KEY POINTS:
For many women it's the perfect way to ruin a day. You hit the sales with plans to spend your entire paycheck ... but wait, what's this?
Dresses which hug all the wrong parts, jeans you can't zip up and shirts which appear to fit the torso but leave your arms bulging from the sleeves like fat German sausages.
And it's not just because we're being optimistic and trying to squeeze ourselves into a size smaller than usual. Most of us have accepted that although we might be a size 10 in the high street shops, we'd be lucky to wedge ourselves into a size 14 designer label.
No, ninety per cent of the problem is that the clothes on the racks just aren't designed with real women in mind.
Women with sway backs know that no matter how much weight they lose, buying pants which don't gape at the waist and cling around the rear will always be an issue.
As for the skinny jeans fad of recent seasons, unless you were blessed with the legs of a gazelle and no backside, they just weren't flattering.
This is not to say fashion designers shouldn't use models to display their creations on the world's catwalks - haute couture deserves to be showcased in an environment which shows clothes in their best light - but there's a vast difference between what looks good on a coat hanger and what looks good on home grown curves.
But happily for those who struggle to fit the latest fashions, there are changes afoot.
Concerned by the results of a survey which found that 41 per cent of Spanish women had trouble finding clothes to fit them, the Spanish Ministry of Health has proposed a radical overhaul of the existing clothes-size system.
In fact, the notion of "sizes" could eventually be done away with altogether.
Results showed that despite the difficulty women reported in finding fitting clothes, 86 per cent of them had a healthy height-to-weight ratio.
The problem, it was established, was not that the clothes were too big or too small - they were simply the wrong shape.
During the extensive five-month study, more than 10,000 Spanish women between the ages of 12 and 70 had their images recorded in 3D form.
From the resulting images, researchers identified three main female body shapes: the cylinder (similar bust, waist and hip measurements), the diabolo (hourglass) and the bell (pear-shape).
The cylinder was recognised as the most common body type in children and teenagers while the diabolo - named after the popular toy spinning tops - became predominant among adult females and the bell shape was most common in older women.
This may not sound like anything particularly groundbreaking, but the Spanish study goes further.
It says that although most women will fit the categories outlined at the ages specified, some women are already a bell shape at age 20 while others remain a cylinder into old age.
The variation in shape was identified as the reason so many women have trouble finding fitting clothes.
In an effort to ensure future generations will be adequately clothed, the ministry has taken the results of the study and announced major changes to the way garments will be labelled.
Over the next two years, each item of clothing will be given three measurements - bust, waist and hip - instead of a single size.
A woman's height will also be taken into account, essentially giving consumers a 1-2-3-4 system, which would allow them to find the perfect fit every time.
The Spanish Ministry of Health says the new measurements will better reflect not only women's real shapes, but also how their bodies change as they get older.
Spanish Health Minister, Bernat Soria, told El Mundo newspaper the final results of the study will be forwarded to the textile industry in the coming weeks, and then work will start on reaching an agreement on the new clothing codes.
The idea for the report came after a public controversy over the extreme thinness of catwalk models, which led fashion show organisers to ensure that their models' body mass indexes (BMIs) were at least 18.
Three British models have been banned from participating in this week's Madrid Fashion Week because they were deemed to be underweight.
Soria said if the proposal was successful in Spain, it could eventually be extended to the entire European Union.
However some countries are already taking the initiative themselves, with Germany having commissioned a similar study and Portuguese authorities saying they are planning to follow suit.
