# The crossings-out are what a measurement card is for

> A fresh measurement card says nothing. One with a figure struck through and rewritten is a body over time, and the tailor never erases the old number.

August 19, 2026 · https://justog.club/stories/tailor-measurement-card

A ruled card, dated 18.7.24. Six fields in ink: chest, waist, seat, sleeve, inside leg, neck. Two
of the six have an earlier figure struck through beneath the current one.

A fresh card says nothing. This one has a date and a history.

## What is a tailor's measurement card?

A ruled card, one line per measurement, filled in by hand at a fitting and kept on file under the
client's name.

Chest, waist, seat, sleeve length, inside leg, neck — six or seven figures that a jacket or a pair
of trousers gets built to. Nothing about the card is designed to be looked at; it's designed to be
found again in eighteen months and trusted.

## Why do the crossed-out numbers matter more than the current ones?

Because a single figure is just a fact about today, and a crossing-out is a fact about a person.

Waist 36 with 35 struck through beneath it means somebody's waist changed by an inch between two
fittings, on a specific date, and the tailor didn't erase the old figure — trade practice keeps it
visible, struck but legible, because the previous number is still useful for the next alteration.
It's a different kind of record than [a cobbler's last, carved once and kept unchanged for
years](/stories/cobbler-last-and-sizes): a last holds a shape steady, and this card exists
specifically to catch that same shape moving.

## Which crossing-out is worth printing?

One with two figures close enough to read as related, not a card rewritten so many times it looks
untidy.

An inch on the waist and half an inch on the inside leg, both moving the same direction over the
same interval, reads as a body changing in an ordinary way — nobody needs telling whether that's
age, a new job, new shoes, or all three, and the card doesn't say either. That ambiguity is what
makes it worth wearing rather than a private record: it's a set of numbers with a shape, and the
shape is legible without the explanation being available to anyone but the person who lived it.

## Can a real client's measurement card be put on a shirt?

Not without asking them, because the figures are personal even though the format isn't.

A blank card layout — the six fields, the ruling, the date format a particular shop uses — is a
working method and nobody owns it. An actual client's chest and waist figures belong to that
client, in the ordinary sense that anyone's own measurements are theirs, and printing a real one for
someone other than that client is the wrong kind of specific. Made-up figures on a real layout get
the authenticity without the problem, which is [the same trade-off a watchmaker's service card runs
from a different direction](/stories/watchmaker-service-card): the format is honest, the
entries can be invented.

## Does this work for someone whose numbers have gone the other way?

Yes, and it should — a card with figures getting smaller is exactly as true as one with figures
getting larger.

Weight lost, a leg lengthened by a growth spurt logged two years apart, a waist that came down after
a change in routine: the crossing-out records the movement, not the direction, and there's no
reading of this card that treats either direction as the flattering one. It's a measurement, not a
verdict.

## Isn't showing a body changing a strange thing to wear?

No stranger than a chart any trade keeps to catch what changed since last time.

[A nurse's chart exists for the same reason](/stories/nurse-shift-shirt), recording a body at
intervals so a change gets noticed rather than assumed. The tailor's version has no interpretation
attached to it at all — a jacket needs to fit, that's the entire stated purpose — which is what lets
it sit on a shirt as a plain fact rather than a disclosure. Whether a given number ever needed
hiding is a decision that belongs to the person it describes, not to the card.

## Does handwritten strike-through print well?

Yes, provided the strike stays a clean single line and the ruling stays thin.

Ink over ink at real card scale reads as a smudge once it's reduced to shirt size, so the struck
figure wants a touch more separation than a genuine fitting record would give it — legible as two
numbers, not a scribble. Sepia on bone keeps the whole thing looking like paper rather than print,
and [flat rules and hard-edged type are what actually survive the weave](/stories/bold-shapes-survive-fabric);
a softer inked look would go muddy at exactly the size the numbers need to stay readable.

## How do I get one made?

Describe the card at [JustOG](/) — the six fields, the date, and which figures move. Pick a
direction, drag the crop frame, see it composited on the real garment, and it's made to order and
shipped.

Designs other people have published are in the [shop](/shop).

Nobody measures the same twice. That's the whole reason the card keeps the old number.