Various Men’s Body Shapes and Drops for Developing Menswear Sizing Systems in the United States

Menswear body types are often labeled on garments to indicate how the garment is designed to fit and indicators of a size category such as regular, portly, and stout, athletic, or big and tall. A drop (relationships between the chest and waist girths) is related to the fit of a tailored suit. However, current standards are not designed for various drops or body types. There is not enough information of categorizing men’s body shapes for the apparel sizing systems. In this article, a set of men’s data from SizeUSA sizing survey was analyzed to investigate men’s body shapes and drops. Factor analysis and cluster analysis method were used to categorize men’s body shapes. In the results, twenty five variables were selected through the factor analysis and found four factors: girth factor, height factor, torso girth factor, and slope degree factor. According to the factor and cluster analysis, various body shapes were found: Slim Shape (SS- tall ectomorphy), Heavy Shape (HS- athletic,