The 18 measurements a blouse actually needs — and the three everyone gets wrong

Almost every ill-fitting blouse we are asked to rescue fails in one of three places, and none of them is the bust. The first is back neck depth. Customers send a number copied from an old blouse without checking whether that blouse actually sat right, and a back neck cannot be made shallower once it is cut — the fabric is gone. Measure it on yourself, from the shoulder seam at the base of the neck straight down the spine, and add nothing for “style”.

The second is apex to apex, the distance between the two bust points. Get it wrong and the darts point at the wrong place; no amount of taking in at the side seam will fix a dart that lands two centimetres off. The third is cross back — the width across the back between the armhole creases. Too narrow and the arms cannot come forward, which is the complaint people describe as “it is tight but I don't know where”.

If measuring makes you nervous, courier us a blouse that fits you well. We will take the numbers off the garment, which is more reliable than a tape in an unfamiliar pair of hands, and send it back with the finished piece. This is what most of our out-of-Chennai clients do, and it is the single biggest reason our alteration rate is low.