How to measure your waist for jeans, and why the tag is not your waist

What the tag is actually telling you

The number on a pair of jeans started out as the waistband in inches. It has been drifting for decades. Brands found that people prefer buying the smaller number, so the waistband grew and the label stayed where it was.

That figure is from our own records: sizes where we hold both what the tag claims and what a tape found. It is not a rule, and that is the problem. One brand’s 32 is a true 32, the next is 34½, and nothing on the label tells you which you are holding.

So the tag works as a name. It tells you which pair to pick off the pile in a shop you already know. It cannot tell you whether a different brand’s 32 will do up.

Measuring yourself

1. 1

   Find it

   Stand up and bend to one side. The crease that forms is your natural waist. It is higher than you expect, and well above where most jeans sit.

2. 2

   Wrap the tape

   Stand straight again and pass the tape round at that height, against skin or a thin T-shirt, level with the floor all the way round. A mirror helps with the back.

3. 3

   Read it honestly

   Snug, with room to slide one finger underneath. Breathe out normally and do not hold your stomach in. The jeans will not be fooled and you will be wearing them for longer than you can hold your breath.

This is the number size charts mean when they say waist, and the one we ask for. It is a fixed point on your body, which is why everyone uses it, even though hardly any jeans are worn there.

Measuring the jeans

The more reliable route, if you own a pair that fits, is to measure them and ignore yourself entirely.

1. 1

   Do them up and lay them flat

   Button and zip. Put them face up on a table, not a bed.

2. 2

   Line up the waistband

   The back of a waistband is cut higher than the front, so left alone it lies in a curve. Pull the front edge up until it sits level with the back edge. This is the step people skip, and skipping it makes the waist read up to an inch small.

3. 3

   Measure straight across

   From one side to the other along the top edge. Do not stretch it. That number, flat, is what we ask for. Doubled, it is the waistband in the same terms as the tag.

4. 4

   Take the rise while you are there

   From the point where the four seams meet at the crotch, up the front to the top of the waistband. Around 9 inches is low, 10 to 11 is mid, 12 and over is high.

Which number to shop with

Two things move the answer. Stretch denim, anything with elastane in it, is cut smaller on purpose and gives an inch or more once it is on, so a waistband that measures a little under your usual is fine. Rigid denim does the opposite of what people fear: it starts stiff, and the waist lets out by up to an inch over the first few weeks of wear. It does not get any longer in the rise.

Secondhand, always ask for the flat waist and the rise. A seller who will not measure a waistband is telling you something about the listing.