Sizing at Shwet Heritage starts from the garment rather than from a body chart. Every finished piece is measured laid flat, in inches, before it leaves Lucknow. Ask us on WhatsApp and we send those exact figures for the piece you have in mind, ahead of your order.

The measured chart

The rows below read live from our measurement records, one size per row, laid flat in inches. Our XS to XXL follows Indian ready-to-wear conventions approximately, and each letter is shorthand for the figures in its row.

The chart grades stitched pieces of the kurta family, kurtas, kurtis, tops and kurta sets. Sarees, dupattas and stoles are unstitched lengths, so the chart does not grade them.

The laid-flat method

Choose a well-fitting garment and lay it flat on a hard surface, smoothed but not stretched. Measure armpit to armpit and double the figure for the bust. Measure shoulder seam to hem for the length. Set both numbers against the chart or against the figures we send.

The inch of handwork

Each piece is embroidered by a woman whose name the house records, and hand finishing can move a measurement by up to one inch from the figure we share. Our quality check accepts that variation deliberately, the same way it accepts the small shifts in stitch density and motif placement that mark hand embroidery. Neither is a defect.

Between sizes

Chikankari silhouettes are traditionally relaxed. Size down for a closer fit, or stay with your usual size for the classic drape. When you sit between two rows of the chart, let the figures decide, and send us the measurements of a garment that fits you well.

What each measurement is doing

Bust is the figure that decides whether a kurta fits, because it is the only one the garment cannot give back. Read it as a laid-flat width doubled, and compare it against a garment you already wear rather than against a body measurement, since the ease built into a kurta is the difference between the two.

Length is the figure most often regretted, and it is the easiest to check. Measure from the shoulder seam of a kurta you like down to where it ends on you, then look for that number rather than a letter. Two kurtas in the same size can differ by three inches of length and read as entirely different garments.

Shoulder is the figure with the least forgiveness. A shoulder seam that lands off the point of your shoulder cannot be adjusted without recutting the piece, so where the chart gives a shoulder measurement it is worth matching closely even if the bust suggests the size either side.

The unstitched lengths

Sarees, dupattas and stoles carry a length and a width rather than a size, and every product page states them. A saree drape is measured without the blouse piece, which is listed separately where one is included, and a dupatta is measured flat rather than folded.

Fabric matters more than the numbers here. The same length reads differently in a crisp Kota doria than in a fluid georgette, and an open-weave ground drapes closer to the body than a firm cotton does. Ask us which of the two a piece is before you order, and we say plainly.

Altering a piece

A kurta can be taken in at the side seams and shortened at the hem by any competent tailor, and neither cut touches the embroidery on most pieces. Ask the tailor to work from the inside and to keep the original seam allowance rather than trimming it, so the change can be undone.

Two things are not worth altering. Shoulders and armholes rebuild the shape of the garment rather than adjust it, and any cut that crosses a worked panel loses embroidery that cannot be replaced. Alteration is also the point at which the exchange window closes, so settle the size first and alter afterwards.