The slim pants you wear to the office always feel just right. So when you buy a pair from another brand, you go for slim again, in the same size. The parcel arrives. You try them on, then swing a leg over the motorbike parked outside your house. In an instant, the fabric across your thighs pulls tight.
On paper, the two pairs are twins. On the motorbike, clearly not.
Skinny, slim, straight and regular do sound like sizes. Yet the names only describe the shape of the pants. Whether a pair fits your body still comes down to the numbers on the size chart.
What Skinny, Slim, Straight and Regular Mean on the Label
Labels often say slim fit, skinny fit and so on. Here, fit refers to the cut, so slim fit simply means pants with a slim cut. All four names really differ on one thing only: the space between the fabric and your legs.
Skinny hugs the leg with almost no gap, from thigh to ankle. Slim still follows the line of the thigh but leaves a little room towards the ankle, so it's easier to wear all day. Straight falls in a clean line from the knee down, keeping the same width all the way to the hem. Regular gives the most room of the four, without making the pants look too big.
Straight and regular are often taken to be the same thing, but they aren't. Straight is about the direction the fabric falls from the knee down. Regular is about how roomy the pants are overall.
Now and then a fifth name turns up, athletic: more room through the thigh, then a taper towards the ankle. For a closer comparison, read the breakdown of each fit in the KASUAL Help Centre.
Every Brand Has Its Own Slim Fit
There's no binding rule on how snug a pair of pants has to be before it can be called slim. Each brand decides that for itself. As a result, a slim from one brand can feel just as roomy as a straight from another.
That's exactly what happened on the motorbike. The label said slim, but the new brand's idea of slim runs tighter than the slim you're used to.
Think of a fit name as directions that only say *near the corner shop*. It's enough to point you the right way, but you still need the house number. The house number is on the size chart.
Measure Your Favourite Pair, Then Match It to the Size Chart
The numbers you can trust most are already in your own wardrobe. Find the pair you keep reaching for because it's genuinely comfortable. Spread it flat on the floor with no creases, then get a soft tape measure.
There are three places to measure: waist, hips and thigh. Measure the waist along the top edge of the waistband, with the button done up and the zip closed. Take the hips at the widest point, roughly level with the bottom of the zip. For the thigh, measure straight across, just below the crotch.
Because the pants are lying flat, you've only measured half of each circumference. So when you open the size chart on a product page, first check whether its numbers are flat measurements or full circumferences. If they're full circumferences, double your numbers before you compare. Save all three numbers in a note on your phone too, so you won't need to measure again next time you shop.
The fit name in the product title only needs a quick glance. It's the numbers that decide.
Between Two Sizes? Pick the Larger One
Sometimes your measurements land in the middle: a little past one size, but not quite at the next. When that happens, go for the larger one.
Here's the maths. A waist that's slightly too big can be held up with a belt, or taken in at an alterations shop. A thigh that's too tight can't be saved, however patient the tailor.
Some size charts leave out the thigh width altogether. You still have two options. Ask customer service for the number before you pay. Or pick a cut that doesn't depend so much on an exact thigh measurement, and here straight makes the most sense. Its fabric falls in a clean line and was never meant to hug the leg.
For Your First Pair Online, Start With Slim Ankle Pants
If this is the first pair you're buying without trying it on, the safest bet is slim at ankle length. Ankle here means the hem stops right at your ankle. The combination is smart enough for the office without being too tight to wear from morning to night. The style won't look dated in a hurry, either.
One example is these black ankle pants. Black is the easiest colour to match with almost any top. If your wardrobe is already full of black pants, try the navy version in a similar cut.
A day full of getting up and sitting down calls for a waistband that can give a little. Chinos with Smart Waist could be the pair for days like that. Chinos are cotton pants that sit somewhere in the middle: more relaxed than dress pants, smarter than jeans. Smart Waist means the waistband is elastic, yet from the outside the pants still look like any other smart pair.
Skinny can wait its turn. There's nothing wrong with the style. It's just that skinny depends more than any other cut on the thigh measurement, and that's the number size charts most often leave out. Skinny's turn comes once a pair from the same brand has proved it fits you.