NIFT Plans To Gift Indian RMG Retailers With Domestic Size Charts

NIFT Plans To Gift Indian RMG Retailers With Domestic Size Charts

Ready Made Garments available at retail stores across India pose size misfit hazards for Indian customers as most of them are sourced from other countries and fail to get customized to Indian body measurements. .

The National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) has decided to circumvent this difficulty by conducting a national sizing survey that will help them generate a size chart that specially caters to the Indian population.

The Institute plans to implement the INR 30 crore project under the aegis of the ministry of textiles.The sample size for the survey is set to include 25,000 men and women across six locations in India. The project, estimated to cost Rs 30 crore, will be carried out under the Ministry of Textiles. 25,000 men and women will be sampled for the survey in six locations of the country. The locations include Koklata, Mumbai, New Delhi, Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Shillong and will last for a period of three years.

The textile ministry issued a statement, that explained the project: "It is a scientific exercise where anthropometric data will be collected from a sample population in the age group 15 to 65 years to create a database of measurements that will result in a standardized size chart which is representative of the Indian population and can be adopted by the apparel industry."

Using 3D whole-body scanners, computers will extract hundreds of measurements from a scan. The data created as part of this project will be confidential and secure. Once the chart is ready, brands in India will have to carry the India size on garments,” the statement further mentioned.

The statement concluded stating, "Indian apparel industry uses size charts which are tweaked versions of size charts of other countries so returns of the garments are in the range of 20% to 40% and is increasing with the growth of e-commerce and the main reason for returns are poor garment fit. Providing well-fitting garments in the absence of standardized size chart is proving to be a big challenge for the domestic textile and apparel industry which is projected to reach USD 123 billion by 2021 and holds 5th position in apparel imports."