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New european garment coding

The CEN workgroup WG10 TC248 approved in 2007 the draft specifications (pr EN13402-4) for the "Size designation of clothes -Codying system": five digits to express body sizes, morphotype and height.
Nevertheless the final approval is not happened and situation seems blocked.

The fourth part of the standard is still under review and is expected to be published in late 2007. It will define a compact coding system for clothes sizes. This was originally intended primarily for industry use in databases and as a part of stock-keeping identifiers and catalogue ordering numbers, but later users have also expressed a desire to use compact codes for customer communication. Writing out all the centimetre figures of all the primary and secondary measures from EN 13402-2 can – in some cases – require up to 12 digits. The full list of centimetre figures on the pictogram contains a lot of redundancy and the same information can be squeezed into fewer graphemes with lookup tables. EN 13402-4 will define such tables.

An earlier draft of this part of the standard attempted to list all in-use combinations of EN 13402-3 measures and assigned a short 2- or 3-digit code to each [1]. Some of the industry representatives involved in the standardization process considered this approach too restrictive. Others argued that the primary dimension in centimetres should be a prominent part of the code. Therefore this proposal, originally expected to be adopted in 2005, was rejected.

Since then, several new proposals have been presented to the CEN working group. One of these, tabled by the European Association of National Organisations of Textile Traders (AEDT), proposes a 5-character alphanumeric code, consisting of the 3-digit centimetre figure of the primary body dimension, followed by one or two letters that code a secondary dimension, somewhat like the system already defined for bra sizes.

For example, an item designed for

bust girth: 100 cm (100)
hip girth: 104 cm (B)
height: 176 cm (G)
would bear (in addition to the explanatory pictogram) the compact size code "100BG" [2].

This proposal was agreed upon in a March 2006 meeting in Florence and a final draft was produced by AEDT on 6 June 2006 [3].

 Example
Example

Comunicato da UNI-TEX

Presentato a Milano il progetto Europeo di armonizzazione dei codici delle taglie

Ha avuto pieno successo l'incontro promosso da UNITEX e dalla Federazione SMI-ATI - lo scorso 26 febbraio - nella nuova sede di UNI a Milano.

Più di 70 partecipanti, provenienti da tutti i settori interessati, dalla grande distribuzione alle industrie di confezione, alla consulenza specializzata, al ministero per lo sviluppo economico.
La stampa nazionale e altri media hanno dato un inconsueto risalto alla manifestazione.


Resources

WEB - WEB page of Empoli meeting
DOC - Presentation of the new system of coding (2MB) DI110-044
Convegno Milano-relazione chiara ferretti sul sistema taglie unificato europeo (pdf, 2076123 bytes, v1, 2/3/2007)
DOC - Workshop EMPOLI - June 2007
DOC - Press - La Confezione, magazine June 2007
DOC - Press - Magazine Moda e industria, June 07
WEB - A short history of the specification EN13402
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Contenuto realizzato nel corso delle attività del centro CROSS