How to Pick Your Size in an Oversized T-Shirt

Most size guides tell you to measure your chest. That is the wrong measurement for a piece cut like this, and it is why people order oversized clothing twice.

Take your usual size. The oversized shape comes from how the piece is cut, not from ordering up. If you normally wear a medium tee, take the medium. Go one size down only if you want the shape closer to your body.

Why sizing up is the common mistake

A regular tee is cut narrow, so people size up to fake a relaxed shape. It never quite works: the shoulder seam ends up halfway down the arm by accident, the body is long instead of wide, and the whole thing hangs like it belongs to someone else.

An oversized piece already has that room built into the pattern. The shoulder is dropped on purpose, the body is cut wide from the armhole down, and the length is set to match. Size up on top of that and you are wearing two sizes of extra room, not one.

The measurements

These are flat garment measurements for the Essential Oversized T-Shirt, taken with the shirt laid flat, in centimetres.

Each size adds 2 cm of length, 2.5 cm of chest and 1 cm of shoulder. The steps are small on purpose. If you are deciding between two sizes, the difference between them is about a finger's width across the shoulder, not a different garment.

The better method: measure a shirt you already own

Your usual size is a guess about a brand you have not worn. A shirt in your wardrobe is a fact. Take the one that fits the way you want this one to fit, lay it flat on a table, and measure three things.

• Chest. Straight across, from one armhole seam to the other, about 2 cm below the armpit.
• Length. From the highest point of the shoulder straight down to the bottom hem.
• Shoulder. Across the back, from one shoulder seam to the other.

Then find the row above that gets closest. If your favourite tee measures 58 cm across the chest and you want more room than that, the medium at 59.5 cm is a small step and the large at 62 cm is a real one.

One thing to know before you compare: the shoulder number on an oversized piece will look wrong next to a regular shirt. At size S the shoulder is 56 cm and the chest is 57 cm — almost the same. That is the dropped shoulder, and it is the point of the cut, not a mistake in the table.

If you do not have a tape measure

Height and weight get you close enough on this piece, because the extra room absorbs a lot of the difference between two bodies.

What to do when you fall between two sizes

Take the smaller one. On a piece with this much room built in, the smaller size still reads oversized, and the larger one starts eating your proportions — the shoulder seam drops past the point where it looks intentional and the hem gets long enough to shorten your legs.

The exception is if you are near the top of a height band and you want the length. Length grows 2 cm per size, so going up gains you very little there and costs you a lot of width.

The hoodie is not cut like the tee

Same label, different garment. Do not assume your tee size transfers.

At size S the hoodie is 13 cm wider across the chest than the tee and 9 cm shorter. It is a boxier, squarer piece, built to sit over a tee rather than replace it. Take your usual size there too, and expect it to read wider and to stop higher than the shirt underneath.

Shorts

The Essential Relaxed Short runs S to 2XL on an elastic waist with a drawcord, so the waist number is a starting point rather than a hard limit. It sits just above the knee on most heights.

If you still get it wrong

Returns are open for 30 days and we pay the return shipping. You are not stuck with a size that does not work, and you are not paying to find out. Every product page carries the size chart for that specific piece in both centimetres and inches.

Next: what oversized, boxy and regular fit actually mean, and why the weight of the cotton changes the shape.

Shop the Essentials line, the hoodies or the shorts.