Why it matters
Why this page matters in the wider system.
Fashion returns are a major economic and environmental cost, and the fit data gap is a root cause rather than a contributing factor. That distinction decides where the money goes. Treating returns as a logistics problem buys faster reverse logistics and cheaper reprocessing, which reduces the cost of each failure without reducing how many there are. Treating it as an information problem attacks the volume instead — and the volume is where the environmental cost lives, because a return prevented is a garment that was never shipped, never inspected and never marked down.
Requires portable individual body measurements, not generic size data, because a size label predicts nothing across brands.
Requires structured garment measurements linked to each product, which is the half of the problem the Digital Product Passport is about to make cheaper to collect.
Requires accumulated fit outcome history, since what a wearer kept and returned is the only feedback signal the prediction has.
Connects body data to garment data across commercial boundaries, which is what makes neutral infrastructure a requirement rather than a preference.
Reports its own confidence, and says which dimension is at risk rather than only which size is nearest, because a prediction that cannot be wrong out loud teaches nobody anything.