Fit4 min read
Cut for the player, not shrunk from the men's block
Most women's football shirts start life as a men's pattern with the numbers pulled in. That is why they pull at the shoulder and hang at the waist.
There is a shortcut in apparel called grading down. You take a pattern that works, scale every measurement by a fixed percentage, and call the result a smaller size. It is fast, it is cheap, and for a size run of the same body it works well enough.
It stops working the moment the body changes shape rather than scale. A shoulder does not narrow at the same rate a hip does. Grade a men's block down far enough to fit across the chest and the armhole ends up too high and too tight, the shoulder seam sits inboard of the actual shoulder, and the hem flares where nobody needs it to flare. The shirt is technically the right size and still wrong everywhere it matters.
A shirt that pulls at the shoulder when you raise your arm is not a small shirt. It is the wrong shirt.
One block, eight sizes
The Signature Jersey is cut on a single block drafted for the range it covers, XXS through XXL. The armhole is dropped and opened so the sleeve can travel with the arm instead of dragging the body of the shirt with it. The side seam is straighter than fashion would like, because a shirt worn over a base layer and tucked into shorts needs room the mirror does not reward.
Eight sizes on one block is more work than five sizes graded from something else. It also means XXS and XXL are the same garment, not the same garment plus an apology.
How to check we got it right
Put it on and raise both arms straight above your head. The hem should stay down. If it climbs, the armhole is fighting you and the size is wrong — or we are, and we would rather know.
