a four inch difference, and it’s not unusual.”

Powell-Smith, whose website can be found at sizes.darkgreener.com, added: “I was interested to see different body shapes flattered by different stores. Broadly, Banana Republic and Warehouse are best for the top-heavy, and LK Bennett and Zara are cut for a fitted waist.”

Vanity sizing has been common on the High Street for at least the past seven years. In 2005, Jane Shepherdson, then fashion director at TopShop, said it was necessary to reflect changing body types.

She said: “It is well documented that women have got larger over the last few years.

“Women don’t have small waists any more, they have bigger busts, we are fed more, we eat more nowadays, so we have to react to that.”

It is certainly true that British women have changed shape remarkably in 50 years.

The National Sizing Survey found the average waist measurement has gone up from 27.5in to 34in in the past five decades. Hips are typically 1.5in wider at 40.5in and the bust has increased by the same amount to 38.5in.

The BSI introduced standardised clothing sizes in 1982, which allow leeway of up to an inch and a half, but shops are not compelled to follow these guidelines.

Five years ago, an EU committee was set up to look into the possibility of forcing retailers to use standard measurements by law, but so far no plans have been announced. - Daily Mail

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