How to pick a VOYJOY size from a tape measure, not from your jeans
Two measurements, taken once, decide every garment on this site. Which two, how to take them, what a seamless knit is supposed to feel like in the first minute, which sensations mean the letter is wrong, and why the rule about going up reverses on the pieces cut low.
Every size letter on this site was decided by a tape measure, and the letter in your jeans had nothing to do with it. Denim is cut with ease, a margin of cloth beyond the body so the trouser can hang. A seamless knit is cut without any, on purpose, so that it holds. The two letters are not the same letter, and the commonest fit complaint we read comes from a buyer who assumed they were.
Two numbers settle it. Below the waist, the hip. Above it, the bust, with the under-bust beside it. Take them once, in the way set out below, and hold them against the chart on the buying page of the piece you want: the chart is the one thing that knows how that cut was graded, and it is different for a low-rise short and a high-rise legging.
How to take the hip measurement
Stand with your feet together, because the seat spreads when they are apart and the number grows by an inch that will not be there in a squat. Run the tape round the fullest part of the seat, level all the way round, and check the level in a mirror from the side: a tape that dips at the back reads short. Snug against the skin, not tight, breathing normally.
That number does the choosing for every short, legging, pant and skort here, because the hip is where a bottom is widest and where a seamless knit has the least room to give. A waistband that rolls over at the top of a squat is nearly always a band a letter too small for the hip it is holding: the knit above it has nowhere to go, so it folds. The waist measurement matters too, but on a high-rise piece it only decides between two letters the hip has already narrowed it to.
How to take the bust measurement
Two tapes for a bra. The under-bust goes round the ribcage directly under the breast, level and snug, breathing out. The bust goes round the fullest point, level under the arms, over nothing or over a thin unpadded bra, and this one is not pulled tight. Write both down.
Every VOYJOY bra and every padded tank is sized by one letter, XS to XL, and the chart on the buying page lists an under-bust and a bust against each. If the two numbers point at different letters, follow the bust: the band stretches more than the cup does, and a cup that is a letter small shows at the edge in a way a band a letter large does not. A cup letter from a shop bra has no place in this: the chart never asks for one, only for the two numbers.
What the knit is supposed to feel like in the first minute
Close. The first minute in a seamless knit is the tightest it will ever feel, because the ribbed band at the waist is knitted tighter than the body of the garment and it has not yet warmed to you. By the end of a warm-up the band has settled and the body of the knit has moved with you a few hundred times. That is the fit working, not a size mistake.
What you should be able to do in that first minute is the whole test. Sit, and the band stays where it was. Squat, and the seat is covered with nothing straining across it. Lift an arm in a bra, and the under-bust band does not lift with it. Walk ten steps in a short, and the hem stays where you pulled it. A piece that passes those four in the first minute passes them in the fortieth.
The signs that the letter is wrong
The knit tells you, and it tells you early. A band that folds over at the top when you sit is a letter too small at the hip. A leg hem that rolls up the thigh when you walk is the same fault lower down: the opening is a letter too tight for the thigh, so it curls under itself. A mark you can still see an hour after the piece comes off is the same message again. Buyers who write to us about a rolling band or a rolling hem are nearly all in the smaller of their two letters.
The other direction is quieter. A band that sits flat standing still and slides down on a run is a letter too large, and so is a seat that bags at the bottom of a squat. On a bra, a cup that gapes at the top edge when you lean forward is a letter large in the cup; a band you can pull more than an inch away from the ribs is large in the band. None of these is fixed by wearing the piece in. A stretch knit stretches to the body it is given and returns; it does not learn.
Between two letters: decide by the day, not by the mirror
Everyone lands between two letters on some chart, and the mirror is the wrong judge, because the mirror shows the piece standing still. Decide instead by what the piece is for.
| The day | Which letter | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Training: squats, lunges, a run | The larger of the two | The band and the hem have room to move with you; nothing rolls |
| Walking, a class, a long day on your feet | The larger, unless the smaller is only just small | Comfort for hours matters more than the line for a minute |
| Standing still, a photograph, an evening | The smaller of the two | The line is smoothest and the day is short |
The rule is the same for a bra: the larger letter for a session, the smaller for an outfit. And it reverses for a piece you have already worn and loved in one letter. If your 3.6-inch biker fits in a medium, the impact short in the same family fits in a medium, because it is the same knit graded the same way. The letter carries across a family; it does not carry across from denim.
Why the rule changes on the pieces cut low
Most bottoms on this site sit at the natural waist, and a high band has a whole torso to grip. A few families are cut deliberately low, on the hip bone with the stomach uncovered: a 2.5-inch biker, a 30.5-inch flare, a 24-inch legging, two wide-leg capris and the tennis skort. On those the band has less to hold, so the letter matters more and the hip decides it outright. Buy a low-rise piece by the hip and it stays put; buy it by the waist and it slides.
VOYJOY Low-Rise Biker Shorts 2.5"
The 2.5-inch biker cut to sit on the hip: the piece where the hip measurement decides the letter outright.
$24.99
The other reversal is the loose pieces. The ballet wrap tops tie at the waist and hang; the half-zip layer goes over a tank; neither is cut without ease. On those, and only on those, the smaller of two letters usually sits better, because the cloth is meant to fall rather than hold.
Buy one before you buy four
The colourways are the reason people buy four at once, and the wrong letter is the reason four come back. Order one piece of any cut you have not worn before. Wear it once, through the four tests in the first minute. Then buy the colours in the letter you now know, because that letter holds across the whole family and, on most of the site, across the shelf.
One more reason to start with one: a few buyers found that a second order in the same letter did not match the first, a little longer or a little looser. It is rare, and it is the kind of thing a single first order shows you before it costs you three.
A letter in denim is a promise about hanging. A letter in a seamless knit is a promise about holding. Measure for the second, and the first stops mattering.
More of this sort of thing is in Warm-Up, and we at VOYJOY keeps the whole range one click away on the front page.