UK Vs Indian Kids Clothing Size Guide: What International Buyers Must Know Before Ordering

UK Vs Indian Kids Clothing Size Guide: What International Buyers Must Know Before Ordering

India and the UK follow different sizing conventions, and as a clothing brand, if you do not standardize early, you face costly mistakes later. For UK brands and boutique owners, sourcing apparel from India can have significant operational risks, especially for kidswear. A small mismatch in the final set of deliveries, like 2-3cm, can lead to negative reviews, product returns, and loss of customer trust. 

Although you can save a lot on bulk orders from India and increase your profit margin if you are able to engineer the fit and measurements according to UK standard size for kidswear. Which is why you must choose top garment manufacturing companies in India, like CheerSagar, which can make clothing according to UK sizing conventions for kidswear. Here, you can learn how to standardize sizing when sourcing clothes from an Indian garment export house. However, before that, let us learn about the UK and Indian clothing sizes with a comparison table.

Comparison of the UK vs Indian Kidswear Sizing Standards

The defining thing or the main mismatch between UK and Indian standard sizes is:

• The UK uses a precise height-based system

• India goes for a more age-first system with valuable measurements

Your job as a kidswear brand owner is to engineer alignment according to the UK size to avoid returns and negative reviews. 

Steps to Standardize Sizing When Sourcing Kidswear From India

Build Your Own Size Chart

To avoid all and any size issues, what you can do is to build a UK-aligned size chart. For the perfect fit, this size chart must include: height (cm), chest (cm), waist (cm), hip (cm), garment length (bottom/top), and flexibility or allowances (ease and shrinkage). Before placing an order with an apparel manufacturer in India, share this chart that you have built to avoid messy fits. 

Convert Indian Factory to UK Size Expectations

Indian factories that have age-only size charts may not meet UK standard size expectations. It is better to build your own size chart and share it with the Indian factory for bulk orders. Or if they have kidswear size charts, match these parameters against UK charts to make corrections before sampling:

• Measurement chart (cm)

• Pattern spec

• Grading rules between sizes

  Approve Samples on Fit

  Even after sharing proper measurements charts, sometimes the fit may not be perfect. To ensure that the clothing fits are up to the mark, use the following fit verification checklist:

• Check if the chest ease correct and not too tight, mainly

• Is the pant or sleeve length aligned with UK style aesthetics?

• Does the outfit match height expectations?

• After washing, what happens? Does the garment shrink into or out of tolerance?
  Conduct a Pre-production (PP) Fit Test

• To avoid batch-to-batch variations, you need to conduct a pre-production (PP) test. This is also mandatory before the mass production of apparel. With the PP test, you need to ensure that the pattern grading is consistent, fabrics that are used in bulk match the sample shrinkage, and all the sizes align with UK height bands. 

  Conduct a Pre-production (PP) Fit Test

To avoid batch-to-batch variations, you need to conduct a pre-production (PP) test. This is also mandatory before the mass production of apparel. With the PP test, you need to ensure that the pattern grading is consistent, fabrics that are used in bulk match the sample shrinkage, and all the sizes align with UK height bands. 

Shrinkage Considerations

Shrinkage considerations are necessary for Indian cotton garments as they often shrink 3% to 5% unless they are sanforized or prewashed. You should not assume that the factory takes shrinkage into account unless you specify it, so make sure to specify it to the garment manufacturer.

Conclusion

As a clothing brand or boutique owner for kidswear, your UK sizing protocol must include a few things: UK master size chart, pattern grading rules, PP sample approval, and shrinkage tolerance and labelling requirements. Only one of the experienced apparel manufacturers in India, like Cheer Sagar, can help you with such specific orders. To know more about Cheer Sagar, check out the official website.