> Men take for granted that we all are roughly the same shape.

I read this frequently, but it just seems flat wrong, I think men just have lower expectations about how clothes should fit, and there is less expectation that men stay slim. I’m trim and fit, and I can only buy from a couple of brands if I want clothes that fit me well without being skin tight. I’m not alone. There is a great variety of shoulder geometries for men, I remember hearing on JRE, but I can’t find a source to link, that their is a huge of amount of variation in men’s(everyone’s?) shoulders, probably due to Homo sapiens evolving to hunt with overhand thrown rocks. I could be flat wrong, but I detest this, “men’s bodies are mostly the same” attitude, you can definitely tell the difference between someone wearing a well tailored suit and someone who isn’t. I’m pretty sure men just have lower standards/expectations.

Decent (read: donated to by people with money) thrift stores are a great place to find one's sizing. Go in with a few brands in mind and an understanding of how their sizing works (they may have cut variations in addition to just small/medium/large, like trim/slim/regular, for instance) then just start trying on anything from those brands until you narrow down your correct sizing. If you get very close you may be able to guess for e.g. online sale orders from that brand (say, a pair of chinos at the thrift store is a tiny bit too tight but looks alright otherwise, so you're very confident 1" more in the waist would fit well, so you catch the next sale from that brand and order their chinos in the size you're almost sure will fit)

Difficulty: you have to know what to look for in fit so you can diagnose what's wrong with a given article if it's not quite right.

I duno, what you say sounds right but my experience seems to be the opposite, i can never find anything that fits in physical shops, everything seems to be stocked for either obese or tall people, i'm slim and on the shorter side (but not very short)... alternatively perhaps I just expect shopping to actually be efficient, i hate spending ages shopping, but perhaps frequency is the only way you can find a good fit... and the only thing I have managed to figure out so far is that fit is important.

My theory right now is simply that on average women have the will power to spend enough time and energy on the task regardless... men might have the desire to look good, but when faced with the reality of time and money required to achieve it say fuck no, it doesn't hold their interest enough.

As soon as I started working out, I basically gave up on finding a pair of jeans that fit both my hips and my waist.

Compared to women, men have less choice in clothing and don't drive the market in the way women's choices do.

It takes some combination of time and money. On the high end of the money side you know nothing about fashion and pay someone to dress you well. On the low end you have to learn a bunch and spend serious time so you can buy pieces via thrift, sales, and seconds, that'll actually fit, look good/appropriate, and last.

> Men take for granted that we all are roughly the same shape, so most of us can shop at the same stores.

As a trim, broad-shouldered 5'2" guy, I had to laugh at your entire comment. I have literally never found a shirt or jacket that fits off the rack from... dozens? Hundreds? of different brands.

My bet is that you fall into a conventionally masculine body shape, and you universalize your own experience to all men.

I'm 6' tall and I have trouble many times finding shirts to fit these days, because they seem to be cut for fatter men than myself (I'm rather thin). Most shirts and other tops seem to be really baggy to me.

I'm 6' as well and 75 lbs overweight (working on it). If I find dress shirts that fit my neck they are basically potato sacks on me. And it has always been that way, even when I wasn't overweight. The only option I've ever had if I've wanted to look sharp was to get shirts tailored.

Your best bet is to find some kind of East Asian brand(Uniqlo or H&M for example but they are fast fashion tier places so I'm not actually recommending those specifically) where smalls are actually small and fit nicely on smaller frames.

I actually do have a bunch of shirts from Uniqlo. The problem, however, is while they mostly fit nicely (i.e., they aren't designed for fat people), they're not quite long enough for me, so they frequently become untucked. Their idea of a "medium" guy is a guy who's 5'7 at the most, I'm guessing, and I'm over 6'. This isn't that much of a problem, though, compared to the long-sleeve shirts: on those the sleeves are an inch or two too short, because again they're not thinking a "medium" is a guy who's over 6' with long arms. I have gotten pretty lucky with some of the short-sleeve shirts though.

Have you looked into Everlane? They're quite more expensive but there's a range of sizing that they provide with exact measurements and from what I read their clothes are designed for more European/Asian bodytypes instead of Americans. I also like the philosophy behind their company/brand which you can read on their website.

Thanks, I'll check it out!

The issue with those is just that my height is small; they don't fit my shoulders, which are a snug medium.