Most people don’t own a soft tape measure until the afternoon they need one. It lives in a drawer with the spare keys, comes out once, goes back. But ordering a jumper you can’t pull on in a fitting room is that afternoon, and five minutes with the tape beats guessing at a letter — especially at Butter Goods, where the same pullover is listed from S right out to 4XL.
That’s the Tide Pullover Hood in Indigo above. Boxy body, a shoulder seam sitting out past where your shoulder actually stops, ribbed cuffs, one kangaroo pocket. A shape built like that doesn’t read your chest measurement the way a trim jumper does.
Where the tape sits, and what each number settles
Chest comes first, because that measurement decides whether a letter works at all. Tape around the fullest part, under the arms, level across your back — snug, not pulled tight. Arms down, breathe out normally. Plenty of people hold their breath and square up for this, which is understandable and gives you a number you’ll never actually wear.
Body length is the one almost nobody takes and almost everybody grumbles about later. Tape from the bony bump at the base of your neck down to wherever you want the hem sitting — your belt, a bit below it, past your jeans pockets. On a boxy cut that distance matters more than the chest number.
Sleeve last, and bend your arm a little first. Shoulder point, down the outside, to the wrist bone. Measure it dead straight, and you’ll come up short, then wonder why the cuffs sit halfway up your forearms.
| What you measure | Where the tape sits | What it settles |
| Chest | Fullest part, under the arms, level behind | Whether a letter fits |
| Body length | Neck bump to the hem you want | Cropped, or long |
| Sleeve | Shoulder to wrist bone, arm bent | Where the cuffs land |
- Wear the t-shirt you’d normally have under a jumper, nothing thicker.
- Get someone to hold the back of the chest tape if there’s anyone about, because reaching round yourself tilts it and quietly adds centimetres.
- Write them down in centimetres — you won’t remember them in twenty minutes, nobody does.
The jumper in your wardrobe is a better reference than your chest
This is the bit that saves the most grief, honestly. Somewhere in your wardrobe there’s a jumper that sits the way you want it to, or one that doesn’t, which is nearly as useful. Measure that. A garment held up against another garment tells you something your own chest never can, because the jumper has already had the slack drafted into it.
Pit to pit is the number that does the work — you double it to get the circumference the jumper actually offers. Then collar down to hem, and the shoulder seam out to the cuff. Three more numbers, off something you’ve already worn in the cold, which beats squinting at a chart.
Lay it flat, don’t hold it up
Face down on a table, palm the wrinkles out, and don’t pull the hem taut — that’s the part people get wrong. Knit stretches under a tape, so a bit of tension hands you two or three centimetres the jumper hasn’t got, and left hanging on a hook it sags and does the reverse. Flat and relaxed. Dull advice, but your numbers stop wandering.
So you’ve landed between two sizes
Happens all the time with boxy cuts, and it isn’t the chart being vague. A pullover is already standing off your ribs, so going up a letter isn’t rescuing a tight fit — it’s changing the shape of the thing. What you’re picking between, really, is two silhouettes.
- There’s a long-sleeve top or a thermal base layer going under it on an 8 °C morning, which argues for the larger letter.
- You’d rather the hem stopped at your belt than halfway down your jeans pockets, which the smaller letter does for you.
- You’ve had loose jumpers before and liked them, so the bigger letter is only doing what the cut already wants anyway.
And if none of that tips you either way? Body length, basically. A boxy pullover has centimetres of slack sitting in the chest already, so a couple more either side just vanish into it. Length has nowhere to hide.
A Butter Goods fleece and a cotton jersey tee wear the same letter differently
An L is an L on the label. Sure. But heavyweight fleece with a brushed back is thick stuff, and thick fabric eats room inside itself — the sleeve sits closer round your arm, and the jumper keeps holding its own shape rather than following yours about. A cotton jersey tee in that same letter just drapes.
Garment wash feeds in too. A piece finished that way has done most of its shrinking long before it reached you, which is why a washed black or ash pullover more or less stays put after a cold cycle and an air dry. And every Butter Goods Hoodie carries that same wide run, pullovers and zip-thru shapes both. Waffle knit is the odd one out, mind — the texture gives, so a waffle top in your usual letter ends up wearing closer than fleece does.
Key Takeaways
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Frequently Asked Questions
Do I measure over clothes or not?
Over a normal t-shirt is fine, and closer to reality than bare skin, since that’s roughly what sits under a jumper anyway. Not over a jacket — that stacks centimetres onto the chest figure and bumps you into a letter you didn’t need.
How do the pullovers sit if I’m used to a fitted jumper?
Looser, and shorter in the body than you’d probably expect. The Butter Goods pullovers come out of skate-rooted streetwear, where room through the chest and a shoulder seam that drops are the point and not a mistake, so an L won’t sit on you the way a fitted L does. Measure your usual jumper first and the jump stops being a gamble.
My chest says one size and my length says another — now what?
Chest decides whether it closes over a base layer, and after that you let length break the tie. A hem that’s too long is the thing you’ll notice in a mirror, whereas two extra centimetres through the chest of a boxy pullover — nobody sees that, you included.
Does a 4XL still look like the smaller sizes?
Same pattern, scaled up. So a 4XL keeps the boxy body, the drop shoulder, the kangaroo pocket, rather than turning into some other garment entirely. Do take your own sleeve number at that end of the run though, because arm length and chest don’t grow together on everybody.
Five minutes, a soft tape and a jumper off the shelf, and the guessing stops. Keep the numbers in your phone — they’ll still be good in a year. Then the only question left on a Butter Goods pullover is the colour.
