How do you tell what size the creator is wearing in a video?

Check the caption first, then the pinned comment, then the on-screen text in the last few seconds of the video. Creators who do try-on content usually state their height and the size they took, often in the same breath, because they get asked constantly. If the item is sold through their storefront or a shop link, the listing may also record the size. What you will rarely find is the creator's body measurements, which is the thing that would actually let you convert their size into yours. So treat the size in the caption as one data point about one body in one brand, and pair it with the fit note next to it: true to size, runs small, sized up. That note is worth more than the letter.

Should I buy the same size the creator is wearing?

Not on the strength of the size alone. A clothing size in the United States is set by each brand against its own fit model, because the federal sizing standard for women's clothing went voluntary in 1971 and was withdrawn in 1983, and the ASTM standards that replaced it are voluntary too. A medium at one label and a medium at another can differ by inches. The creator's size tells you what that brand's grading did to that person's body, which is only useful to you if you know both. The transferable move is to measure a garment you already own that fits the way you want this one to fit, then compare those inches to the brand's own size chart.

What is the difference between a body measurement chart and a garment measurement chart?

A body chart lists the measurements of the person: chest, waist, hip, inseam, with no ease added. A garment chart lists the measurements of the item itself, laid flat, and it includes the ease the designer built in for movement. The two are not interchangeable. If your bust measures 36 inches and a regular-fit top lists a 40-inch chest, that is not a size too big, it is four inches of intended ease. Comparing your body to a garment chart, or your garment to a body chart, is one of the most common ways to order the wrong size. If a chart is unlabelled, the column names give it away: chest, waist and hip in body-shaped rows is a body chart, while pit to pit, length and sleeve is a garment chart.

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The creator’s size won’t fit you. Their measurements might.

September 5, 2026 · 6 min read

A clay-style clothes hanger holding a simple dress

The size in the caption is a fact about the creator's body and one brand's grading. It is not a recommendation. What transfers to you is inches: their height, the size they took, and whether they said it ran big or small. Turn that into a measurement you can check against something already hanging in your wardrobe, and you have something worth acting on.

A creator holds up a jacket, says it is a medium, and the replies fill with people asking whether they should get a medium. Nobody in that thread can answer, including the creator. Medium at that brand was cut from a fit model whose measurements nobody in the comments has ever seen.

A size is not portable between brands

There is no authority in the United States that decides what a size 8 is. There used to be something close. Commercial Standard 215-58, published in 1958 by the National Bureau of Standards and built on a survey of roughly fifteen thousand women taken in 1939, fixed bust, waist and hip measurements for misses sizes. It went voluntary in 1971 and was withdrawn entirely in 1983. ASTM published voluntary standards from 1995 and has revised them since, most recently in 2021, and no brand is required to use them.

So each label picks a fit model, grades up and down from that body, and prints whatever letter it likes on the label. Two mediums cut from two different fit models are two different garments with the same name. This is why the answer to “what size should I get” is never the size somebody else got.

What the caption convention actually gives you

Try-on creators developed a shorthand because they get the same question forty times a video: height, then size, then a fit note. It is genuinely useful, and it is useful in a specific order.

The fit note is the most valuable part. True to size, runs small, runs long in the body. That is a comparison between the label on the tag and the garment in their hands, and it holds regardless of whose body is inside it.
A cross-brand reference is better still.“I am usually a medium at a brand you have heard of and took a large here” converts directly, because you may already own the first brand and know how it sits on you.
Height tells you about length, not width. It predicts whether a hem lands where it lands in the video. It says close to nothing about how a top fits across the chest, and two people at the same height routinely wear different sizes.
The size on its own is the weakest item here. It only becomes information when one of the three above is attached to it.

Sized up is often a styling choice

Oversized is a look. A creator taking a large in a cropped tee because they want it slouchy is not telling you the brand runs small. They are telling you what they wanted it to look like, and if you take the same large expecting a normal fit, you have bought a different garment than the one you thought you were buying.

The two statements sound identical in a caption and mean opposite things. “Sized up because it runs small” is a fit note. “Sized up for the oversized fit” is a preference. If the post does not say which, you do not have a fit note, and it is better to know that than to guess. Worth noticing too: if the video is marked gifted, the creator may not have chosen the size at all.

Measure something you already own

This is the step that turns a stranger's size into your size, and it takes about two minutes with a tape measure. The point is to produce a number that both you and the brand mean the same thing by.

Pick the right reference garment. Not your favourite one. The one that fits the way you want this new item to fit. A relaxed jumper and a fitted one give you two very different targets.
Lay it flat and measure pit to pit. Straight across the front, an inch or so below where the sleeve meets the body. That is the half chest. Double it for the full circumference.
Measure the length. From where the shoulder seam meets the collar, straight down to the hem. For bottoms, measure the waist flat and the inseam.
Compare those numbers to the brand's chart rather than to the size on your own label, which is subject to exactly the same drift as theirs.

Two kinds of chart, and only one is about you

A body chart lists the person: chest, waist, hip, inseam, no ease. A garment chart lists the item lying flat, ease included, because a top has to be bigger than the body inside it to be wearable at all.

Mix them up and you will be off by the ease, usually by three or four inches on a regular fit, which is roughly a size. If your bust measures 36 inches and a regular-fit top lists a 40-inch chest, that is not a top that will swim on you. That is the fit working as designed. When the chart does not label itself, read the column names: chest, waist and hip in body-shaped rows is a body chart, while pit to pit, length and sleeve is a garment chart.

The comments are a fit report, not a review

Product comments are famously unreliable as reviews, but they are unusually good on fit, for a boring reason. A fit complaint is specific and self-reporting. Somebody writes that they are a certain height and the sleeves ended halfway up their forearm, and that is a measurement in disguise. Sort by newest, and read past the top comments, which are sorted for entertainment rather than for whether they contain a number.

The limit, out loud: a fit note with no body attached is a vibe. “Runs tiny” from an anonymous account tells you nothing you can act on. Look for the ones carrying a height, a usual size, or a named brand to compare against.

When it is still a guess, buy where returning is cheap

Sometimes two sizes are genuinely plausible and no amount of reading settles it. That is a normal outcome, and the response is to move the decision to where being wrong is cheap rather than to keep staring at the chart.

Before you order, find out who the seller actually is, who pays return shipping, and when the return window opens, since it usually starts at delivery rather than at order. Ordering two sizes is a reasonable tactic on a retailer with free returns and an expensive mistake anywhere else. It is one of the places where the brand's own site can be worth the higher price over the cheaper in-app listing.

What we do with it

Share the video to Stealsy and it reads the post rather than a frame of it: the caption, the on-screen text, the audio and the comments, which is where a height and a size get mentioned when they get mentioned at all. It finds the products, prices them, and opens every shop link to check it before you see it, so you land on the real product page with the brand's own size chart on it.

The limits, plainly. Stealsy will not tell you your size, and neither will anything else that has only watched a video. If the creator never said their height, that information does not exist in the post for anyone to extract. And it is iPhone only, iOS 18 or later.

Get Stealsy for iPhone — share a video, get the products, prices and verified links.

Common questions

How do you tell what size the creator is wearing in a video?: Check the caption first, then the pinned comment, then the on-screen text in the last few seconds of the video. Creators who do try-on content usually state their height and the size they took, often in the same breath, because they get asked constantly. If the item is sold through their storefront or a shop link, the listing may also record the size. What you will rarely find is the creator's body measurements, which is the thing that would actually let you convert their size into yours. So treat the size in the caption as one data point about one body in one brand, and pair it with the fit note next to it: true to size, runs small, sized up. That note is worth more than the letter.
Should I buy the same size the creator is wearing?: Not on the strength of the size alone. A clothing size in the United States is set by each brand against its own fit model, because the federal sizing standard for women's clothing went voluntary in 1971 and was withdrawn in 1983, and the ASTM standards that replaced it are voluntary too. A medium at one label and a medium at another can differ by inches. The creator's size tells you what that brand's grading did to that person's body, which is only useful to you if you know both. The transferable move is to measure a garment you already own that fits the way you want this one to fit, then compare those inches to the brand's own size chart.
What is the difference between a body measurement chart and a garment measurement chart?: A body chart lists the measurements of the person: chest, waist, hip, inseam, with no ease added. A garment chart lists the measurements of the item itself, laid flat, and it includes the ease the designer built in for movement. The two are not interchangeable. If your bust measures 36 inches and a regular-fit top lists a 40-inch chest, that is not a size too big, it is four inches of intended ease. Comparing your body to a garment chart, or your garment to a body chart, is one of the most common ways to order the wrong size. If a chart is unlabelled, the column names give it away: chest, waist and hip in body-shaped rows is a body chart, while pit to pit, length and sleeve is a garment chart.