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Woman calls out H&M for their 'terrible' sizing for plus-size shoppers

Shorts in her usual size were way too small at H&M.
H&M recently announced that it was updating its sizing to better reflect industry norms.
This isn't the first time the fast-fashion retailer has been called out for their sizing.Raymond Boyd / Getty Images
/ Source: TODAY

What’s up with H&M’s sizing?

That’s what Lottie L’Amour wanted to know when she posted a series of tweets about the retailer’s sizing scale.

L’Amour, 31, a plus-size fashion blogger from London, described her frustrating recent trip to the fast-fashion store.

She said she is typically at U.K. size 24, but she could not fit into any of the size 24 clothing at H&M.

In fact, a pair of shorts that was supposedly a size 28 fit perfectly on her girlfriend — who is a U.K. size 16.

“LOOK AT THOSE SHORTS,” L’Amour wrote on Twitter. “Size 28 clothing tight on a size 16 woman. How the hell are plus size people supposed to shop for clothes when this is the sizing options?”

She tweeted a photo of Emma trying on the shorts and pointed out their "size 28" label.

“I usually expect to size up or down at other stores depending on how their garments fit and what fabrics they use, but it's never as bad as this,” L’Amour told TODAY Style in an email.

She said that H&M’s non-industry-standard sizing makes it difficult for plus-sized customers to find items that fit.

“I'm not personally worried by what a label says, but when a size disparity means that I can't physically buy from a range that is supposed to be for my size, it's more a matter of being unable to buy clothing, despite technically being catered for,” she wrote.

And while L'Amour said she has learned not to define her worth by “numbers on a bit of fabric,” she worries that the skewed sizing could have a negative effect on shoppers struggling with serious body-image issues.

“Not only is it potentially dangerous for sizing to be so far out for young people who suffer with body dysmorphia or eating disorders because of how climbing up several sizes will affect their self-esteem, but it's also really damaging for plus-size customers who are automatically sized out of a range that is meant to be for them,” she told TODAY.

L’Amour’s tweets struck a nerve on Twitter, and many women responded with their own frustration over H&M’s non-standard sizing.

An H&M customer service representative responded publicly to L’Amour’s Twitter complaints, saying that sizes are “continuously reviewed by our in-house sizing department.”

H&M also recently announced that they are in the process of updating their women’s sizing guidelines in the U.S., the U.K., Canada and other locations, to bring their sizing structure “more in line with the U.S. size standard and with the retail marketplace,” a company spokesperson told TODAY Style in an email.

They are essentially shifting sizes one down, so that if a shopper was previously a size 14, she would be a size 12 under the new guidelines.

Some of the old sizes may still be on the racks as individual stores transition to the new sizing system, the H&M representative told TODAY.

“As we are currently transitioning between old stock and the new season there might be some discrepancies for a short while,” the spokesperson said. “But staff are available in store to assist and online there is a new size guide/measurements available as well for ease of shopping.”

L’Amour is aware of H&M’s updated sizing policy but says it is not enough. She claims it's "just making a cosmetic change to their sizing by moving their sizes up one based on their current sizing."

She added that until the company makes some fundamental changes to their sizing structure, she won’t be shopping at the store anytime soon.

“The only way I would ever shop with H&M again would be if they took steps to reassess their measurements," she said. “The current plus-size range is not fit for their plus-size customers, so either needs to be removed completely or they need to work with plus-size fit models to correctly size clothing for plus-size bodies.”