Fashion guru says nation's clothes fail to measure up Offering fitting advice: Ed Gribbin says Australia's sizing practices are outdated. Australians are wearing some of the poorest-fitting clothing in the world, a leading sizing expert says, because the local industry is too "set in its ways" when it comes to dressing men and women. The president of clothing size consultancy Alvanon, Ed Gribbin, said Australia's sizing practices were outdated and left many consumers with ill-fitting clothes. "The industry in Australia has certain outdated notions about how to grade between sizes ... and they're not ready to take significant steps to change their fit," he said. Grading between sizes should be proportional to the size of the body. So the difference between a size six and eight shouldn't be the same as the difference between a size 18 and 20. But, in Australia, it is. Alvanon has the biggest global database of body measurements - drawn from 300,000 people in 24 countries - and is the world's largest manufacturer of mannequins. The company provides fitting advice to hundreds of clothing brands including Nike, Burberry, Prada and Target. While Australian fitting may be below par, Mr Gribbin said the boom in online shopping was leading to a better fit across the board because retailers had a "huge incentive to get clothing fit right and get it consistent to limit the number of returns." "The No.1 reason for returns is the product didn't fit," he said. You only get one chance to make a first impression in the retail world and, if the product arrives at home and it doesn't fit, a shopper will generally make an assumption that 'the brand doesn't fit me'. That's very dangerous for an e-commerce retailer. Online shopping and the opening up of a global market could also lead to universal sizing and reduce confusion when shopping on overseas websites. "Having one single universal sizing is kind of a holy grail that no one has ever been able to find but I think we're gradually inching closer," Mr Gribbin said. Mr Gribbin, who is in Melbourne to deliver a lecture, said clothing brands in Australia were reluctant to adopt "more progressive" fit grading practices embraced by clothing manufacturers in other countries. And the biggest losers were consumers at either end of the size range. "It might not affect the average person who is a size 10 or 12 too much but it significantly limits the number of large people and the number of smaller people who are going to find a good fit when they go shopping," he said. "There is no logical reason" for Australian brands to continue to use the antiquated model, he said. Mr Gribbin said he did not believe all brands should be obligated to cater to all sizes. "When a brand focuses on a particular look or aesthetic, and then goes out to achieve that, almost by definition they're legislating who can buy their product," he said.