Plus Size Clothing: Which Brands Carry Which Sizes

Every brand publishes its size range. Almost none of them publish the thing that actually decides whether the garment fits: the proportions the pattern was cut around.

You can get at that second number anyway, for at least one retailer, because it is sitting in a chart they already publish. It explains a lot.

The ranges we could verify

These come from each retailer’s own pages, not from a round-up:

Brand	Published range	Where
Universal Standard	00 – 40	Stated on the brand’s own site and in its sizing guide
Lands’ End (Outfitters chart)	XXXS 000 – 5X 34W	Women’s bottoms chart
Lands’ End (retail trouser chart)	XXS 00 – 3X 26W	Women’s trousers and shorts chart

Two things worth noticing before you use that table.

The same retailer runs two different ranges. Lands’ End’s Outfitters (uniform) chart goes to 34W; its retail trouser chart stops at 26W. That is not a contradiction — they are different lines with different charts — but it does mean “does this brand carry my size” has no single answer at a brand level. It has an answer per chart.

Letters are not comparable between brands. Universal Standard maps L to 22–24. The Lands’ End retail chart maps L to 14–16. Both are correct for their own ranges. An L tells you where a garment sits within one brand’s span and nothing else.

The number nobody publishes: how much drop the pattern assumes

Here is where a published chart gives up something useful. Take four rows from the Lands’ End retail trouser chart and subtract waist from hip:

Size	Waist (in)	Hips (in)	Hip − waist
L 16	35 – 36½	44½	8.0 – 9.5
XL 18	37 – 38½	46½	8.0 – 9.5
0X 14W	36½ – 37½	44½	7.0 – 8.0
1X 16W	38 – 39	46	7.0 – 8.0

The straight sizes assume 8 to 9½ inches between waist and hip. The W sizes assume 7 to 8.

That subtraction is ours, not theirs — but the four rows are the retailer’s own published numbers, in inches and centimetres, and the pattern is consistent across both pairs. The W block is drafted for proportionally more waist, not simply for a bigger body.

Which is why the most common piece of advice about plus size clothing — if the 16 does not fit, try the 16W — is not a conversion. It is a jump to a different set of assumptions about how your waist and hip relate. If your own drop is nine inches, the W block is the one more likely to gape at the waist; if it is seven, the straight block is the one more likely to bind at the hip.

Measure your own drop once. Hip minus waist, in inches. Then you know which block is arguing with you, and that is worth more than any brand list.

Doing it takes a minute. Measure your waist where the chart says to — and note that charts do not agree on where that is, which is its own problem — then your hip at the fullest point, heels together, tape parallel to the floor. Subtract. A drop near seven or eight puts you close to what this retailer’s W block assumes; up around nine and a half, the straight block is the closer starting point even where both exist in your size. Neither result is a verdict on your body. It is a fact about which pattern will need less arguing with, and it stays true across seasons in a way that a size number does not.

This is one retailer’s chart and it is theirs alone. We are not extrapolating it to brands whose charts we did not read.

What “carries your size” does not tell you

A size range is a statement about the largest number a brand prints on a label. It says nothing about:

How the pattern was redrawn at each size. A size chart gives you numbers; it does not tell you whether the pattern was re-drafted for the larger sizes or enlarged from a smaller one, and we cannot tell those apart from a chart either.
Whether the largest sizes exist in the styles you want. A range that runs to 32 in basics and stops at 24 in outerwear is still advertised as running to 32.
How much of the fit the fabric is doing. Stretch content changes how much a pattern has to be right, and the chart does not report it.

We did not find any of that published anywhere we could check, so we are not going to rank brands on it. What you can do is read the chart, take your own four measurements, and treat every brand as a separate question.

How to use a brand’s range

Find the chart for the specific line you are buying from, not the brand’s headline range.
Compare inches, not labels. Bust, waist, hip, and your waist-to-hip drop.
Check where your largest measurement lands. That is the size; everything else is alteration.
If you sit near the straight/W boundary, check both. Same brand, same number, different block — and the chart will usually show you the difference if you subtract.
Re-check when you reorder. Ranges and grading change between seasons, and the label does not announce it.

The structural reason charts disagree — no mandatory US standard since 1983, and two separate ASTM tables for Misses and Plus — is in our clothing size chart women guide. Before you compare yourself to any chart you need the numbers themselves: how to measure your bust covers bust, waist and hip, and how to measure inseam women covers the one that decides leg length. If you are shopping British brands, uk size 6 to us handles the label side.

Sources

Universal Standard and its sizing guide — the 00–40 range; size finder — the letter-to-number mapping
Lands’ End Outfitters women’s bottoms chart — the XXXS 000 to 5X 34W range
Lands’ End women’s trousers and shorts chart — the four rows used in the drop table, quoted in inches as published

Frequently asked questions

Which brands carry the widest size range?

Of the ranges we could verify from the retailers' own pages, Universal Standard publishes 00 to 40, and the Lands' End Outfitters women's bottoms chart runs from XXXS 000 to 5X 34W. Ranges change, so check the brand's own chart rather than a list like this one.

If a 16 is too small, is a 16W the next size up?

No. They come from different blocks. On the Lands' End retail trouser chart a 14W already has a larger waist than a 16, and the W sizes assume roughly an inch to an inch and a half less difference between waist and hip. Sizing across is a change of proportion, not just of volume.

Why does the same size fit differently at two brands?

Because a size label records how that brand cut its pattern, and nothing requires two brands to agree. Compare your bust, waist and hip in inches against the chart on the page you are buying from, every time.