Trans clothing: Designer works to create standard sizes

Winn Austin is helping Ms Goodall design a range of lingerie

A lingerie designer and a model have worked together to create what they claim is "the first global sizing standard" for transgender women.

Clothes makers work from a universal measurement set when creating garments in High Street male and female ranges.

Designer Bok Goodall set about creating standardised sizes for trans women when she realised none existed.

Transgender model Winn Austin said she believed the development had the potential to "change someone's life".

"As trans women we are all different shapes physiologically [and] it's difficult to just walk in to a lingerie department and ask the questions, because most of the time the people who are serving you don't have the answers," she said.

"It's not brain surgery or a cure for cancer but I think it could possibly save someone's life."

Ms Goodall, who is based in Pontefract, said her Ms A London lingerie range was designed to suit people at every stage of their transition.

"What we've tried to consider is ways of helping to make the wearer present as female, whether that's nipping in the waist and the hips, tucking anything away, or creating a bust," she said.

Ms Goodall said the standardised body measurements, as set out by the British Standards Institution (BSI), do not take account of trans women's wider waists, hips or longer torsos.

"As soon as we came to making the first sample it became evident that there's nothing to work from, so we started working with Winn to create a base size," she said.

"Some people don't understand the need for this, they believe that unisex sizing - small, medium, large - already exists.

"But it's so far from unisex, it's a very specific sizing standard that we want to create.

"It will bring visibility and inclusion, it's everything that trans women need from society in a way.

"Being able to go out and buy something in your size and know that that is going to fit, I think that is huge, but it should be fundamental.

"We should all be able to do that. This has to happen, it really has to happen."

Bok Goodall said no standard size guide exists for trans women or men

Ms Goodall is now working with the BSI, with a view to creating a new standard.

The institute's Anne Hayes said: "I think the first thing is to get people to understand that there are many different shapes, and needs, and sizes, and people that haven't been considered in the past, need to now be considered.

"And I think that's the first thing that will happen in Bok's work, but then going on from that it's entirely possible that she will really lead a change in how clothing is produced and sized."