How we measure a hem
One number, taken the same way every time, on 33 of the 43 pieces here. This is the method behind it.
A listing that says knee length tells you nothing. Knee length on a five foot two frame is mid calf on somebody five foot ten, and the two skirts that carry the phrase can be two inches apart on the tape. So we stopped using the phrase and started printing the number.
The method
The garment goes on a flat table, face up, with the stretch settled and nothing pulled square. On a bottom the tape starts at the very top edge of the folded waistband. On a tankini top or a camisole it starts at the high point of the shoulder, where the strap meets the body, because a top has no waistband to start from. Either way it runs down the finished side seam to the lower edge of the hem. We do not measure down the centre front, because a shaped front panel reads shorter than the garment actually is.
That gives one number per piece, in inches. It is the number in the corner of every photograph on this site and the number the coverage picker filters on. The chip under each piece names the end the tape started from, so a 30″ camisole and a 20.2″ skirt are never read as the same kind of number.
Which size we tape
We tape the middle size the maker cuts, not the smallest and not the largest. On a chart that runs S to XXL the number you see came off the L. Sizes above it are cut longer and sizes below it shorter, usually by half an inch a step, and the per size figures sit in the length column of the chart on each product page.
What we do not claim
The number is the garment, not your body. Where the hem lands on you depends on your torso, on your rise and on where you prefer a waistband to sit. Two people wearing the same 20.2″ skirt will find it in two different places, and both are correct.
Fabric moves too. A wet knit hangs a fraction longer than a dry one, and a knit that has been worn and washed twenty times settles differently from one out of the packet.
The hem opening
On 40 chart rows the maker also gives a hem opening, measured flat across the bottom edge. Ours run from 22.4″ to 26.9″. A narrow opening on a long skirt is the thing that makes climbing a ladder awkward, which is the whole reason skorts exist.
Why bother
Because the alternative is you ordering, guessing, and finding out. We would rather you knew before, even if the number sends you to a different piece than the one you opened the site for.