Dumb Question About Measuring Pants Size

[Tomasso]

A related question for you gents... generally, how much can the waist be taken in without taking in the seat or completely messing up the proportions? .

About two inches as a rule. Any more and the trousers need to be recut; a process that requires a competent tailor and significantly more cash.

 

[Corky]

One minor note:

In the old days, when the tailor at Brooks Brothers in Manhattan was measuring a customer for a suit, he always carried a little pad and jotted down the customer's measurements.

The measurements were NEVER spoken out loud or mentioned to an assistant within range of the customer's hearing.

This method was used to avoid the customer's input of what size he imagined that he should be wearing and to get an accurate fitting.

 

[Spearpoint]

It a marketing ploy called Vanity Sizing . It's been common in womens wear for decades and has now found its way to mens wear.

Interesting info-graphic.

Even with these figures, they would completely lack consistency. Am wearing some shorts these days - 3 in rotation. All were bought from Kohls.
One fits slightly tight on the waist, one is perfect while the third would fall off without a belt in a few minutes of walking.

All are 34 in size and my waist is 38+.

"Vanity Sizing" is probably correct. I sincerely doubt that these companies would allow their Asian manufacturers so much leeway in terms of margin of error.

 

[Guttersnipe]

It's also important the remember that, similar to number sized suit coats, a degree of "ease" is -- and should be --built into trousers waist bands. However, at some it becomes dishonest vanity sizing.

An example of proper waistband ease can bee seen by measuring the waist of a trousers point-to-point across the front and then comparing that measurement to the circumferential measurement inside the waistband. Generally you will notice that the circumferential measurement is ~1" bigger than 2 x the point-to-point measurement. If the point-to-point measurements if 1/2 of the stated size, you have an honest size.