Even though I am a businessman who spends a lot of his time travelling, I do occasionally find the time to stroll through the menswear department of one of the big clothing stores. Today, it’s leisurewear I’m looking for – I get enough of suits and ties at work!

Though the marketing experts definitely wouldn’t put me in the category ‘Young Men’, that’s the department I make for, hoping they won’t give me weird looks. Hip-hop is booming from the oversized loudspeakers mounted next to a poster showing a young, good-looking man. This male model with his perfect six-pack is having his jeans done up by a woman standing behind him. She is reaching around from the back and helping him fasten (or unfasten?) his trousers.

‘Twelve thirty-eight to 14, please; twelve thirty-eight to 14, please,’ a shrill voice calls much too loudly from the loudspeakers, a brief respite from the racket they were broadcasting before. I wonder who introduced that idiotic numbering system. Most people are given a complete name shortly after birth, and here they turn them into numbers.

I’m standing helplessly in front of a floor-to-ceiling shelving element, wondering as usual what size my bottom half is. Is it 34/38 or 36/38? I take one pair of trousers after another from the shelf and hold them up against me. Straight away, I reject three of the pairs I pick up. I think I have definitely outgrown the torn and patched jeans phase. I look desperately for a sales assistant to help me in my moment of need. ‘Twelve thirtyeight to Kinderman, please. Twelve thirty-eight to Joe Kinderman – help! Where are you?’

I grab three pairs of jeans in different sizes and colours and look for the changing rooms. The cubicles here are of the ‘Western Saloon’ type and have those swinging doors that cover only the middle part of you (and more or less of that, depending on how tall you are), and they remind me of old John Wayne movies. To prevent embarrassing encounters, I walk up and down the row of cubicles, bent at the waist, looking for one without bare feet showing under the door. I find a free cubicle, and, cool as John Wayne in his prime, I give the doors a hefty push – only to have them slam loudly into the walls on either side of the cubicle. The first pair of jeans I try on is a no-go – far too short and only suitable for wading in rock-pools. The second pair is the right length, but unfortunately, I can’t do them up. The oversized white plastic anti-theft device has been mounted right on the button placket. My third and last attempt fails, too. I pull up the zip, only to have the metal tag come off in my hand. I decide to go for option four, which is to stick with that faithful pair of jeans waiting for me at home and which has served me so well for so many years. On my way to the escalator, I pass the poster of the male model with his six-pack and the beautiful girl again. What a lucky man, I think. He’s wearing a pair of jeans that fit him like a glove, and he’s even got his own fashion consultant and maid to help him dress.

Amazingly good!

In a fashion store in a large city, customers can go to the information desk and inform staff there what they are looking for. The staff then page trained personnel from the corresponding department and someone will come and accompany the customer to the relevant department.

One Swiss company offers its customers support with the help of computers. Customers are photographed in their underwear, the computer measures their proportions automatically from the photograph and calculates the correct size needed – in everything from socks or stockings to bras. The computer also suggests designers and brands suited to the customer’s type. Then customers can buy all their clothes without problems via the internet and don’t have to worry that the garments they order won’t fit.

Another fashion store has fitted sensors to the doors of the changing cubicles so that customers can see if they are vacant or not. And the doors are solid fixed doors with a gap of only 10 centimetres at the top and bottom.

A tie dealer in Starnberg already does half his business via the internet, a fact that is at least partly due to the intriguing and handy online service he offers. A virtual model tries on the tie the customer selects with a variety of suits and shirts in different colours. This way, the customer can see straight away whether the tie he likes will go with the suit he has hanging in his wardrobe.

A menswear store in London guarantees to make any minor alterations required, for example, letting trousers out at the waistband, immediately, so that customers don’t have the bother of returning to the store to pick up their suits or having them delivered.