womanhood is as much about making personal fashion statements as it is about feeling empowered or breaking through the socioeconomic glass ceiling and speaking of fashion the average indian woman has several choices ranging from flowy airy drapes and custom ornate topwear to massproduced western and branded traditional wear while theres hardly any issue with custom traditional garments the same cant be said for factoryproduced onecutfitsall branded wear the only time i get a perfect fit is when a designer makes me a dress but its practically impossible to wear designer outfits every day so obviously we have to rely a lot on retail stores though im not exactly a shopaholic retail therapy does work for me but every time i shop for clothes the size bug starts getting on my nerves nothing seems to fit and i usually walk out of a store carrying a compromise even online the confusing size charts drive me nuts said modelactress sauraseni maitrasauraseni is not alone millions of people especially women face the same problem with readymade garments in india where the apparel industry uses tweaked versions of international size charts and thats exactly why the national institute of fashion technology nift recently announced that india will finally have its own size chart by 2021 in doing so it will join the ranks of countries like the us canada and mexico which have their own standardised size charts moreover 14 countries have successfully completed national sizing surveys in india a group of professors and teachers from nift delhi has already started working on a survey under the aegis of the ministry of textiles as part of the research 25000 men and women across six major cities will be measured using 3d wholebody scannersnoopur anand a professor from the department of fashion technology nift delhi and a principal investigator of the project told us the indian apparel industry uses size charts that are tweaked versions of the ones from other countries and made from the manufacturers instinct and experience rather than proven scientific study this usually results in fits that leave a lot to be desired providing wellfitted garments in the absence of a standardised size chart is proving to be a big challenge for the domestic textile and apparel industry india is attempting to undertake its own anthropometric survey to take care of disparities and inconsistencies in apparel sizing systems and provided fits revealing more about the 31crore size india survey siddhartha sankar ray associate professor nift kolkata whos handling the project in the city said we are getting three 3d scanners within four months following which well start the survey these scanners can measure body dimensions in 20 minutes while one scanner will be used in kolkata and shillong the other two will be used in delhi mumbai chennai and hyderabad the indian size chart will not only help desi buyers identify their accurate size but also serve as a blueprint for apparel designers and retailers most women are already looking