Finding the Perfect Fit, Without the Fitting Room

When I was a young professional in the habit of buying clothes for recreation, the King of Prussia mall, in a tony suburb of Philadelphia, was one of my favorite places to shop. The selection of stores covered the entire spectrum of favorite destinations, from casual Abercrombie & Fitch to luxe Saks Fifth Avenue. The concourses were wide and peaceful; the fitting rooms, large; and the attendants, solicitous. And fitting rooms were important: Though my body changed very little in those years, my size could change three or four times in a single $300 afternoon.

Unfortunately, trying to find the right fit has only gotten worse in the 10 years since I shopped to my heart's content and my credit card's limit. A half inch at a time, clothing manufacturers have been choosing their own adventures when it comes to sizing, departing from the ASTM standards to create such sizes as the "double zero."

Wouldn't it be nice to have a cheat-sheet telling you which size you fit into at different stores and for different designers? Enter MyBestFit, a company that's applying the genius of airport security scanners to the pressing problem of vanity sizing.