On the topic of design sizing:
I’d like to thank ochopika for providing more insight into this than I’ve seen in the past.
I’d also like to add my comments, albeit a bit late for this thread. Hopefully y’all are following still!
I agree with all of the above about the user-perceived sizing problems seen on Men’s Small t-shirts. In most cases, I don’t understand why the design size used for the Men’s Medium isn’t also applied to the Men’s Small.
I have ordered multiple Ms and multiple Ss. I have been disappointed in the design size only once for a M*, but many times for a S.
I feel the need to ‘scrutinize’ woot’s design-size selections on a shirt-by-shirt basis to assess whether I think the design size is appropriate for a given size; that’s a lot of frustration, especially when the only way to know “for sure” is pay extra money.
(Buying 1 first, then another -conditionally- once the first arrives is not a good [partial] solution; often in that case, the first shirt is screenprinted whereas later shirts are no longer… and the quality reduction is devastating. Only in some cases is the “reckoning” or “side sale” time long enough to use this method.)
The Men’s Medium design was actually too big for the shirt size (maybe fine for larger shirt sizes); I preferred the S’s design sizing.